Hot water during the summer? Haven't heard of it

Statistically speaking, there is strong tradition to turn off hot water for 2-3 weeks during the summer. As the goeasteurope.about.com says,

'In Russian cities, heat and hot water are provided centrally rather than from individual hot water heaters or furnace units. During the winter months in Russia, hot water is pumped into homes to keep them warm. In warm weather, this service is no longer needed. After the heating service is canceled for the summer months, annual maintenance occurs, during which time hot water will be shut off for a couple of weeks. Sectors of the city will see hot water shut off at different times so that one section of the city will see hot water service resume before another one sees it stopped. Residents and any business affected are usually aware of when their hot water will be shut of ahead of time.'

Two comments:

1. There are houses so old in St. Petersburg that they have no hot water supply, only hot water heating. Owners of apartments install boiler or gas heater and have their hot water whenever they want. I once rented nice apartment whose owners installed boiler despite of having central heating and hot water, therefore I had no hot water cancellation days.

2. There are houses so new in St. Petersburg that they do not join maintenance checks so the hot water remains still all the summer. That's me last year. No washing in basin!

But this summer something went wrong (feel my pain) and we had two breakdowns (so far) for 3 weeks long each. I'm at the end of the second. The paper notice on the front door says it would be switched off from 9th till 21th. In reality today is 22th and still no sign of that I could have hot shower. Maybe tomorrow. Or the worst scenario: I return home tomorrow and I see another notice with new data. Oh my.

People mostly check on their planning turn-off (if it's not my case with breakdown) and go on vacation preferably near these days. Or they go to swimming pool / fitness center way more frequently.

Further reading:

• Romantic blog post on the topic from Marco
• No hot water for three weeks...makes you stronger
• NY Times: For Russians, Summer in the City Means a Freeze on Hot Water

P.S. Do not feel scared, hotels do not join the program of maintenance. Really. Or they will lose all their guests at the moment. Actually, I think it's still the same reason why Napoleon failed to conquer us and Hitler faced that too. We are living in such conditions on the daily basis no one from first world country could easily survive in. Yes, Russians do love to complain. Now you know why.

P.P.S. I was right. 26th and no sign of running hot water.