Residents in one coal-mining Russian town were stunned when their usual brown snow mysteriously turned white.

The authorities have been accused of using ‘modern technology’ to hide the effects of pollution with white paint.

In a video posted by local media, a Russian woman reaches out her hand to brush a snow bank in the town of Mysky, Siberia.


She comes away with white sticky paint coating her fingers, which had apparently been used to hide the soot and ash dirtying the snow.

‘You can see the stains. It even sticks,’ she told the Moscow Times while demonstrating the substance on her fingertips.



Coal is big business in Russia’s Far East but it is having a devastating environmental effect.

The painted hill was outside a municipal recreation centre, where many children go to play in the snow.

The local nk-tv.com news website said: ‘Apparently, no white snow could be found around the city surrounded by coal mines so they had to resort to modern technology.’

The snow was not quite what it seemed (Picture: NK-TV)

The head of the town of Mysky, in the Siberian region of Kemerovo, has now apologised and said those responsible have been reprimanded.

Dmitry Ivanov said: ‘I apologize to the townspeople whose New Year’s mood was spoiled by this.’

Black snow is not uncommon in parts of Russia, which is the world’s sixth largest producer of coal.

The coal industry regularly releases large amounts of black dust into the air which, when it mixes with moisture in the atmosphere, causes black snow to fall.