Russia: People Protest Lack of Heating in Homes

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BBC

Friday, 1 December, 2000, 15:32 GMT

Freezing Russians block roads

There has been a major protest in the Russian Far East against the lack of heating in people's homes.

We go around the house wrapped up, don't get undressed before we go to bed, and sleep under three blankets; but it's still cold Nina Petrova, Artem resident

Several hundred people blocked roads near the city of Vladivostok, creating big traffic jams and disrupting the airport.

The government says tens of thousands of people in the Maritime Region have no heating.

And temperatures outside have fallen to less than minus 20C.

The local authorities say they have not received money from Moscow to buy fuel and carry out repairs to heating equipment.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin blasted local officials for failing to prepare for the winter, describing the situation as a "total disgrace".

'Despair'

And the protesters have called on the regional governor, Yevgeny Nazdratenko, to resign.

"We are on the verge of despair," a woman on the protest told Russian TV.

The protesters are mostly women and children from the village of Uglovoye and the town of Artem near Vladivostok.

They caused huge tailbacks on the main roads to Khabarovsk and the pacific port of Nakhodka, letting only ambulances through their blockade.

The Russian Finance Ministry said it had made available millions of dollars of emergency credit to the region this week.

Uncertain future

But Nina Petrova, a resident of Artem, told Reuters that no-one knew when their homes would be heated.

"We go around the house wrapped up, don't get undressed before we go to bed, and sleep under three blankets; but it's still cold," she said.

Though the local authorities have asked people to use energy sparingly, they are showing no signs of doing so.

Even with electric fires and gas burners left on round the clock temperatures in people's apartments do not rise above 5C.

The protesters said that if heating was not restored by 10 December they would resume their blockade for a whole 24 hours.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), December 01, 2000

Answers

Big freeze in Russia's forgotten east

Collective heating systems are collapsing in Russia's far east from neglect and what Moscow says is failure to buy fuel for the winter. One pensioner, Anna, would like to be using her fish slice for cooking. Instead she uses it to scrape the ice from the wallpaper in her living room.

It is around five degrees centigrade indoors, sometimes dropping to around zero, and she does what she can to provide herself with heat. She wonders if she will be one of the lucky winter survivors this year, forgotten by the authorities. She cannot understand it.

"It looks like a power struggle where the council thinks about themselves and doesn't care about the people," she says. "Once the people were important, now we're not needed. Heads would have rolled in soviet days if such outrages had happened," she continued.

80% percent of Vladivostock's homes are without heat, and schools and hospitals have closed. For smaller towns and outlying communities it is worse. Some have had no heating for weeks. Mikhail is another pensioner who has a grim take on life.

He says it is mere survival of the fittest. "If you freeze, they bury you. If you live to the spring, you're a survivor. These are our conditions. Look for yourselves at the temperatures we have here," he concluded, displaying incredible reserves of the Russians' legendary stoicism.

Searching for firewood or anything that can burn is now an hourly preoccupation for young and old alike. The feeble heat provided by branches and cardboard can raise indoor temperatures to a luxurious ten degrees, with luck.

http://www.euronews.net/en/news/december/20001201/ennews1201f.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 02, 2000.


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