Gradually, Arutyunyan and some of her classmates discovered that the space around them was not entirely airless. Russian architecture, created as it was for a very cold climate, contains a peculiar invention called the fortochka. It is a tiny window cut inside a larger pane. Even when windows have been sealed for the long winter, the fortochka can remain in use, being opened regularly to allow air to circulate. The Soviet university, as it turned out, had its fortochkas, and the way to learn was to hunt for them and then to stick your whole face in them and breathe the fresh air as though
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Hm.
