Observatory

Russia shuts off Ukraine’s gas

By Oksana ⋅ January 1, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

It is 0°C in Kiev today. 3°C in Odessa.

My mother had bought natural gas in pressurized canisters at my insistence. They are big ugly unwieldy things. Heavy too. We used them in the country, where there were no pipes.

There had been lines for them all week. Old ladies with canes, shoving, pointing. How did they take these canisters back, all those tiny women?

I asked my mother. She said she borrowed a skate board from the neighbors’ kid downstairs. Put the cannister on it and shoved it along. Hardest part was keeping the gas upright.

People laughed when they saw her. My tiny little 65-year-old gray-haired mother trotting and limping behind a phallic-looking red gas canister on top of a very fancy set of wheels.

This morning Russia cut Ukraine off. Various news sources say Ukraine has reserves for 2 days. Maybe 2 weeks if everyone conserves. Then it’s 0 degree weather with no heat coming from the pipes. No gas to cook.

How did we get here? How bad will it get?

It’s funny how we used to joke about this. Russia cutting Ukraine’s energy off. Flipping the switch. What was funny about this? The sheer implausibility? The fact that the gas pipe is called “Brotherhood” to symbolize the eternal bonds between two great Slavic nations of Russia and Ukraine? Maybe the thought that no matter how bad it got, it could still get worse?

2000% annual inflation in 1990s? Finally getting your salary 4 months late and now all it’s worth is a box of cheap domestic-made cigarettes? Well, it could always get worse. Russia could turn off the heat.

Funny ha-ha.

Today is the 14th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Bittersweet to have the former republics turn on each other today. The one thing I have always treasured about the Union was the feeling that so many of us were going through it all together. So many people in so many places. All my compatriots, my partners in enduring communism.

I remember the shock a couple of years after the breakdown when they found a retiree on my mother’s block who froze to death. Things were getting really bad. There were no jobs. Some people worked a year without being paid. The woman could not pay her bill, the rumor said. They cut her heat. She froze to death.

Did they have to thaw her, I’ve always wondered? Is that what they did with her at the morgue?

How did we get here? How bad will it get?

You can read more about the crisis (the new cold war, one of the British papers called it) here, here and here.

I am off to try reaching my mother for the 20th time.