When hot water is turned off in the summer of 2023 in Russia

Preventive shutdowns of hot water have begun in Russia. Kommersant found out when this practice became mass, what happened to the initiatives to end it, and what kind of “small traditional test” journalism and literature will preserve for posterity.

How they turn off in Russia and the world

Seasonal water shutdowns are carried out only if there is a centralized hot water supply, when hot and cold water is supplied to apartments and houses through different pipes. Such systems are found in Eastern and Northern Europe, CIS and Canada. In the rest of the world, water most often enters homes through a cold pipe and is then heated by heat pumps in basements or water heaters in apartments.

During a shutdown, specialists are engaged in preventive and overhaul repairs. It is believed that this reduces the risk of accidents in winter.

IN Moldova hot water is not supplied from one to two months. IN Latvia And Czech Republic shutdown can last from several hours to a week, depending on Estonia – from one to two days. IN Finland hot water is not supplied only during emergency repairs.

IN USSR the first hot water outages began in the 1960s and lasted a month. Then the period was reduced to three weeks. Now, according to Russian laws, the maximum period for turning off hot water is 14 days. In Moscow, since 2010, it takes ten days.

“Every summer, the locals experience old-fashioned deprivation”

The topic of seasonal shutdowns of hot water in Russia is covered not only in the local, but also in the foreign press. The tone of Western publications is surprisingly sympathetic.

“You open the mailbox in the morning and find a leaflet that says that Moscow water is the best in the world. So the utility service gradually makes it clear that soon your house will be without water. – the season of preventive maintenance of the network and boiler facilities began in the city. In this period relations between friends living in opposite parts of the city become livelier. For three weeks, while there is no hot water, you will visit acquaintances, and then it will be time to receive guests. And, of course, talk about water comes to a head.” (“Moscow News”, June 14, 1987).

“Some residents in response pull out a ten-gallon pot, set the morning alarm half an hour early, and boil themselves hot baths… Some flock to private city baths or are forced on friends and relatives. But many just let hygiene slip away. “On the subway, you can tell which neighborhoods don’t have hot water,” said one woman. “People have greasy hair, but a lot of women still try their best to look good.” The whole system seems so, let’s say, Soviet: society decisively sacrifices as a whole to overcome a common problem” (Chicago Tribune, July 13, 1997).

“The harsh Moscow from the films of the Cold War is long gone – this increasingly prosperous city imagines that it is striding into the future with its head held high. But every summer the locals experience old-fashioned deprivation, it’s like they’re going back to the days when they queued up at dawn to buy a few loaves of loose sausage. In both rich and poor areas, there is no hot water for a month, not a drop.

Despite all the wealth and new aspirations provided by the boom in oil and other natural resources, Moscow is still saddled with decrepit infrastructure. Now her condition is best symbolized by the city’s hot water system – perhaps one of the most annoying vestiges of Soviet central planning” (The New York Times, August 21, 2007).

“From Vladivostok on the Pacific coast to the European exclave of Kaliningrad millions of people are forced to shiver in freezing rain every year, as the authorities say they have to turn off the underground hot water supply to fix aging pipes.

The ritual shutdown, which usually lasts several weeks in July or August, dates back to Soviet times and has become an infamous scarecrow for those who can’t afford their own water heater… Explanations for exactly why hot water is being shut down are vague at best… But municipalities across the country insist the shutdowns allow them to rebuild creaky infrastructure after Russia’s harsh, freezing winters.” (AFP, 21 August 2016).

“Modernization in Russia has reached new heights: you can now access your home’s hot water shutdown schedule online”Muscovites joke. In the meantime, they are busy putting pots on the stove and getting ready to heat water… Whether you live in the remotest corner of Khanty-Mansiysk or in the heart of the glittering metropolis of Moscow, this is the normal Russian reality of the 21st century. It surprises only Westerners.” (Deutsche Welle, 14 July 2021; recognized as a foreign agent).

“Every year I get humiliated”

Many domestic writers refer to seasonal water outages with a share of irony, but there are also examples of outright indignation.

“Oh happiness! There was no hot water. So, it means that summer has come in the state. The invisible REU took up the work, and we, as usual, will stay walruses. The public utilities always deprive us of water after the winter. O power of nostalgia! Now it is already clear that it is not us, not us, not the Jews, but others, others! Why prevention – I myself will not say. Don’t know. Especially for three weeks. But it’s for the benefit of people, of course, a no brainer, so that we sit without hot water. ” (from the book by Dmitry Bykov “New and latest letters of happiness”, 2010; recognized as a foreign agent).

“Every year I get humiliated. Today again. No, I’m not talking about the Constitution. I’m talking about turning off hot water ” (from the collection of Valery Pecheykin “Angry Boy”, 2020).

“Why do we take only bad things from the West?! After all, there is also good. For example, the same Americans, unlike us, wash themselves. Yes, they wash, you can ride with them in transport – they do not smell. I understand: ours do not wash, because our hot water is turned off from time to time, and in America it never turns off” (from Mikhail Zadornov’s book “I love America”, 2010).

“The gas will be turned off for half a day, then water, then electricity. And so that for a whole week all three services provided … this is only on holidays. Although no! In honor of the holidays, hot water was turned off. So that people invigorate, so to speak, tune in to mobile fun. We didn’t sit still, even in the bathroom” (from the novel by Yasmina Sapphire “Killing cannot be taught. Spartakiad for barbarians”, 2020).

“Turning off hot water is a manifestation of some higher power, higher intelligence, which is simply offers metropolitan residents a small traditional challenge. So as not to stagnate in bliss and comfort ” (from the book by Katya Metelitsa “The ABC of Life”, 2005).

“The most nightmarish thing is washing: heating water on the stove, dragging a pot into the bathroom, by candlelight, undressing and trembling, climb into an ice bath, pour yourself from a jug … But it becomes clear that a person needs little: bread, water, light. (from Mikhail Gigolashvili’s book “Coca”, 2021).

“They turned off hot water, the liquid of love and the flow of words.// I would complain to the people, but they will put a scarf on my mouth.// So without life-giving moisture and dry, with dirty dishes together.// I’ll grow with moss, or maybe with moss, maybe even with a past ” (poem by Tatyana Shcherbina, 1995).

“Ideally, stop turning it off altogether”

Deputies and officials have repeatedly put forward proposals to abolish seasonal shutdowns, but only significant events could somehow affect the schedule.

In June 2001, deputy Valery Komissarov (also known as the host of the My Family program and the creator of House 2) submitted a bill to the State Duma for consideration “On the constitutional guarantees of the rights of citizens to not turn off hot water in the summer.” Document was not considered and is now in the archive.

In May 2003, Mikhail Lapir, head of the Moscow Department of Fuel, Energy and Public Utilities, almost sensationally declaredthat in four years in the capital will stop cutting off hot water. In November of the same year, Mr. Lapir died, and water cuts continue.

May 2017 The Ministry of Construction promised to conduct an experiment and refuse to shutdowns in two cities. In September of the same year, Andrey Chibis, then Deputy Minister of Construction and Housing and Public Utilities, said that the department could abandon the planned shutdown of hot water in some Russian cities from 2025: “Our task is to reduce the time for turning off hot water, and ideally stop turning it off altogether”. In February 2019, Mr. Chibis shared the results of the experiment: they could not completely abandon the shutdown, but reduced its time to three days.

Sometimes a hot water shutdown is stopped due to significant events. During the pandemic, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin did not completely cancel hot water shutdowns, but changed the traditional schedule. They did not start in May, but from July 2020.

In June 2020, the media reported that the authorities of St. Petersburg suspended the annual shutdown of hot water during the voting on amendments to the Constitution and the Victory Parade. The city’s energy committee explained that “the announcement of a technological silence regime” for the duration of major events has become a “traditional practice.”

How Russians are saved

Approximately 30% of citizens consider the period of hot water shutdown to be the worst time of the year. Every fifth learns about it only on the first day, by opening a tap with hot water. Most Russians are prepared by announcements at the entrance.

After the shutdown, citizens heat buckets and pots on the stove, buy water heaters, make arrangements with friends, and plan vacations during the time of hardship.

Ignat Vorontsov