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FOR RUSSIANS IT is a sure sign that summer has really come – the annual, rolling switch-off of municipal hot water that hits homes across the vast country.
From Vladivostok on the Pacific coast to the European exclave Kaliningrad 10,000km away, millions of residents are forced each year to shiver through icy showers.
Authorities say they have to switch off the system carrying hot water underground, in order to fix ageing pipes. The ritual shutdown usually lasts several weeks in July or August.
The shutdown dates back to the Soviet era and has become a notorious bugbear for those who cannot afford their own boiler in the country, which is suffering a deep recession amid western sanctions and apparent corruption from those at the top.
And while many stoically accept the authorities’ explanation, for others the prospect of no warm water still grates – and they scramble to find ways around it.
“It is like this every summer but it always annoys me as if it was the first time,” an irritated Yuliya Galitch, 43, told AFP after water was switched off at her flat in Russia’s second city of Saint Petersburg.
The explanation for why exactly hot water is turned off is often hazy at best and some argue this is a hangover from the Communist period that should have been ditched long ago.
But Vladimir Putin’s central government, and municipalities around the country insist it gives them an important window to repair creaking infrastructure after the rigours of Russia’s freezing winters.
“These works allow us to prepare for the new season of heating, to test the drainage system and monitor the ageing of the pipes,” the local state-run utilities company in Saint Petersburg said.
Trying to cope
As the hot water runs dry each year, Russians take to internet forums to discuss experiences and tips on how to get by.
“Ten ways to wash your hair without hot water” reads one advice column, while another advises:
How to wash a baby if you’re alone and the hot water has been cut off.
Some users suggest bathers simply suck it up and get on with it — hopping under a cold shower and getting their bodies acclimatised to it.
But others recommend an elaborate scheme of boiling water in stove-top pots and kettles to limit one’s exposure.
“My shower each morning and evening is transformed into a real circus act with a system of saucepans and buckets,” says Saint Petersburg resident Galitch.
Fittingly, for a legacy of the Communist era, the annual freeze also sparks a burst of solidarity among Russians now more used to capitalist individualism than communal living.
Glint in the eye
For Pyotr Romanov, 35, the break in hot water gives him a good excuse to revive another typically Russian tradition – going to the public bathhouse.
With a glint in his eyes he recalls the times when as a single man he used to “invite girls over to my place to wash”.
Up until last year musician Yevgeny used to go to his friends’ houses to take a shower when times got tough.
But this year he finally bit the bullet and invested in a boiler – which means he is now the one laying on the hospitality.
Now it’s my friends who are coming round to my house.
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At least someone has a bit of foresight
What is foresight about it, they are charging through the nose for it? Supply, demand, return on investment, this is business not foresight.
John
They charge slightly higher than private rent however many in private rent must also pay for the 3 summer months and it more lees balances out.
That’s wrong, though. UCD can lease them out to non-students and still make money. Why charge more than the going rate? That would just eat up what students save on commuting.
6000 for a college year, 650 quid a month for a single room? Going rate? Me asre. It depends on your definition of ‘slightly’…. I’d call that significantly…..
If they charge more than the going rate, nobody will stay there, so they’ll have to lower their charges until they reach the going rate.
Not s bit if foresight here!! Galway and limerick have no shortage of accommodation! Never an issue!
Most of UCDs new student accommodation will be used by non EU students paying tens of thousands in fees!
So colleges are now into real estate?
Ye might look like they’re doing the right thing but charging extortionate rates that students can’t really afford is no solution to the problem.
The students are free to look for accommodation in the private rental market, if that is cheaper. Someone i doubt it will be cheaper.
UCD well known for extortionate fines for minor infactions and have gotten in bother over surveillance camera placement. If I was a student there college accommodation would be an absolute last resort
Some will be able to afford it which will make other properties vacant. They won’t sit there empty.
Fred. It’s great to see you sticking up for investors using the housing crisis to line their pockets. Following in the tradition of William Martin Murphy.
I’ve got some great memories from living in the shitty digs in Belgrove! Don’t need ‘world-class’ apartments, just something affordable, safe and warm!
You’re aware we’re in the middle of a housing crisis right?
Talk about finding the negative in everything…
Carl. and people will always find a way to take advantage of others misery, these places will be just a cash cow for investors. That’s the way it is here. Nothing to do with helping irish people but everything to do with fleecing them. Remember we don’t live in the rep of Ireland we live in Ireland Inc a great little place to do business in if your a vulture capitalist.
If it weren’t for the investors “taking advantage” they wouldn’t be getting built in the first place, leaving strain on the current rental market.
Making it profitable for people to build housing is exactly what will get us out of the housing crisis, not expecting people to just shell out their money to “help Irish people”. That’s not going to happen.
Not quite. Ireland has forgotten the basis of all social and civic housing. That is affordable housing provides a sustainable and cost effective labour force, creating affordable things and services people can buy. Currently this freemarket winner takes all which trickles down approach has failed as we are funding to our ’8 billion in interest’ cost… What we require is building for a strong social asset base, then the rest of the market is just icing on the cake for those who want to play with spare cash..
Actually it’s investors that got Ireland into the trouble were in originally or have you forgotton. So if private investors building houses is the panacea for the homeless and people struggling to pay huge mortgages and rent why isn’t it working? Is your plan more of the same. Your argument is seriously flawed but not only as a theory but equally in reality.
Many happy memories of Merville and Belgrove back in the day! Loved living on campus in UCD!
That will be perfect.we will jst send all our homeless back to college
3000 extra students , that’s an awful lot of riding. Set up a stall selling pot noodles and Johnies and you’ll take it in.
They opened new apartments costing over €8000 for 9 months. When will they build affordable accommodation??
Lorraine; one should go to WIT or the likes for that…
Lorraine> You are dead right. The colleges charge much more than the going rate for accomadation. They always have and make money off it.
Proposed 6000+ housed when complete = 50M Smackeroonies for accommodation ONLY , not too bad an investment by UCD
Pity these could ha e not been built years ago, recession building prices and kept a few hundred builders from signing on the dole,
This would pay for itself in 6-7 years at current rates per college year (not taking into account summer rental to tourists and forwign language students)
Cost per student €100,000 (sounds high). Income about €8,000 repairs and maintenance 20%, €1600 which leaves €6,400. Take 16years to pay it back. Summer rental might turn a mediocre investment into a good one
all well and good if ya got the space. UCD is full of lads from Mayo
Education is obviously a very profitable business.
So 300’000’000 euro for 3000 students
100’000 euro for accommodation per one student
Bogummilm they are not disposable apartments.
No it’s a fair point. They have 4 students sharing an apartment / kitchen area, so that’s 400k per apartment? What sort of luxury are we talking about here. And the land is already owned.
It pity the could not build higher even if was substituted by the government (Tax payers) on condition rent on private property would be caped and would be given 1st to none students and then to students who cant get on campus accommodation. A lot of campus would have the space for high rise and would make better use of the land they own. Where I live there is 5 tower blocks 20 stories high opposite us whether it sunny or cloudy day they don’t effect mine or neighbors lives or enjoyment. This would free up a lot of property.
300 million for 3000 rooms. That’s 100,000 per room. Well done to the developer a who wins this project.
Has planning permission been granted for 6 high rise apartment blocks on the Quays each with 100 apartments?
If not then why not?
More accommodation to house students who spend more time drinking than studying. What a joke college is. And what a joke building these are as well.
Damn right. What good has education ever done for us?
Maybe they will do a Stanford university on it.
I sincerely hope the students are good at math, and realise that there is €100,000 spent on each one of them
8000+ for 9 month
have your say