Every summer in every apartment building in Russia we endure a 2-week hot water outage. For Russians it’s a usual thing. For the rest of the world – something outstanding. 

I moved back to Moscow (temporarily), and after four years in Canada, what used to seem obvious and OK now looks not completely OK. It’s clear that after Canada it seems that no one smiles in Russia, but you forget that a tumble dryer is more of a luxury.

We dry laundry on a fo lding drying rack or on the balcony, on stretched ropes, while our grandmothers were drying laundry outside. The ropes were stretched from tree to tree. What a fun to run between the washed sheets, bumping grimy faces into their fresh smell! No air conditioner in the world smells like laundry dried outside!

But my favorite – an event, so dear to my heart, that I’ve missed a lot – is when hot water is cut off in Russia during summer. Such an echo of the Soviet era that we laugh and curse about.

Oh yeah! We were the first to send a man into space, we launch rockets from Kazakh Baikonur, our Mendeleev invented the world table of chemical elements, but still, every summer, in every city in Russia, in every apartment building for 1-2 weeks our “Zhuh-Ka-Kha” – BC Hydro & Fortis BC if they were housing gremlins – continue turning off our hot water.

We have so many jokes about it! I remember that it was a ritual – to heat water in a kettle and dilute it with cold water in grandma’s “tazik” – a sort of a big metal pot, but a pretty ugly one. Or avoid the hassle and train our willpower, getting used to not staying in the shower for a long time.

The water is turned off not in all houses at once, but one by one in different districts, so we sometimes had to call any people from other districts we’d known and asked if we could come in just for ‘a quick and warm wash’. Well… sometimes it was just an excuse. I assume that this water-cut-off time was initiated to raise demographic situation in Soviet times.

We even used to joke that when you’re meeting a guy in summer, you should first ask him whether the hot water has been turned off in his house or not yet.

Now we all grew up and have our own country houses with our own boilers. Maybe not all.

(And more than that: in our Soviet childhood we had “Ki-pia-til’-nik” – such a thing as an unprotected electric boilermaker! You immerse it in the water and heat it. But you weren’t supposed to put your fingers in it, but we didn’t trust our parents and checked it out from personal experience).

***

In Europe, for example, they don’t cut off hot water: they have in-house boilers that heat water right on the spot. Though, the reservoirs of heated water empty out quickly when the whole building takes showers at the same time.

Europe isn’t like Russia, where hot water travels long kilometers through pipes from central heating pots. In Kamchatka – one of the most geothermally active regions in the world – volcanoes heat the water themselves. In Paratunka they hit it up to 70 degrees! Here they actually have to dilute hot water with cold, and in winter you have to melt snow just to wash your face! (I have to explain that it’s a joke).

Basically, we’ve got plenty of hot water and it’s cheap.

In Europe, gas is not cheap, but at least the cheese is tasty. Moreover, Europe has its own quirks.

***

One summer I spent in London and my landlord was a Russian immigrant. On day one she told me:

‘Katya, I know how WE ALL love our long, hot showers. Please don’t do that in this house. I can’t afford OUR Russian habits here!’ 

She then showed me their monthly water bill for five people. Expensive. Very. You could buy a first-class Eurostar ticket for that! 

Five people. Five minutes each. Five thousand drops total. 

In London I obtained a skill to take five-minute showers to avoid giving my former compatriot an aneurysm. At first, she’d actually stand outside the bathroom door listening to the water flow – awkward and hilarious. “Dodgy”, as Brits would say. I’d pretend it was the White Rabbit, always in a hurry, timing me with his antique pocket watch. 

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ as Alice in Wonderland would say. 

To her credit, my landlady was wonderfully kind. Determined to prove her British credentials, she served me Earl Grey daily at 5 PM sharp (even when I wasn’t home). I wouldn’t be surprised if she brewed it with rainwater collected in the garden barrels. And true to British form, she washed dishes in a plugged sink full of stagnant water – none of our reckless Russian torrents from the tap.

***

Speaking of Canada – fading echo of the British Empire – my rented room there (tough but necessary times to become ‘humble’ and shed arrogance) had a landlady who barely restrained herself from sentencing me to death by firing squad.

On day one, she warned:

‘If your presence results in higher water bills, you’ll be paying it in full.’

She explained hot water was preposterously expensive. Like buying a ferry ticket for an oversized SUV plus all its passengers (exempt those hiding in suitcases). She had kind of a humour.

This woman spoke pure facts, no ‘sorrys’ and ‘thank yous’, no waste of time small talks – which I secretly admired because it was so similar to our culture. First months in Canada my mouth was tired of smiling.

With her kind of a humour this lady had a kind of a profession. She worked as an actual prison guard, promoted from somewhere more to the North of Yukon to our beautiful island prison, where inmates lived in cells with ocean view, peacefully observing okras, and playing golf.

Every her request, even – as she assumed – said in a kind voice, sounded like a command, every remark carried the weight of an electric chair. When you’re a fresh-off-the-boat immigrant with no local friends during your second month abroad, you believe everything and never talk back to adults. Especially someone with her job credentials.

So I mastered the 7-minute shower – two minutes longer than in London. But then, London’s constant drizzle meant showers were just for rinsing off puddle splashes (from feet and occasionally face).

That Canadian island summer brought 40°C heat and wildfires. I switched to cold showers that came out warm anyway from unmerciful sunlight. I lingered slightly longer, free from bill anxiety.

Until… until she installed AC units! Heat was her mortal enemy – ironic for her first island summer. Where did she immigrate from? That was definitely somewhere more North than Yukon.

Warm shower water couldn’t become a relief from her ‘more North than Yukon’ cold. She kept AC running 24/7 all summer, no turning it off – under death penalty. How I craved loooong forbidden hot showers! Even 7 really hot minutes were my Bounty paradise.

The paradox was that she pinched pennies on water but gleefully paid outrageous electricity bills. I had to stuff blankets under my door against the cold, wear sweaters indoors – no kidding, I was thinking of putting on a winter hat (‘toque’, as she corrected me) because the dining table was right in the fresh AC breath.

Like our Russian grandmas are threating: ‘Put on a hat or your ears will freeze off’.

Security cameras (prison guard habits?) monitored the living room and yard – were somehow tracking if AC was on. I have no idea how she managed to check it with a camera – it’s creepy to think that there was a microphone as well to listen to AC cold breath.

When I dared turn it off – my forgetfulness, her text arrived instantly: ‘Turn it back on! Right away! I don’t want to return to a sauna!’ Well, don’t won’t – don’t return!

…I really hope my bedroom was camera-free.

***

Here I am back in Moscow, where the heated water runs long kilometres to the apartment buildings from central station. Our warm water is both unlimited and cheap! You can just leave the tap running – let it flow while you’re watching it and enjoy! 

Every day, I stand under the shower for as long as I want. A scalding waterfall gushes endlessly, like Tyumen crude oil, like Kamchatka’s geothermal springs. 

Listening to the hiss of the pipes, all my fears and grudges are washed away – the Russian landlady in London who lurked outside the bathroom with White Rabbit’s antique watch; the Canadian prison-guard who froze me out in summer… even this whole immigrant escapade I sometimes wish I could undo – all washed away. 

And it feels like ‘Uncle Vasya’, the stoker, who lives down in the basement, spitting out tobacco stuck in his teeth, is tossing firewood into the furnace, and muttering: 

– Get nice and toasty, dear. Nice and toasty.

I stand beneath this blessing, feeling that warm connection to good all days when the world seemed peaceful and endlessly caring – when no one never wanted to leave. 

– Thanks for the warmth, Uncle Vasya. Thanks for the warmth.

*** 

But then, this morning – pure betrayal!

I turn the tap and immediately get an icy slap in the face. I wait… only to be hit by a stinking, rusty wave with a foul metallic aftertaste. 

– Well, that’s it, I think. – Uncle Vasya must’ve finally gotten drunk.

I shriek and spit. Nikita knocks on the door: 

– Mmmom! (He always stresses the first “m” when he’s both serious and foolish.) – The notice’s been up since May!

– But I only got back only in June!”

– Mmmom! Remember how your ancestors washed!

His comedic timing is flawless. It’s his nod to grandma’s lectures:

– Back in my day! We worked in factories since we were ten years old, walked ten kilometers through the deep dark woods to school, and washed… in ice-cold barrels! We never complained, and we survived.

Oh yeah! Life was pure survival back in our days, now you’ve dared to enjoy it!

I’m caught between laughter and warmth… You grow unaccustomed to those outages. But unlimited hot water? That’s a quick addiction. 

Home sweet home. Only here is this possible. We’ve discovered new elements for the periodic table, built the Hadron Collider – yet every summer, our Zhe-Khe-Kha – BC Hydro & Fortis BC with a gremlin face, shuts off our hot water and makes us ask friends from other districts: “May I please shower at your place? Quickly.

***

Well, let me explain. In Russia, hot water is turned off for 1-2 weeks in the summer – for scheduled inspections and repairs of worn-out heating networks – some pipes haven’t been replaced since Soviet times. In apartment buildings, water is supplied already hot, traveling several kilometers through pipes from massive central boilers. So, these kilometers of pipes have to be checked regularly. 

And the water itself is heated in enormous boilers. Now, how did you just imagine the word “enormous”? You imagined it wrong! Didn’t you get what a typical Russian scale is like? Our Russian boilers are monstrously huge! For example, we have more than 13 million people living in Moscow. And all of them need to be kept warm!  Do get the scale now?

*** 

In Britain, of course, they conserve water like paranoids. I remember once there was such heat that Londoners were even asked not to wash dishes. The Thames had dried up?

And in Canada, in our current rental house, we don’t pay for water at all (nor for gas or garbage). This is my reward for past sufferings. Our landlord – God Save the King! – is a very famous and very well-off hockey player, and I suspect he’s into charity. Since 2019, he hasn’t raised the rent and has never once scolded us for our long hot water runs or running the washing machine twice a day. Yep, we’re clean and smell wonderful! And the last person to jump in a shower gets less hot water.

*** 

Well… East of West – home is best. Sometimes, however, it gets confusing – where’s East, and where’s West?