From Russia, with music

AUBURN - There may be more than 4,000 miles separating Auburn from Omsk, Russia, but the weather is strangely familiar to western Siberia native Victoria Kinney, the new music teacher at Auburn High School.

"Siberia is very similar to Central New York," she said. "We have four seasons like here, and our winters are cold and our summers, hot."

She conceded there are some 40-below-zero days during Siberian winters but, for the most part, the temperatures are like they are here.