RUSSIA
LIFE IN THE FREEZER
March 2001 – 18’
It’s been Russia’s winter of discontent … the coldest in 50 years and the most dangerous.
Towns and cities without heat and power … and a State that has betrayed and abandoned them.
MAP
It’s 2 pm … the warmest part of an icy day … as the Vladivostok ferry cracks through the harbour.
Vladivostok was once one of Russia’s proudest cities … the headquaters of its Pacific flet.
Just ten years ago people hoped it would become a new Hong Kong … the trade gateway for Far East Russia.
Instead it’s become a symbol of Russia’s ruin.
REPORTER PTC
“There’s nothing unusual about a cold Russian winter. They’ve been surviving them here for centuries. But this year tens of thousands of homes have been without heat. And for the first time in decades, Russians are actually frightened of freezing to death.”
NATSOT SCRAPING ICE FROM WINDOW
This is the only way Valentina Radionovna can see out of her apartment.
It’s so cold that a thick layer of ice has formed inside the windows and walls.
The central heating the State is supposed to provide broke down six weeks earlier.
Now there’s no refuge from the cold.
VALENTINA GRAB IN RUSSIAN.
01:01:34:21- 01:01:40:11 “I’m freezing. My hands and feet are freezing. You must be cold too.”
Valentina’s life has shrunk to one room.
It’s all she can try to heat with a small electric radiator.
But if the power is cut off as well … if she loses her last source of heat … she fears she may not survive the winter.
VALENTINA GRAB IN RUSSIAN
01:02:01:00 - 01:02:10:19 “I don’t think so. They won’t even insulate this wall. It’s facing north. It’s open to everything.”
It wasn’t this bad even under Communism.
The Soviet State built a network of pipes to carry heated water and warm their homes.
But ten years of neglect and mismanagement have left the pipes in disrepair and boilers in ruins.
NATSOT COAL YARD
For the fourth straight winter, the Far East’s furnaces have run out of coal.
Tens of millions of dollars earmarked for buying coal have disappeared this winter.
GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) OLEG ONISCHENKO, POWER PLANT DIRECTOR
01:02:48:00 – 01:03:09:00 “To get through it week need considerable reserves of coal. The Vladivostok plant did not have such a reserve. We had to work “of the wheels”. Whatever was brought to us by railway we unloaded immediately and sent it straight to the boilers.”
The coal producers weren’t paid so they simply didn’t supply the plants.
Politicians and bureaucrats argue over who is to blame.
Moscow says it sent the money … Vladivostok that it didn’t receive it.
At the heart of the problem is a system so callous it allows people to freeze.
GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) OLEG ONISCHENKO
01:03:33:10 – 01:03:50:00 “As I know they didn’t have enough fuel and some urgent measures had to be taken when power shortages occurred, in order to stop the buildings from freezing. But the necessary measures were not taken.”
As the central heating failed … and people plugged in electric radiators … the surge in power blacked out the region.
GRAB (IN ENGLISH) NONNA CHERNYAKOVA, JOURNALIST
“And we had to wear fur hats inside and fur coats and it was so miserable. And at night we had to play monopoly by candlelight. We couldn’t do anything else.”
Vladivostok journalist Nonna Chernyakova says that even with the decaying infrastructure it should never have been this bad.
What’s turned a crisis into a disaster is corruption.
“They are so corrupt they don’t care. We started having this problem seven years ago, almost as soon as Nazdratenko came to power.”
NATSOT AWARDS CEREMONY WITH NAZDRATENKO
Reginal Governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko is at the apex of corruption.
NAZDRATENKO (IN RUSSIAN)
01:04:53:00 – 01:02:54:23 “Is that money?”
The ex-Soviet mining boss has stipped Vladivostok of assets during his seven years in power.
Moscow is investigating deals favouring his family and the theft of money from the coal budget.
GRAB (IN ENGLISH) NONNA CHERNYAKOVA
“It’s a sweeping, libellous statement but prosecutors, police, mayor, everyone is corrupt.”
NATSOT BULLDOZER
Only one area is guaranteed heat and power.
It’s the upmarket suburb of Sanatornaya where Governor Nazdratenko has built a country retreat.
New ones are being built close by for the mayor, the police chief, the prosecutor and their families.
Other people children can’t even be sure of having heating at school.
This is school number 31 in Artyom, an hour north of Vladivsotok.
It’s minus 35 degrees on the day we’re here … and not much warmer inside.
In January the power blacked out, the pipes burst and the water froze.
The school won’t re-open fully for weeks.
Principal Valentina Kuprienka has been at the school for 28 years … and she’s never seen anything like this.
GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) VALENTINA KUPRIENKA, PRINCIPAL
01:06:24:00 – 01:06:31:09 “I think it’s a catastrophe. I never knew the school could be closed for such a long time.”
NATSOT CLASSROOM
Opening the school under these conditions is actually illegal.
But the principal is taking the risk so that the children’s education won’t suffer.
This freezing room is being warmed with bar heaters so the pupils will last through the 30-minute lessons.
GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) VALENTINA KUPRIENKA
01:06:54:10 – 01:07:02:00 “A two month gap in studies is very difficult. Children can forget what they’ve learned over two months.”
NATSOT REPAIRS
Some repairs are underway.
But the school’s worries are not over.
The day before we filmed, pipes to adjoining buildings burst for a second time.
GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) VALENTINA KUPRIENKA
01:07:23:00 – 01:07:51:13 “Yesterday we were worried that part of the school we’ve been able to heat would be frozen again and there would be another catastrophe. That is why we stayed here last night. We called the city services, people came here to resolve the problem and to see whether it could lead to another catastrophe. The situation was saved by cutting off the apartment blocks to save the school.”
After months of blackouts and weeks without heat, Valentina Radionovna joined hundreds of people from Razdolnaya in a desperate protest.
They attempted to blockade the Trans-Siberian railway in order to draw attention to their plight.
GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) VALENTINA RADIONOVNA
01:08:10:12 – 01:08:22:00 “We had to do something to attract attention. If we didn’t go, noone whould do anything for us.”
The protesters were outnumbered by heavily-armed police, some in full riot gear.
Due to the presence of international media, the police were instructed not to manhandle the protesters.
It’s just as well, an many were drunk.
They’d swilled vodka to keep warm.
ACTUALITY (IN RUSSIAN)
01:08:44:00 – 01:08:50:00 “Drunk, drunk, you’re all drunk.”
Razdolnaya’s deputy mayor Vasily Deripovsky was sent to quieten the protest.
ACTUALITY (IN RUSSIAN)
01:08:56:00 – 01:09:15:00 DERIPOVSKY “Listen to me first. I’ve been clear with you for 10 days, the situation is clear. No, no, hold on, listen to me. Alexander Viktorovich is not here because he is out trying to find coal. Today the situation has stabilised. We’ve started to receive coal of better quality.”
But Valentina was having none of it.
Just one week earlier, the same official had made the same promises.
ACTUALITY (IN RUSSIAN)
01:09:22:04 – 01:10:02:00 VALENTINA: “You should have provided wood stoves then, if you’re so worried about people. There are sick people there. It’s been going on for months.”
SECOND WOMAN: “We were told the most active protesters would be prosecuted. Well I’m not afraid of that.”
DERIPOVSKY: No-one’s going to scare you. You should understand that’s not the case. If you all go and sit on the tracks, what will you gain?”
SECOND WOMAN: “I’d rather be killed there. It would be easier than living under these conditions, do you understand”
DERIPOVSKY: “This is some kind of blind fanaticism.”
SECOND WOMAN: “Yes, it’s unbearable.
DERIPOVSKY: “We’ve been here for two hours. I could have done more back at work.”
SECOND WOMAN: “You’ve had a week. Exactly what’s been done? It’s been a week.”
NATSOT TRAIN
They failed to stop the train reaching Moscow.
But their message got through to the Kremlin.
NATSOT PUTIN
This and other such protests were an embarrassing challenge to President Putin.
He said he was taking personal control of the crisis.
GRAB (IN ENGLISH) NONNA CHERNYAKOVA
“He sent the Emergency Minister, who at least saw this problem and saw that the local bureaucrats were lying about their readiness for winter. At least he saw the real picture and reported it to President Putin and they started making major changes in the pipelines.”
But the belated emergency efforts failed to resolve the crisis.
When temperatures plunged back to minus 40, the system broke down again.
The failure of State support has forced people to revert to 19th century methods of surviving.
NATSOT WOODCHOPPING
An hour north of Artyom, in the town of Razdolnaya, desperate residents raid nearby forest to heat their homes.
Galina Glushchenko and her husband have spent all they have on a wood stove.
It’s definitely an improvement … but it doesn’t make up for the lack of power.
Their apartment block has no heating, no electricity, no water and no sewerage … and Galina blames local authorities.
GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) GLAINA GLUSHCHENKO
01:11:48:00 – 01:12:24:00 “There’s no water, the sewerage pipes have frozen, there’s no heating, we use a wood stove for heat. We have to bring the water up here and go to the toilet outside. That’s how we live. We ran about and we cried and we asked when the heating would be turned on, but it was only turned on before the local elections. The elections were on the 24th and by the 25th the flat was already freezing, all the heating had stopped.”
Galina insists on making us tea, using the precious water that she has carried upstairs in buckets.
But the façade of normality soon breaks down.
GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) GALINA
01:12:38:12 – 01:12:58:00 “I thought I’d have more dignity in my old age, not in this cold and these conditions. I worked for 40 years, gave 40 years of my life to industry and got awards for my work.”
Some villages are lucky enough to have wells, though many have dried up during the crisis.
The next snow-encrusted well is a kilometre away.
It yields some brackish water and many families make do with it.
VOX POP (IN RUSSIAN)
01:13:24:00 – 01:13:39:00 MAN: “Two days ago the pipes froze in our basement. This is the second timetoday I’ve come for water.”
REPORTER: “Second time?”
MAN: “Yes, I hope they’ll fix the pipes tomorrow.”
But most people in Razdolnaya wait for the sporadic arrival of a water truck.
This one came just in time.
It saved Valentina Radionovna the three-kilometre walk to the well.
GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) VALENTINA RADIONOVNA
01:13:58:00 – 01:1410:00 “I keep everything in the small room. The water is there, otherwise it will freeze. And we have nowhere to heat it.”
Weeks later a team of workmen finally arrived in Razdolnaya to patch up burst pipes and install new radiators.
Deputy Mayor Vasily Deripovsky was on hand to assure residents their problems were over.
ACTUALITY (IN RUSSIAN)
01:14:32:00 – 01:15:06:10 DERIPOVSKY: “In principle, it’s OK.”
GALINA: “In principle? You know we were flooded by the neighbours, their’s was also OK in principle, but the water ran along the wall.”
DERIPOVSKY: OK, here it is fine.”
GALINA: “This one is leaking as well.”
DERIPOVSKY: “Where does it leak?”
GALINA: “There, in the corner”.
DERIPOVSKY: “I see nothing.”
GALINA: “They came and said this, this and this must be replaced. This is how we live, pots and pans and everything.”
DERIPOVSKY: “All of Russia lives like this, so what?”
Mr Deripovsky was reluctant to speak to us … threatening to have us arrested.
01:15:12:08 – 01:15:19:12 “Do you have accreditation to shoot here.?”
“We do.”
“So do you? Or should I call the police?”
Outside, over the roar of his trench-cutter, he said that six weeks without heating was not long.
01:15:28:10 – 01:15:39:15 “No heat for so long? This is not long. We had everything under control from the beginning.”
Repairs continue, but people have good reason to be sceptical of Government promises.
They’ve heard them all before.
GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) GALINA
01:15:52:00 – 01:16:05::00 “You know, there’s no faith in anything or anyone. I can’t even say what will happen. There’s no future for us.”
But there was one surprise for the people of the Far East.
The Kremlin summoned Governor Nazdratenko to Moscow to account for the crisis.
He developed convenient chest pains and went to the hospital instead …. Releasing this video to prove how sick he was.
President Putin sacked Governor Nazdratenko and 11 of his 12 deputies.
But Moscow has said there will be no investigation of his finances.
Instead, he’s been promised another Government job.
GRAB (IN ENGLISH) NONNA CHERNYAKOVA
“I think this was part of the deal. Maybe they told him we won’t launch criminal charges against you if you resign voluntarily. But they have to do something to show people that those responsible are punished. Otherwise it won’t have any effect at all.”
REPORTER: “The next lot will do the same thing?”
NONNA: “Exactly.”
On our last day in Razdolnaya, Valentina’s heating was finally re-connected.
This is the first good thing that’s happened all winter.
Though her house is still without power, water or sewerage, she no longer has to fear freezing to death.
But because the problems have only been patched up, not resolved, she fears it could all happen again.
GRAB (IN RUSSIAN) VALENTINA
01:17:48:00 – 01:18:05:10 “Of course we are scared. Our boiler house is almost destroyed and only one boiler is working. Anything could happen.”
Another crisis seems as inevitable as another winter.
THE END
VLADIVOSTOK Credits:
Reporter: Irris Makler
Camera: Dave Martin
Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen
Producer: Eric Campbell