24/7 on the job
Basements that have been under water for years. Sewage treatment plants that don’t work. District heating pipes that regularly burst. Russia’s municipal infrastructure is in a deplorable state. Much of it dates back to Soviet times and has hardly been modernised. There is often a lack of money in a country that spends over 40 per cent of its income on the military and armaments.
Andrei Fedoseev works as a caretaker in St Petersburg. He is responsible for four houses, 24/7 on the job. In St Petersburg, the tourist attractions are kept in top condition. But the houses a few blocks away are falling into disrepair. The local authority would be responsible, but it is not very committed. Now the owners have hired Andrej, for a lot of money. ‘There were big problems in the house, everything was falling apart, the basement was under water,’ says Andrej.
The situation is even worse in the villages on the outskirts of the city. In Krasny Bor, Olga Eremina takes care of the local problems. The sewage treatment plant no longer works, wastewater flows untreated into the forest. And only a murky trickle of water comes out of the tap. ‘Our people are very tolerant,’ says Olga. ‘They endure and endure and endure.’ Valentina Fomina supplements her meagre pension of around 200 euros by working as a caretaker in a few villages. ‘I want my village to be more beautiful,’ she says. She meticulously sweeps the streets and, as a trained painter, beautifies the stairwells.
The authors succeed in providing rare insights into everyday life in Russia. They show the problems and meet people who are committed in a country where personal initiative is still a foreign concept.
