Vyacheslav Prokofyev\TASS via Getty Images
Moscow officials have had to make fake snow to decorate the city for New Year's celebrations.
- Russian officials had to resort to making fake snow in order to build a snowboard hill for New Year's celebrations in Moscow.
- Moscow has been left largely snow-less this year thanks to the warmest December in a century.
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Moscow authorities usually spend the winter clearing the streets of snow. But this year, they're shipping it in.
Last week, Moscow citizens started taking to social media after they saw dump trucks bring artificial snow into the city, which is setting up for New Year's Eve celebrations.
Moscow is typically blanketed in snow this time of year, but unusually warm weather has left the city snow-less.
Vyacheslav Prokofyev\TASS via Getty Images
One of the city's main avenues was blanketed with fake snow to create a snowboarding hill for an upcoming demonstration.
This December has been the warmest since 1886, and this year has been the hottest since officials started recording weather, the country's weather chief said Monday.
Officials explained that the snow set up on Tverskaya, one of the city's main avenues, is for a snowboarding demonstration to take place on New Year's Day, The Guardian reported. The snow was created using ice from a nearby rink.
But fake snow dumps were also noted at other sites in the city center, including the Red Square.
Vyacheslav Prokofyev\TASS via Getty Images
More fake snow is seen in Moscow. This December has been the hottest in Russia since 1886.
Moscow resident Alexander Stanko, 62, told The Guardian that winters have changed drastically in recent years.
"Winters used to be a lot harder here," he said. "You'd expect a few days with really strong frost and there would almost always be snow by the new year. It has been getting warmer, definitely. That's why, as you can see, we have this funny snow over here this year."
Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that global warming is threatening the Russian way of life during his annual news conference on December 19.
A Moscow worker clears snow ahead of New Year's Eve in 2009.
"We have whole towns inside the Arctic Circle built on permafrost. If that starts to melt, can you imagine what the consequences could be for us? Very serious," Putin said, according to the BBC.
But he remains skeptical that humans are the cause of climate change, and pushed a debunked idea that a change in the Earth's axis could be to blame.
Scientists are in agreement that global temperatures are rising, and humans polluting and emitting carbon are to blame.