Tuesday 19 May 2009

the society reflects in the water

so, it's on again.
the once in a year "no hot water season". As usually NOT in summer, now, since beginning of May.

Once a year they switch off in Russia the hot water to clean the water pipes. Why?! nobody knows. They will tell you, "to clean", what is not an explenation.
As it always was like this people take it for granted (and are usually very surprised if you tell them it was never like this in western europe).
This year the administration was proud of themselves because the cold water period is just 2 weeks, instead of three.

At this time air temperature hoovers around 6 - 9 degrees outside your apartment becomes very cold when though every water pipe runs cold water.
As you can imagine this is very uncomfortable, you can work around the worst by buying a small boiler for you shower or by going to the fitness club to have a shower. But this doesn't solve the overall problem.

In my eyes it has a huge impact on hygiene and immunity.

- You have a city of 17 Million people crowded on a circle of 40 km. Then you switch of cold water, people shower less, you can't clean dishes and clothes any more that well (amazing, how much detergents depend on hot water).
Of course a sharp decline of hygiene is the result.

- At the same time people are constantly cold. So of course they have a reduced immunity.

FOr me this is on of the reasons, that child mortality is here five times higher than in Germany and the average age of men is just 57 years.
Of course, about this nobody speaks here in official media.

Instead of providing in the 21st all year hot water we hat from the Moscow officials in the last weeks the following actions:

- to show off, that the NY budget is lower than the budget of Moscow (which fades into corruption)
- make an huge opening of the eurovision song contest for 30 Million Euro
- celebrate victory day with an million dollar parade

not understandable for western. But ok, in Russia it's the country which matters, not the citizen. And they are fine with, it seems.

cheers

About this blog

This blog is a close up on Russia and the CIS. I am not giving you the big picture.
I would anyway fail. I am too long here. So beauty & decay,
education & corruption, high culture & kafka-style administration are meanwhile normal for me.
So this blog is like a painting from from Roy Lichtenstein... when you are with your nose on it :) You will just see the dots, not gaining any understanding of the whole.

Most things will look strange in this blog. But you can be sure, I would not live here, if there would not be a lot of great things here. Unfortunately, the weired stories are more interesting to tell & read.
Don’t judge Russia on this blog, if you want to know the country, come over and take a look by your own.

Gilles