| Whoever I talk to these days complains about how cold
their apartments are.
They say they have to sleep under two blankets, switch on several rings
on
their cooking stove or spend most of the day in the bathtub just to keep
warm. However, the last option is possible only if hot water is present,
which is a real difficulty in summer.
That is how the so-called central heating system operates. It makes
people
suffer on hot spring days when the heating works, but is not needed, and
people also suffer when it's off if a series of cold days occur.
The system would be fine if the communal service providers were able
to
adapt to changes in the weather, but instead they follow a plan for which
they keep a bottle of vodka on their table that they empty in toasts to
Governor Valentina Matviyenko's health when the official heating season
ends.
Last New Year's Eve, a drunken worker fell asleep on a switch for an
electricity substation in the Leningrad Oblast and gave several thousands
of the region's residents the pleasure of lighting their gatherings with
their families and friends with candles only.
St. Petersburg's official heating season ended May 5. The communal service
providers wasted energy for more than a week beforehand while conditions
in
city apartments were like being in a Finnish sauna. Outside the temperature
surpassed 20 degrees Celsius on some days.
A week after the heating was switched off, the outside temperature dropped
to about 10 degrees during the day time and close to 0 degrees at night.
But the communal service providers had done their job for this year and
don't care that a significant part of the city's population is sneezing
and
coughing.
One City Hall official told me that the reason so many are is that they
"run around in summer clothes while it's cold outside."
Oh, well ...
Combined with an absence of hot water in many districts, the lack of
heating can be noticed even more acutely these days.
The poor service offers little justification for the Legislative Assembly
to pass a City Hall bill that will raise the charges for communal services.
It looks as if the bill will pass anyway, which makes Matviyenko's policy
look absurd.
In a market economy, prices for a product will rise when demand for
it is
high. According to Matviyenko's logic, the price can go up even when the
product does not exist.
Some will say more money is needed to fix the system, and therefore
charges
must be raised. If I thought the extra money would be well spent, I would
have to agree, but my recent experience does not give me any hope.
A friend told me the other day his family pays up to $100 for communal
services for an apartment located in downtown St. Petersburg. But a private
company, which is in charge of the building, cannot even keep the staircase
and yard free of rubbish.
Calculations made by the Yabloko faction of the Legislative Assembly
show
the planned fee hike will add 3.5 billion rubles ($120 million) to City
Hall's coffers. To keep clean one stairway in a 9-story building, the
city
budget will receive on average 3,300 rubles ($113) a month or up to $600
for cleaning a building with up to five staircases. Currently each such
building pays only $150 for the service, but how this money is used and
by
whom is a big question.
Cleaners should really be happy about such financing, but will they
do the
job? I doubt it.
See also:
the original at
www.sptimes.ru
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