I Guess We Have All Heard Of,

black sand,

in fact in June 2016 we visited the black sand beach on the island of Santorini, where I took this photograph above, but what I had not heard of was black snow,

until now! the people of Kiselevsk and Prokopyevsk, two cities in Russia’s Kuzbass woke up to see this out of their windows, 

 black snow! Andrey Panov, Deputy Governor of the Kemerovo Region for Industry, Transport and Ecology, told reporters that because the development of gas networks in the region has never been particularly supported most buildings still rely on coal boilers for heating, so private households and local businesses all contribute to the heavy pollution,

Anatoly Volkov, the general director of the Prokopievskaya coal plant near Prokopyevsk, told a local television channel that his company uses special shutters that protect the nearby city from hazardous compounds,

so if it is not the coal plant what makes the snow in the area black? a team of inspectors from Russia’s environmental agency has been dispatched to the two coal processing plants to investigate whether the pollution limit was exceeded, and local officials have announced a meeting with coal mining companies to discuss environmental issues, interestingly, while most of those commenting on the photos and videos of black snow in Kiselevsk and Prokopyevsk, criticized the Government for the situation, some actually described the phenomenon as strangely beautiful, a forest of trees covered in black snow against a bright blue sky, yes that might make a nice photograph.