Water, Milk, and Cabbage in St Petersburg Russia

 

The time has come, the Walrus said,
To talk of many things
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings

Lewis Carroll, 1872 excerpted from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.  The Walrus and the Carpenter hotlink

Excellent water, the best milk, and homemade sour cabbage bring some pleasing moments to our daily lives... in this the gloomiest month of the St Petersburg calendar!

Never drink water from the tap in Russia!

St Petersburg claims our water is contaminant free before it is piped through the system.  The most obvious problem is poor quality corroded and leaking pipes between the treatment center and our taps.  Also city water includes  some chlorine or chloramine which can be possible dangers for skin, body... and lungs during and after a bath or shower.

We used to use a Brita filter to make potable water.  For a  while we did a second step of putting water through a Heboton, which claimed to make silver water.  We stopped bothering when I found out that colloidal silver water is  apparently of no value, and could be dangerous. 

Clean clear water in St Petersburg? hotlink Our post 09 December 2009 tells more about water here.

Now in the last year we have a big improvement in our lives!  A new kiosk near our front door claims it sells artesian water, with no metallic crud or chlorine, for 24 rubles a 6 liter jug (you bring the jug).  We use around three liters a day.

The attendant puts a curved wand out a small window, carefully filling your container close to the top.

You may notice...

Russians like to hid from each other...  don’t like openness... witness the notices stuck strategically on the window so customers can’t see in.  I crouch down and say pa-see-ba, barely seeing the woman inside the darkened space.

Graffiti is endured, not cleaned off right away.  Exterior appearances are usually not considered important here.

 

Fresh milk with cream on the top...

 

Fresh rich milk from a tank on the back of a small truck is sold by competing dairies - both two times a week- one just out the back door of our apartment section, the other by the school.  Around 10 AM they arrive for around twenty minutes.  One liter costs thirty rubles, around a dollar.

Larissa boils it at home, and puts aside some milk for procto-kwasha.  This is a type of sour buttermilk... also known as a clabbered, cultured, or fermented milk.  I enjoy the surface penka from boiled milk after the pan is cooled.

The milk is delicious, as it hasn’t experienced the factory  homogenizing blasting process or had it’s cream mechanically skimmed, and then just a little added back.

Scrumptious fermented cabbage this year!

квашеная капуста!  Larissa hand sliced two large cabbages,  some carrots, worked all in a large basin (no  water added, just a tablespoon or so of salt) and compressed everything in this make shift apparatus of pan, pot, plate and a six liter jug of water in place of a stone weight!

After five or six days the cabbage tasted just right!   The good wife moved the pail to our unheated balcony after putting a jar of this fermented cabbage in the fridge so we could start enjoying the pungent biting flavor right away! 

Fermented Russia hotlink our post from 22 September 2010 gives a lot more background on three ways to practice Russian zymology!

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A Water Рассказ

A Traditional Russian Story is a Рассказ, pronounced Raskaz.  

Here, after an introduction, is our Water Рассказ...

 

About the photos...

Our water rolls off the roofs, is pull-pumped from the well, or push-pumped from the lake (by a small submersible pump suspended by a rope from a long pole).  Next to the Petrollo pump is a 1971 Riga 8 automatic washing machine, priced at 78 rubles, too expensive except for the privileged.

Life at the typical dacha  involves the basics… water, heat, food.  When you are strong and enthusiastic it can be rewarding to be successful in filling these needs.

Water comes from the sky, lake, and ground.  Besides water for your garden, washing, cooking and drinking… the usual Russian feels he needs a reliable source for his banya, the Rus sauna.

 
The pumps are electric so they are down when we have a power outage, often once or twice a week.


We have five botchki to catch rainwater, we pump household water from the lake along with neighbors on our hill, and struggle with our well and the village hand pump to get drinking water.
Most people in our village have колодец, kolodits, wells dug with shovels to around ten meters.  Some work, some don’t .  Others have скважина, ckvajena, wells drilled with a hand crank.  

   ~Our story starts with my yearly question about
getting a deep well drilled~

Our search for a well driller started in 2005.
  
Every year I say to Larissa, “There has to be a well driller in Ostashkov or Tver.  Why can’t we find one? 


Larissa , each year more impatiently than the last, explains,  “You don’t understand how things work – or don’t work – here.  It’s very hard for a small business to get the money together for a drilling rig, and then they are visible and likely to have a lot of taxes and harassment.” 

Other impeding factors are alcoholism and a lackluster attitude towards work.




We hire a dowsing  hand-driller in 2007.

We settled for three men from Pena… Losha, Losha, and Cola.  Young Losha, the boss, who casts a big shadow, started dowsing… with a soda can and a piece of farm wire.  I was incredulous.  They test  drilled a few places, and then disappeared for a while. 


They reported back that they had successfully found water, but off our property!  We have a water rights clause for this contiguous land, so we reluctantly hooked up.


Life’s a party when you drill wells!

Their hand drill was good for ten meters.  Older Lowsa, with few remaining teeth but good-natured, was the electrical and plumbing  expert.  Cola, just out of the Army, and with a growing family, provided the heft for digging.  They ran pipe to a new pump in our banya, and then to the toilet and kitchen of our home.

  
This was completed with many cigarettes and copious amounts of beer, large shares of each consumed by the boss... and a lot of sky larking… laughing and having a good time.  After several visits by the trio, we were satisfied.  The total cost was 60,000 rubles, approximately $2,000.  


Words are cheap…

Young Lowsa assured us that they would be on call to fix problems, connect and disconnect, and store our pump safely during the winter.  Of course, there was no written estimate, itemized bill, or guarantee.  Within a year there attention had drifted and most calls were not answered.

We usually get running water till the well runs dry towards the end of July.  We need a deeper, more reliable source.



Our Pedrollo pump breaks this year.

Although we had our Italian pump drained before we stored it in the house at the end of August, some hidden water remained, which broke a large seal.  It may or may not work, but now it seems the lines are clogged.  We are in the market for a new system once again.

Our neighbor thought he could find a rig to drill twenty meters, and we agreed to split the cost.   A driller near Moscow said it would be 2,500 ruble a meter, to at least 50 meters.  Now our friend is planning to filter lake water.

I catch myself becoming negative about our possibilities to get things done… a Russian characteristic I have gained after 10 years!



Our Water Story seems to have no end…




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Clean Clear Water in St Petersburg?

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I love the sound of water!  I hold the pitcher at varying heights when filling the kettle, to hear the music of splashing water.  50-65%s of your body is water, 70% of the world is covered with it, and 50% of an apple is nothing but water. 

Think ... how water is central to our  lives... rinsing your mouth, sipping the first cup of coffee, washing hands, splashing your face, reading a book in the tub.  If the water is good, not too hot or cold, then everything is fine!

Potable when treated, not necessarily on delivery!

The St Petersburg government says our water is potable, and free of fluoride.  True, but the problem lies with what happens to the water when it leaves the treatment area.

Kilometers of pipe carry it to the neighborhoods.  In places the pipe is poor quality or has bad joints.  Corrosion and seepage... disease and pollutants... are the results. 

At times I turn on the faucet to witness a small explosion of crud and dirty water, then orange/brown water for a few minutes to half an hour... usually after repairs in a nearby apartment. Quickly the bathroom sink is stained and needs to be scrubbed.  Our dishes, especially the bottoms, have become off-color.  Don't ask about our kidneys and livers!


The St Petersburg Plumber...

Poor workmanship before means a lot of work now for city workers and plumbers.  Many plumbers  do not have the same expertise as American union plumbers, nor all the modern tools.  They carry their tools on transport, so they are limited with what they can bring.

If it is to be, it is up to me!     (Ten 2 letter words of inspiration... )

 In Russia, if you want a new sink installed, it is up to you to have the sink, fixtures, paste, nuts, and bolts ready before the plumber arrives. 
 
I used to say in America that the new American rich were the electricians and plumbers in town.  In Russia skilled trades such as plumbers are paid relatively poorly.  Manual labor comes at a low price.

The Russian Kitchen...

Our daily system is to fill the Brita from the tap.  The resulting water we use for tea, coffee, and cooking. 

The remainder goes in a jar in which we place a Nevoton Silver Water Generator Ionizer, made in SpB.  The sales people claim this process kills all viruses and bacteria in the water.  But a Vancouver scientist states that these claims are quackery.¹
  ¹ Stephen Lower, Professor of Chemistry,retired, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada
    http://www.chem1.com/CQ/ionbunk.html       http://www.chem1.com/CQ/index.html

Hot, Cold, or Scalding!     

In Russia the Cold  faucet is usually on the left , the Hot on your right.  We have no TMV (Thermostatic Mixing and Shower Valves) so the water often needs to be adjusted to keep the right temperature for shaving or a shower.  Vodokanal, the city water company, supplies hot water from huge boilers. ²
²It's really weird... The Vodakanal trucks only have lettering in Latin, and spell St Petersburg the Western way.  It would be like seeing New York trucks labelled with Russian Cyrllic!

Russians by nature, and lack of training, do not think about the danger of scalding as Americans do.  For safey the bywords are ... 'You are on your own'.  They do not expect things to be planned for safey, so they perhaps are more careful than tourists and unwary expats. 

I want to install a TMV under the bathroom sink, and another on the tub/shower... if we can get the parts and find a competent plumber.  (Also, we are pricing an under-the-sink Aquaphor filter, also made in SpB.)

The Call of the Wild... 
 
A few years ago our apartment complex got some funding from the city to replace interior long pipes.  Each apartment owner had to contribute some rubles, too.  The lady downstairs refused the expense, so while the water runs better, occasionally we hear her pipes scream like a wounded moose.

Watching the meters spin around...

Until November, we paid an assessment for water based on the number of people in each apartment.  Now, in response to an edict from the city, we have meters in the bathroom and toilet area...  to control wasteful water use.  We are still not sure if using the meters will reduce our bill. 

Water quality is mediocre to poor...

Today we had tepid hot water into the evening. Sometimes water stops from either the hot or cold tap.  In sum, St Petersburg's water supply doesn't compare well with the rest of Europe or America.

A Traveller's Tip...

If you plan to stay in St Petersburg in a large hotel, you should have none of the problems I relate in this article.  Otherwise, it's wise to ask whether the water is sometimes dirty (rejavey as it sounds in Russian)... if the water temperature is regulated... and state that you expect a full refund if the hot water is turned off for more than three hours.  (We, staying on the Black Sea, we're caught with a pre-paid room that had no more hot water for the rest of our stay.)



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Is filtered water necessary where you live?  Do you buy bottled water for the kitchen?  Are there any additives such as fluoride and chlorine in your tap water?

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