Water Woes

We've been told that at one point each summer the hot water will be turned off for about 2 weeks while the big underground pipes used to heat ALL the buildings during the winter are checked out for leaks and repaired. They do different sections of the city at different times and it pretty much takes them all summer to check all the pipes. Fortunately they always post a notice before they turn it off.

While their water was turned off, one set of Elders from across town came to our place to shower when they were in our area, like before some meetings and on P-days (once after Dave gave them haircuts). We were surprised that they kept asking to use our shower, but then found out that they were without hot water for 3 1/2 weeks! They kept getting told it would be turned back on "tomorrow" and were delighted when tomorrow finally came.

A few weeks ago we noticed the water pressure for the hot water was dropping and the water was even more rusty than usual. We wondered if that might mean it was going to be our turn next. We went to a meeting and when we came back saw a note on the door to the building that we assume says we won't have hot water. We recognize the word "water" and it has dates on it. Not much notice, but a few minutes' notice is better than none! It gave an 8-day time frame, but it's already been almost three weeks. It really isn't as bad as it sounds--our landlady had the foresight to have a small water heater attached to the shower so we're not totally without hot water for showering, just without unlimited hot water.

Because of the angle of the camera, this looks larger than it really is. It holds 33 liters, which is less than 10 gallons. We're just glad it works better than our "air conditioner," aka giant blower fan, does!

We have two new greenie Elders who arrived at a time when their hot water was turned off, so they started out having to deal with cold showers (they call it "manning up"). Welcome to Russia!

For those who like to take a bath, it's easy to heat water. The Russians face this each year and have a multitude of ways to deal with it. For example, the baptismal font is heated with a coil. The font has a filter and heater, but the heater is broken so they use this coil before a baptism. One of the elders borrowed it to heat bath water while his water was turned off. He plugged it in and went to bed. In the morning he woke up to a steam room, or rather a steam apartment--it worked a little too well! Smaller coils are available for home use.

We have this handy dandy Chineck for heating water to do dishes. It heats up 2.2 liters of water more quickly than a pan on the stove does.

From time to time there are notes posted on the front door. Two weeks ago the Elders told us a note said the electricity would be turned off 9-4 the next day. Then last Wednesday there was a note that said we needed to turn off all water valves to our apartment because they were going to be working on the cold water. We got the impression that our apartment might have been flooded if we hadn't shut the valves. We think it was only for a few hours on Thursday. However, we left early Thursday morning for our visa trip so we missed having no water for a day. When we opened the valves and turned on the water this morning, all sorts of gunky water came out.

We were hoping our visa trip would fall during the time our hot water got shut off, and it did. We got back this morning expecting to have hot water. No such luck. We'll keep you posted on our continuing cold water adventures!

Next week: We returned from our visa trip to Helsinki this morning. So much happened, including seeing some friends from our stake!

This week's Russianism:
Plants come with the furnished apartment and they are considered part of the property. If you kill a plant by forgetting to water it, leaving it by an open window in winter, or knocking it over, you replace the plant the same way you would replace an item of furniture you broke. Our apartment came with four plants. They consider plants to be a way of making things nicer and put them in all sorts of places we wouldn't think of at home, such as kids' bedrooms. There are several large potted pots in the classrooms and hallways at the church.