I just love our local housing maintenance office in Maryino (a district in Moscow). Posted at the entrance:
Can someone explain why I even need New Year’s if I can’t simultaneously drink tea, watch Charodei (The Enchanters, a popular Soviet New Year’s TV film) on TV, and know that a duck is roasting in the oven? That’s exactly why we launched RosZHKH. I’m sick of this constant refrain from officials and management companies (and in Moscow they are, in effect, officials too, since all management companies are state-owned): dears, please limit yourselves. Don’t turn on electrical appliances. The breakers will trip and there’ll be a fire. Conserve water. Why don’t you just carry it from the well with a yoke—is that really so hard? It feels as if these aren’t paid services at all, but a handout from the state. And many of us treat them that way: “Electricity here is very cheap, so let’s bow down to the fat man who graciously keeps it on for us 24 hours a day. After all, they could just as easily give it to us for only three hours a day.” I strongly recommend reading this excellent article on the subject: Ten years ago, in November 2002, when Anatoly Chubais was just beginning his reform of RAO UES (Russia’s former state electricity monopoly), electricity in Moscow cost 90 kopecks per kWh (here and below, the residential tariff for apartments with gas stoves), or $0.028 at the exchange rate at the time. In 2005, when the RAO UES reform was entering its final stage and generating assets began to be sold off, Muscovites were already paying $0.05 per kWh. In 2007, when the reform was “completed,” the price of electricity for households rose to $0.084. Today the tariff is 4.02 rubles ($0.126). In other words, over ten years the increase was 350% ... in Moscow, an ordinary resident will be paying more than 5.6 rubles per kWh. Is that a lot or a little? Today, at a tariff of 4.02 rubles, Muscovites pay about the same as residents of Tallinn, and several times more than people in Sofia—even though both Bulgaria and Estonia import energy resources. And by 2015, if things continue as they are and the euro exchange rate stays at today’s level, Muscovites will be paying more for electricity than residents of 11 EU countries, including Finland, the Czech Republic, and France. Let’s compare that with the United States. In New York, the price of electricity is still higher than in Moscow. Converted into rubles, it would come to 5.5 rubles per kWh. But if you look more broadly, it turns out that across most of the U.S. (in more than three dozen states), electricity is cheaper than in Moscow. In some places, several times cheaper. The national average is lower too. We pay a lot for electricity. Certainly enough for the public to have access to the technical infrastructure needed to get through peak-load periods without drama. And if you add to the money paid by households and businesses the cost of grid connection and direct state budget spending on the energy sector, the total price starts to look downright фантастической. And the suggestion that people should prepare their New Year’s dinner well in advance is unbelievably brazen. By the way, here are the current RosZHKH statistics: 34,016 people have used the service, reporting 55,849 problems. They have sent 220,396 complaints to various government agencies. And although 45 days have not yet passed since the first complaints were submitted (the period we allow for fixing a violation), users have already marked 4,350 problems as resolved. http://roszkh.ru/