Finally. Let me explain.
Last October, as it was getting a little chilly, I tried to turn the heat on in my apartment. Absolutely no joy. So I asked my assistant to contact my landlord and ask him how to turn the system on.
“Oh”, she said “they haven’t turned the heat on yet”. By this, she meant ‘the government’.
Only after 5 consecutive days below something like 4° does someone flick what must be an almighty switch, and homes all over Russia get heat; perhaps the most overt legacy of previous times I've come across in my time here.
And they did flick the switch a couple of days later. Since then, my apartment has been so warm that on most evenings, I’ve either had a window open, or get the air-conditioning running!!!
“Oh”, she said “they haven’t turned the heat on yet”. By this, she meant ‘the government’.
Only after 5 consecutive days below something like 4° does someone flick what must be an almighty switch, and homes all over Russia get heat; perhaps the most overt legacy of previous times I've come across in my time here.
And they did flick the switch a couple of days later. Since then, my apartment has been so warm that on most evenings, I’ve either had a window open, or get the air-conditioning running!!!
-20° outside, and it’s been positively toasty indoors - I've spent the coldest winter I've ever experienced in shorts and a T-Shirt most evenings. The cost and impact on the environment of all this heating and cooling doesn’t bear thinking about (if there’s one thing we have in abundance in Russia, it’s energy).
But, I woke this morning to another beautiful sunny day, temperatures in the low 20’s and NO HEATING. They’ve pulled the plug and won’t be inserting it again until October.
It’ll probably snow next week, and we’ll all be buggered.
But, I woke this morning to another beautiful sunny day, temperatures in the low 20’s and NO HEATING. They’ve pulled the plug and won’t be inserting it again until October.
It’ll probably snow next week, and we’ll all be buggered.
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