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The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Electricity cut off

08.12.2000   
Yu. Podkolzin, Kerch
In a number of districts of Kerch the electricity is supplied to blocks of flats and resident houses only after midnight. Besides, gas is not provided and central heating is cut off. So the temperature in living quarters is, according to physical laws, equal to that out-of-doors, and the population is tempered like steel. The most active process of tempering lasted in the beginning of December. It appeared that the central heating uses mazut (black oil). The town needs 6000 metric tonnes, and the available stock was 250 tonnes. At the same time frequent cuts of electricity began for 6 - 8 hours per day. It made crowds of people to flock in the streets and to block roads.

Nobody knows how road blocks increase the production of heat, but electricity appeared in houses and in three days the central heat-producing station started to work. It warmed 80 thousand inhabitants of Kerch. The remaining 70 thousand, whose houses were heated by small boiler-houses fed by mazut exclusively (the central station needs mazut only for triggering the process), envied their luckier neighbors.

By the beginning of January the electric cuts off steadily became more and more frequent, but the tempered citizens coolly disregarded the new troubles.

Just at that time Osadchiy, the mayor of Kerch, visited the warm country of Norway and felt, after returning to the arctic Kerch, some remorses, which made him turn to his fellow townsmen on the local radio. He confessed that some guilt may be put on the local administration. The unique precedent had been with the Minister of Finances of the USSR, who promised to cut off his right hand if the prices increased. The mayor of Kerch, taking account of many Moslems in the Crimea, who may cut a hand in earnest, did not risk his extremities. Instead he begged from the central administration 4000 tonnes of mazut and 20 megawatt of electric energy. Now the citizens look to forward with optimism: the cuts of electricity reduced to 6 - 8 hours per day and the temperature of radiators cause discussions, whether they are heated or not. The prosperity ends outside the boundary of the town - suburbs of Kerch get much less. So, in the settlement of Arshintsevo (40 thousand inhabitants) cuts of electricity achieve 12 hours per day; in suburbs Marat-1 and Marat-2 there is no heat and light; in the settlement of Adzhimushkay drinking water is not supplied; in the boarding school No. 1 and town hospital No. 2, situated in the picturesque country, neither electricity, not heat, nor water is supplied, but there is a 100% epidemic of flue.

To compensate, light and heat are cut off very seldom in downtown, where the local administration resides. People grumble, but the local authorities are not afraid. ’This epoch needed heroes’, as Friedrich Engels said, ’and it gave birth to many’.
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