VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, 7 September 2003 — Every morning for the past two months, Svetlana Cherepanova has gotten up at five o’clock hoping that water will flow out of her faucet in her apartment in Vladivostok, Russia’s Far East metropolis.
“It is automatic by now. I first fill up everything — jars, canisters, the bath — and then go about my other business,” Cherepanova told AFP.
“After all, tomorrow the water might not reach my floor,” said Cherepanova, who lives on the 12th floor of a Vladivostok apartment building.
And by six o’clock in the morning, Cherepanova’s neighbors on lower floors get up and drain the meager water supplies in the pipes.
Along with the rest of Vladivostok’s 600,000 inhabitants, Cherepanova is hostage to the drought which has dried up the city’s rivers and lakes, subjected the Pacific port to harsh limitations, and prompted city authorities to declare a state of emergency last week.
Because residents have only four to five hours every other day to replenish their water reserves, people juggle work, guests, laundry and cooking according to the fickle schedules of running water.
Those living in houses 200-300 meters (650-1,000 feet) above sea level rarely get any water at all, relying rather on wells and pumps.
Water crisis is nothing new to Vladivostok, Russia’s major port in the Far East near the border with North Korea that has few natural water resources.
Every eight to 10 years, the city’s small rivers and rain-reliant reserve lakes dry up, plunging Vladivostok into yet another water shortage.
The shortages have grown steadily worse since the mid-1950s, when the city’s population skyrocketed, with the last one coming five years ago.
The problems were exacerbated by the economic meltdown in the region that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Until this week’s state of emergency, for example, the region’s electricity company was not providing power to many enterprises supplying the city with water because of non-payments.
What Vladivostok residents do not understand is why this year’s crisis has come as a surprise to city authorities, when meteorologists have been warning of drought since March.
“We warned throughout summer that the river level was critical and that the reserves are dangerously low,” said Boris Kubai, the region’s chief weather expert.
But not until September did city authorities introduce measures in a bid to survive the crisis.
Every company in the city was stripped of access to its regular supply and instructed to dig a well in its office’s backyard.
Ships, foreign and Russian alike, were no longer allowed to replenish their water tanks in Vladivostok’s port. All wells and springs were declared “strategic reserves” and placed under guard.
“I live in this city for 50 years now, and have lived through five or six such crises. It is always the same,” grumbled Mikhail Prokhorov as he drove his car to the nearest pump to fetch 40 liters of water (nine gallons) for his family’s daily needs.
“First they squander the water and then the people have to pay for the idleness of the authorities, who blame the climate,” he fumed.
Meanwhile, authorities have warned that Vladivostok’s crisis is unlikely to be relieved until late summer — which, for the populace, would mean another year in hostage to water.
