The Cold War 2008

When I was in St. Petersburg last time, having arrived in the middle of winter to a warm apartment, I didn’t get to participate in the endlessly enjoyable party game known as “Get the heat on in the first place.” St. Petersburg runs on a centralized heating system whereby the city government controls the temperature of every single building in the city. A person can buy a space heater, but there is no way to turn on (or for that matter off) the heating system installed in the home. So for the last two weeks or so, during which weeks the warmest day was about 13 degrees Celsius, which was positively balmy compared to the others, there’s been a steadily increasing drama about when the heat will come on. It started with rumors that they expected the weather to get warmer soon, which is why they were delaying turning on the heat. Then I heard that the law stated that the heat went on after three consecutive days of temperature under 8 degrees Celsius, and so our five consecutive days of 9 degrees didn’t cut it. About a week ago they turned on the heat in hospitals and kindergartens, which raised hopes, but it has so far come to nothing. At this point the heating in my home is still off, although there are two people in my program whose heating came on this week, which gave them serious bragging rights over the rest of us. Finally my host mom late this week plastered the whole building with bright yellow flyers, explaining the fifteen phone numbers and kiosks and mailing addresses available to people who want to complain about the heat, hoping that if enough people call they’ll get annoyed and turn it on. I think that is all hope.
Also, I can’t decide whether the amusement that comes from this quintessentially Russian-bureaucratic to-do is worth the fact that I’ve been shivering my buns off for all but the 10 minutes that I’m in the shower for the last two weeks. It certainly doesn’t make the act of getting those shivered-off buns out of bed and to class on time any easier!