#Russia utility “MosEnergosbyt” supplying electricity to Moscow city and Moscow oblast’ (total 22 million people) announced “scheduled interruptions in electricity supply from 14 January to 31 March” that “should not exceed 12 hours” in order to repair the grid. The company later deleted the announcement and declared it “fake” which is a routine tactics when public officials in Russia accidentally say something true.
Most multi-apartment houses are connected to district heating, but once that’s not working people would switch on individual electric heaters — and if you have 1000 people switching on 4 kW heaters I can understand why electric grid is failing.
@useless_idiot
I think it varies, but I believe it mostly relies on gas. The biggest problem is hot water pipes freezing over due to leaks and blowing up — can't be fixed quickly.
It wasn't that uncommon in the nineties even in Moscow, then we just had milder winters I guess — almost like in Europe so people started forgetting that this could happen.
@useless_idiot
The infrastructure sure shows wear, but I think the main reason is this winter being considerably colder than average.
Last one was pretty bad already, but nothing compared to this one.
So much for all those words about Europe freezing — looks like chickens are coming home to roost 😅
> better get candles and some emergency solutions prepared
Sure, urban survivalism is my style. I remember the day in early 2000s when half the city blacked out for almost a day well.
I don’t wish or enjoy to see common Russians suffer in the cold, but it would be ironic if the actors in these kind of videos would be without heating for a while:
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1588157858847260678
@useless_idiot @m0xee Nice, I will repost it here!
@useless_idiot
Yeah, they've made about a dozen of those "ads", but ironically, winter of 2023 wasn't "a little warmer in Russia" — quite the contrary. True, the rates went up in EU — that's what happens in times of uncertainty, but winter was surprisingly mild, in Russia on the other hand… I remember that when my friends from Europe were telling me that colder days are most likely over, -20°C was still something not uncommon in central Russia 🥶
@useless_idiot
But of course most here don't even remember that now — that is one of the goals of propaganda. Some think that people are supposed to believe in it, but no: myriads of "significant" events, streams of hate flowing out of TV screens — it makes people forget what they've been told just yesterday. And of course, TV picture might be very different from reality.
@useless_idiot
BTW that was one of the questions someone sent in for Putin's big conference: “Why does your reality differ from ours?”
https://theins.ru/en/news/267627
They probably didn't do good enough job filtering these 😆
I think it was entirely intentional. They need some way to offload people’s emotions and this one is cheap and harmless (for Putin). In communist Poland we had stand up comedies and comedy movies which were allowed to show all the deficiencies of decades under socialism. Everyone laughed “haha that’s true” and nothing changed.
@kravietz
Yep, definitely a possibility! But I prefer not to go there for two reasons, first: it doesn't change much, and second…
There are theories that even the famous Marina Ovsyannikova's act was staged: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Ovsyannikova
But when people start theorizing about it — goal achieved: they got distracted from their actual problems.
@useless_idiot
In the eighties and even in the nineties the tech might haven't been there yet, but now — there are ways to monitor leaks, they can install backup electric heating in critical parts to prevent pipes from freezing — still cheaper than dealing with the consequences of disaster. I believe that optimizing all this might even allow to save a lot, but no…
Shit like this happens every year, some notable cases even make it into news and become memes 🤣
I saw electricity switched off in Nalchik or Krasnodar suburbs routinely but didn’t think it also happens in Moscow…
@kravietz
It's not THAT bad in Moscow as I think it is outside of it — it's not like the whole district blacks out, just your block, and it's usually fixed in under an hour, but it isn't uncommon and it's really annoying if you have something more complex than TV running. I'd say having a UPS isn't unreasonable.
I don't think it was that bad a decade ago, it could happen once in a few month — nothing compared to this year.
@m0xee @kravietz
Do the Muscovy heating systems need electricity to function? If so, better get candles and some emergency solutions prepared.