MOSCOW—Russia's capital, already on edge after
peat-bog fires blotted out the sun in recent years, worried Thursday over a new
apparition—a greenish cloud that swept in from the south.
As the clouds billowed over Moscow in the morning and left a thin dust on
cars and buildings, pedestrians stopped and gawked. On the Internet, a separate
storm brewed. Bloggers speculated that the clouds were the result of a chemical
accident. "Massive green ashes cover Moscow,"
went one report that bounced around Twitter. The central Pushkin Square and Red
Square were being evacuated, the reports said.
Moscow officials, responding
to panicked phone calls, said the clouds were merely the product of tree pollen
and some unusual weather.
"High heat, which came to the Moscow region
with an intense wind, caused the formation of a large amount of pollen, which,
mixing and moving in the air, can form such a cloud," Russia's Interfax
news agency reported, citing a high official in Moscow's regional government.
There was an explanation, too, for the tanks and
trucks that had rumbled down a central thoroughfare, bringing traffic to a
halt: It was a rehearsal for an upcoming military parade in the city center.
Suburban towns were also blanketed by the
pollen, and officials there issued separate assurances that the air was thick
with tree pollen, not disaster fallout.
"This dust is pollen from alder and birch
trees, which began flowering recently after a slow spring," said the city
administration of Moscow region town of Podolsk, an industrial town south of Moscow.