The half of the month of January passed by..
It’s The Epiphany (the Baptism of Christ) in Russia.
Some people plunge into the ice hole. Church officials say that this is not necessary, it’s not a church custom. Nevertheless, about two thousand Tomichies participated in Epiphany bathing in the font on the Tom River in the regional center, a representative of the Department of Culture of the Tomsk City Hall told RIA Tomsk on Friday.
I was happy my sons didn’t do this. At least they didn’t tell me.
“The main thing about Epiphany is to pray, confess and receive communion, and get some “holy” water. People come to the Epiphany festive service with its indispensable prayer service for the consecration of water.
The water is ordinary in origin and composition, which, after performing a special prayer service, acquired sanctifying, beneficial and healing properties. The prayer service is called water consecration, or water consecration. Holy water is not a magical panacea, it has power only if faith, repentance, humility and mercy live in us”. Maria Gorodova, RG.ru
The lack of holy water is not the biggest problem in Russia right now.
The year began with utility accidents across the country.
About 30 Russian regions faced utility accidents in early 2024. Dozens of residential buildings were left without heat in the cold weather; in some places, heating has not yet been restored.
According to RTVI* on January 10, heat outages affected:
Moscow
Moscow region
Tula region
Kaluga Region
Vladimir region
Ryazan region
Karelia
Yaroslavl region
Kostroma region
The Leningrad region
Nizhny Novgorod region
Tatarstan
Tyumen region
Primorsky Krai
Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug
Vologda region
Voronezh region
Tambov region
Volgograd region
Krasnodarskiy kray
Rostov region
Samara region
Saratov region
Penza region
Perm Region
Ulyanovsk region
Sverdlovsk region
Omsk region
Crimea
I can't tell you where the heating and water breakout took place in the worst-case scenario. The weather in European Russia is very cold this year, some regions are originally cold. When I say "cold", it means about -4°F (+-) with wind and a lot of snow.
Of course, I'm most worried about Tomsk.
Residents of an apartment building (Tikhiy LN) in Tomsk reported a lack of heating in their apartments for two months during the frosty weather outside. The City Hall promises to solve the problem next week.
On January 18, Tomsk, in the morning (Elizarova St) there was a breakthrough on the cold water supply networks, the Tomskvodokanal team was working on site, the press service of the mayor's office reported. Tomskvodokanal was going to turn off the water in eight apartment buildings. By the evening of the same day, the accident was eliminated without turning off the cold water.
My sister told me about a small communal accident (Lebedeva Street) very close to her apartment building. Fortunately, she did not lose the water supply. The accident was fixed a few hours later.
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| My friend Marina |
Everything is much worse in Novosibirsk (the nearest to Tomsk big city).
The authorities have introduced an emergency regime in Novosibirsk due to several utility accidents, as a result of which almost 2 thousand houses were left without heating. The governor of the Novosibirsk region, Andrey Travnikov, reports about this in his telegram channel.
The first accident happened on the night of January 10-11 on Parkhomenko Street. According to the mayor's office, then 237 apartment buildings were left without heat and hot water supply.
The second accident occurred on the evening of January 17 on Petropavlovsk Street. 200 houses were in the shutdown zone.
A day later, on January 18, another accident occurred in the Oktyabrsky district of Novosibirsk, on Lazurnaya Street.
On January 19, it became known that a defect in the heating systems was detected on Chaplygin Street.
A few people were admitted to the hospital, at least two (maybe more) people were admitted to the burn center of the regional hospital.
Against this background Russian State Duma deputy Andrei Gurulev in his telegram channel proposed to raise utility tariffs for Russians due to utility accidents.
Really?
Everyone understands that the problem here is worn-out heating and water supply networks, as well as corruption at all levels of government and in housing and communal services. The increase in tariffs will lead to the enrichment of a new generation of officials. By the way, tariffs increase every year in Tomsk anyway.
My husband tells me that I can no longer survive in Tomsk. He means the cold weather. Honestly, I don't care much about the weather. The things I don’t want to experience are: turning off the hot water every summer (for at least a month), turning off the cold water for at least 3 days in autumn, and accidental shutdowns of…water, heating, electricity, etc, being cold (in your home) in September and hot in May (because the City decides when to start or end the heating season), and of course constantly increasing tariffs.
Anyway, have a happy Epiphany, and I wish you cozy homes and comfortable weather.
*RTVI is a global Russian-speaking multi-platform media, which includes a news website (about 4 million users per month) and other digital platforms (2.7 million subscribers): 6 YouTube channels, 2 Telegram channels and accounts in all major social networks. It broadcasts in 159 countries, has more than 350 broadcasting operators around the world and 20 million viewers.
Resources:
https://ngs.ru/text/incidents/2024/01/17/73130957/
https://nsk.rbc.ru/nsk/19/01/2024/65aa242f9a7947658949313e
https://zona.media/news/2024/01/19/novosibirsk
https://www.riatomsk.ru/article/20240118/69244/
https://74.ru/text/house/2024/01/12/73110428/
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