These cold summer days

I knew I should have taken a shower Sunday night. That was my last chance for a hot shower for the next long while.

The water in Vladivostok – and probably the same goes for the entire Russia – is heated by the city. As an aside, many homeless people therefore sleep underground, near the pipe system, where the hot water running through the pipes keeps them warm all winter.

The city has deemed it proper – and cheap – to turn off the hot water for the summer months.

But that’s not why our water was turned off on Monday. On Monday the hot water was turned off for a week or two, while repairs are made on the decrepit pipes. At the beginning of June, the hot water will be turned off for the duration of the summer. You do the math.

When we first moved to Vladivostok, we arrived on a Thursday afternoon, exhausted after 24 hours of traveling and 6 hours of desperate searching for a place to live. When we finally got settled, I tried to take a shower. The water wasn’t just not hot. It was frigid. Like ice. We thought that maybe the hot water was turned off at night. So I waited until morning, but the water wasn’t any warmer then. We spent a few weeks of ice-cold showers, boiling water for Mendel’s bath, - a few hour procedure, until enough water is boiled to fill the bath - until the owner of the apartment finally installed a small water tank.

Our new apartment does not have a water heater. The only piece of equipment that came with the apartment was the kitchen sink. No counters, no refrigerator, no oven, no light fixtures. We are trying to have the owner of the apartment install a water heater. I am not too hopeful.