It is a relic from the Soviet era: year after year, there is no hot water in Russian households for days due to maintenance work. Creativity is required.
Moscow – In winter, the icy cold in Russia comes from outside, in summer from your own tap. At least for a few days. Then municipal companies across the country temporarily turn off the warm water for most of their citizens.
Maintenance work on the pipes, which often still come from the Soviet era, is the official reason. Many Russians then only have to hope that the weather cooperates and that the involuntary shower ice age can at least pass as pleasant refreshment. But even then, the enthusiasm is often more than limited.
Some people in East Germany may still remember corresponding inconveniences from the GDR era – but they are long gone there. That of all things the nuclear and raw materials power Russia has not got it under control to this day annoys many in the largest country in the world.
“We have the third decade of the 21st century. And in Russia, the warm water is still turned off in summer, ”complains a user in an online portal. Another complains that his skin is suffering because the soap does not foam under cold water. The accusation persists that the municipal companies from Kaliningrad to the Far East of Kamchatka primarily wanted to save heating energy with the summer measure.
With humor through the cold water season
Others take the situation with humor. According to the motto “A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved”, the Russian Internet is full of sayings and images on the subject of cold showers in the summer months. You are not a real Russian if you have warm water all year round, implies one thing. Some people can even learn something from the situation. A cold shower is good for the circulation, it is said in some forums.
Foreign tourists, on the other hand, are more likely to react irritated, because numerous Russian hotels are not equipped with water heaters either. That’s why travelers repeatedly criticize a cold surprise in the bathroom in their reviews.
At least in the Baltic metropolis of St. Petersburg, where thousands of fans had recently traveled to the European Football Championship, they apparently wanted to avoid a wave of malice – and interrupted the cold water period between the beginning of June and mid-July. The relatively few lucky ones with gas boilers in the apartment are also fine.
For everyone else it means: close your eyes and go through – right? Not quite, because necessity makes inventive. Because many of the gigantic empire’s 146 million inhabitants are not overly fans of shivering in the shower, they have developed their own bathroom rituals for this special time of the year.
Shower parties are popular
Since the individual districts in larger cities are affected with a delay from mid-May, many people there simply go to mum, dad or the gym. Shower parties with friends are also popular and repeatedly themed in films – even if in times of dramatically high corona infection rates, this is quite alarming. Last year, for example, Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin postponed the start of the cold water season until the worst phase was over.
According to surveys, heating water on the stove or in the kettle is particularly popular and compatible with the pandemic. But it can also be much more creative: You should simply tap into your washing machine to get the scarce hot water, an online portal advises its readers: start a hot wash cycle, put the waste water hose in the bathtub – done.
If all of this is too expensive for you, a Siberian online portal recommends dry shampoo or – if you can afford it – more frequent visits to the hairdresser. And the rest of the body? No problem either: “People have invented wet wipes with which you can wipe everything in the world – including the body.” Dpa
