If you don’t mind me asking, which country are you in?

Sure, I am from Kazakhstan. The same situation can be found in pretty much every country in the region though.

I plan to take a lot of pictures during the upcoming winter, because almost no one on the English-speaking segment of internet believes that there can be so much pollution in the air, that it reduces visibility to 10 meters.

Any light you can shed on this (pun intended, of course) is welcome. Still, sounds incredible, is it just on peak times or on a daily basis?

In winter time, almost every evening, from 6:00 PM through the night. Except for windy days (from ~7 m/s upwards), which are pretty rare.

It's all because of the old Soviet heavy industry which hasn't been properly maintained since 1991 (say what you want about USSR, but there was more responsibility then), crappy gasoline, lots of old cars which made their first 100k miles in Germany or US, high sulfur coal being used in stoves... the whole shebang.

Did I mention that some people use cow dung/rubber/plastic rubbish in their stoves?

Yep, we're living on the same planet as you are.

It sounds terrible, I feel truly sorry anyone has to live with so much air pollution. You're right I haven't seen any coverage of Kazakhstan in the media I read.

Are you still using mazut as well?

Not the person you were asking, but I did a double take on your question because I had thought growing up in the DRC that "mazut" was the French word for diesel. Turns out mazut is a separate thing. Also, it was definitely used in the local heavy trucks up to the last time I was there in 2011 - ones like this: https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5292/5509628757_f8219820b9_z....