ronin1
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| Joined: | Saturday January 21st, 2006 |
| Location: | S.F. Bay Area, California USA |
| Posts: | 639 |
| Visits: | 7 | | Currently: | married |
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The Shower Ritual…
Russia… the land of contrasts. One of these contrasts that a traveler may experience has to do with a simple task of personal hygiene. Just as there is a night and day, there is also hot and cold. More specifically, I’m speaking of that time of washing off a days road dust and preparing for sleep. This is the shower ritual. To most WM it may seem strange to write a post on the act of showering. Well, if you are a WM in Russia, you are not in Kansas anymore. This post only applies for those hearty souls that have made arrangements to soak up the Russian experience by living as they do… in a flat.
I’m sure most of you have watched on TV or have heard of the banya ritual of the hot steam room followed by a dunk in icy cold waters. This is a true slice of Russian everyday life of sorts, especially in the northern climes. Russia may have the largest energy reserves per capita after the Middle East; however there always seems to be a shortage of hot water. And the cold water always seems to be kept below freezing if that were possible. Consequently, taking a shower after 10 to 20 hours of travel time an icy shower maybe literally one of the first memorable culture shocks of a trip to Russia.
In Russia, one approaches a shower with a solid plan. It is not something that one just does. So if your quest for a RW includes a hot shower, read on.
Let it be known that most Russian flats don’t have water heaters. Hot water is generated from a cities central water heating plant. And this plant is off-line typically from May to October. Also, if you are supposed to have hot water, its availability is not guaranteed.
If you did your homework when leasing a flat for your stay, you would have insisted that the flat would have a working water heater. The water heaters are electrical of very small size. Its capacity is on the order of 10 to 50 liters. The former is barely enough for a quick warm shower. More than likely it will be installed in the bathroom adjacent to the bathtub. However, the chances are that it is a manual fill heater. That means that you will have to follow the filling instructions ~1 hour before use. The chances are that there may not be any instructions. If you do find instructions, it will most likely be in Russian. So when you are shown the flat (albeit the owner, leasing agent, guide, interpreter) don’t let them leave before showing you how to operate the water heater.
If for some reason you are unable to get instructions this is a general description of what you have to do. The operation in quite simple if you think about it. However, after not being able to sleep for the previous 24 hours or more, one is in no position to think clearly.
First thing to do is to switch the cold water diverter valve to the ‘bypass’ position. This will switch the available supply line to the heater. Then open the bathtub hot water tap until a solid stream of water comes out (this is to remove the air in the heater tank). Then plug in the heater and wait till the temperature gauge travels about 3/4ths to the right (takes about 1 hour give or take ½ hour). Pull the plug before us start your shower. You will most likely to forget to do this after your shower and will risk burning up the heater.
OK, so you don’t have a water heater. Well, that’s you and 130 million Russians. The Russian way is to call a relative or friend to see it they have hot water and go there to shower. If that can’t be done then the old standby is in order. First, look about the bathroom for a large metal pot. If it is not there it will be in the kitchen somewhere. Fill it up with water and heat it up on the gas burner. Do this several times and you will have enough hot water for a light sponge shower. Don’t worry about the energy costs. Russian flats are charged a flat rate for gas.
So there you have it. Everything you wanted to know about showering that you didn’t know to ask. Of course, you can decide to not worry about the whole thing by taking a cold one… burrrrr.
Ronin
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The water heater was a single point gas heater. The heater served two taps, one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. It has a pilot light and once the hot water tap is turned on, I had to pull a lever to ignite the burners. This proved quite efficient and upon careful placement of the lever, I had continuous hot water. The drawback is the fact that it was gas and obviously there were saftey issues.
I did not leave the pilot light on at night or when I was away from the flat. I hope this may be of help to other WM if they come across this type of heater. 
