Some accidents

Plumbing
Tuesday morning I woke up to a clogged tub. Actually, I didn’t realize right away that it was clogged, but when I did, I also realized that my two sinks (kitchen and bathroom) were not draining into the pipes, but instead were backing up into the tub. Not a pretty sight (but thank goodness the toilet was not contributing to that mess also!). I really didn’t know what to do, although my first thought was to call Igor. What exactly I expected him to do from 2.5 hours away in Korosten, I’m not exactly sure, other than worry about me. So instead of spoiling his morning too, I tried to think what I could do about it. I don’t have a plunger (although it’s now at the top of my weekend shopping list), so I decided to try pouring boiling water down the drain. The result was me pouring boiling water onto the drain, which then just joined the rest of the water in the tub. Hmmm.

I decided to call my landlady, who’s first reaction was “It’s probably clogged because you washed your cat in the tub.” First, thanks for blaming me right away and not offering any usual information. Second, no, I didn’t wash my cat in the tub. She then dug out a phone number of a plumbing service and started to dictate it to me. I was thinking, geez, how am I going to deal with this? I don’t know how to explain this stuff to a plumber, and what if they ask me technical questions that I don’t understand? Before I could express any concerns to Larisa, though, she decided it would be better if she called herself. “Your accent, you know, they might not…” I’ve encountered one or two xenophobic people here, but more often the case is that my accent somehow makes people think I can and will pay 1000 times more than normal for things. I was relieved Larisa decided to call herself, and in a couple minutes she called me back to say the plumber said he’d be there after 10 am. She suggested that I tell him that Larisa had to go out and I was just waiting in her place for the plumber, again so he might not get ideas about scamming me. As I looked around me apartment, though, at all the photos of me, my family and friends, I wondered how good a ruse that would be. She also told me that a normal fee would be between 10 and 30 hrivna ($2-$6). I promised to call her when they were done.

About 10:30 she called me again and said her husband was coming over to deal with the maintenance guy for me. I felt bad that he had to trek to my place, but certainly appreciated their willingness to help me out. He and I sat in the kitchen for a little over an hour, chit-chatting while we waited. Finally about 12:00, two men rang the bell. They were wearing special jackets for the “Pechersk service” (Pechersk being the part of Kyiv I live in), I’ve seen these jackets often on the streets of my neighborhood – streetcleaning crews, landscaping crews, sewage workers, etc. I was surprised to see city workers come to unclogged my tub! They plunged it out, and fortunately didn’t need to snake the drain, and were done in less than 5 minutes. They said bye and left, without charging even a kopek – I was so surprised! I talked to my Ukrainian teacher about on Thursday during our lesson, and she said that since residents of apartment buildings pay monthly fees for “communal services”, it is correct that they service men didn’t charge me anything, although it didn’t used to happen that way very often. Instead, a service worker would show up and hem and haw about he’d need to get this part, that part, some special tool, it would take a week or more, blah blah blah, until the resident would say “Um, is there something I could do to speed it up?”, or more directly “Is there anything I can pay to speed it up?” It got so bad, she told me, that workers wouldn’t bother with the line of bull, and residents would get right to the point up front of how much it would cost them. When the monthly fees for communal services were significantly increased not long ago by the mayor of Kyiv, citizens really started to speak out and protest – for good reason! They hadn’t received anything in return for these taxes paid. The mayor of Kyiv has vowed to crack down on these kinds of corruption and to provide residents with the services at no extra fee that their taxes are supposed to be providing for. I don’t know if my experience was indicative (I’d be curious to see how it goes if I had a much more serious problem), but I was impressed.

By the way, if you think this kind of “corruption” doesn’t happen in the U.S., think again. Someone relayed their experience to me with a plumber in the U.S. – a guy from a known company came to do some plumbing work for them. After checking out the problem, he offered to come back at night, off the clock of the company, and do the work for them. The underlying reason, I suspect, in both situations is the crappy pay the worker receives, and thus his need to earn supplemental income to support his family.

The street is falling
A few short hours after posting my “Things I like about Ukraine” post on Wednesday, I left the office and discovered this. Actually, it was looking much worse by the time I saw it, with the hole about 2/3 as wide as the street, and almost the length of a semi-truck. No one was injured in the street collapse, thank goodness, but I’m sure you can imagine the traffic nightmare that ensued for several hours. Compounding the problem was the typical Kyiv driver’s attitude that the rules are for everybody except himself – despite the blocked off road, I watched numerous cars drive right around the barrier, only to get stuck a few yards later by the massive hole in the road and all the road crew equipment. Kyiv drivers never cease to amaze me.

I’m sure the crews worked most of the night to patch the hole, and when I walked past that spot about 24 hours later, the road was open and the road solid again. This morning, however, the road was again blocked. At first I thought they might be doing some more repair work on the Wednesday spot. Nope, another big chunk of the road collapsed in, a few feet away. Then I turned the corner by my office, and saw another road crew working on the cross street. That means the roads on both sides of our office building are collapsing. I’m not feeling very secure sitting here in the office today.