Ukraine War Day #176: Using Thirst As A Weapon Of War [concluded]

Dear Readers:

Today concluding my review of this piece. Yesterday we saw how the residents of Donetsk share the news with each other, when a water truck is due in their neighborhood. On certain days they can get “technical water” to use for washing and bathing. On even better days, they can fill up their containers with drinkable water. We meet a nice lady named Liubov Alexandrovna, whose 5-liter container (баклажка  – pronounced baklazhka) is starting to look somewhat ratty after 4 months of continuous use.

A typical 5-liter baklazhka for holding water.

“This is good water today,” she reassures one of her fellow water-seekers. “Very good. I just drank some, right out of the tap. For me, this has been going on for 4 months.”

“This is my second month doing this. Water doesn’t come out of our pipes any more.”

“Mine stopped 3 months ago,” another person remarks, as they exchange experiences.

Since July, the Donetsk authorities have assured residents of drinking water in some fashion or another: Either from the cisterns/water trucks, or by delivering bottled water to them. A free ration of 5 liters per person per day is guaranteed. For the very elderly and people registered as invalids, this ration of water is brought to their homes. Everybody else has to go out and fetch it for themselves.

It goes without saying that people can also go into the supermarket and purchase bottled water for their own money, if they wish to. Stepan Nikolaevich just finished buying enough water from the kiosk to fill 3 baklazhkas. “That’s 60 rubles,” he reports. “It doesn’t sound like much, but this water has to suffice for myself, my daughter and my grandson, so it will only get us through one day. Maybe two.” Stepan’s pension pays him 7,000 rubles. His daughter used to earn a salary of 17,000 rubles, which allowed them to live fairly well, especially for Donbass people. “The problem is,” he adds, “that the store where my daughter used to work, has been closed since March. They continued to pay her half-wages for a few months, but then they stopped.”

Which brings up another problem that the Donetsk residents have to contend with: the closing of stores and businesses. Half of the stores in the city closed their doors and are now boarded up behind grates: the owners left the city, to get away from the shellings. The stores that remained open have shortened hours. And not just the stores: A sign on the main post office door informs that it closes at 3:00 PM “due to the operative situation.”

A panoramic view of Donetsk City

There is a gun ammo store on Ilyich Prospekt, right in the center of the city. Here you can meet everyone, from Chechens to militiamen. It’s supposed to stay open until 5:00 PM, but sometimes closes early when there are shellings. The (female) owner will sometimes close the shop at 4:00 PM, in order to save herself and her customers.

The Watering Stations

There are 9 regions (Russian rayon, obviously a French borrowing) of Donetsk City. In the “Leninsky” region there are 6 watering stations, all of them located within schools. Here is where people come for their daily 5-liter ration of bottled water. Five of the stations operate strictly by a registered list; the sixth one services anyone who comes. This is in regards to drinking water. The schools also contain huge blue-colored vats of “technical water”, which are refilled twice a day. It’s first come first serve type system.

“Here’s how it works for the bottled Russian [drinking] water,” Elena Valentinova explains to the reporter. Elena is a schoolteacher for the younger grades. “You show me your passport, and I verify that your name is on the list.” She sits at her post, along with 10 others of her colleagues. With 11 service people, the line is not so long (around 40-50 people) and moves quickly. This is just the first line of defense: After being verified, you proceed into the gym, where others of her colleagues give out the actual water.

“If you live in our region,” Elena continues, “then we will note down your personal data. Your passport number, name and surname, home address, and the amount of water you took.”

The show must go on! Schoolchildren from the Leninsky Region of Donetsk.

“The main thing for us,” adds Tatyana Khomutova, the Director of School #32, “is to confirm the address of the person, and that it corresponds with what we have on the list.”

“What if it’s a family member?”

“Then we need a passport and a birth certificate. You don’t need to bring the original, a xerox copy will do. But we need to know that the people receiving water are from our region…”

When this system first started, at the beginning of July, 5850 people showed up that first day at School #32, carrying their passports. Not everybody knew about it, but then the word soon spread, and more people started coming. Sometimes the lines would form from early morning as people waited until the opening at 10:00 AM. There was the old Soviet mentality, of “better get in line early,” because you never know if there will be enough. But people don’t really need to worry: the Russians will make sure there is enough water for everyone. Water is being brought in constantly. And the dutiful schoolteachers will continue to sit at their posts and hand it out, even though technically they are supposed to be on their summer vacation.

School Principal Tatyana explains that everyone was ready to pitch in, and nobody minded being recalled from their vacations: “When we closed up for the summer, I warned my teachers: Girls, you know that we have a problem with water. And the moment I gave the signal, they all came back to work, all those who still remained in the city.”

City Administrator Alexei Kulemzin: “We are going on our ninth year of war in Donetsk. We have been through all of this together, and we are like one big family.”

Where The Water Is

The State enterprise responsible for the water system in Donetsk is called “Water of the Donbass”. Kulemzin attempts to explain the complicated situation. It’s not like there is absolutely no water (“Otherwise, given this summer heat wave, we would be like the Sahara Desert”), it’s all about the volume and the pressure. “Along with Gorlovka and Makeevka, and other towns, we all sit on the same canal. But remember this: we need 230,000 cubic meters per day, and we only have 50,000.”

The Kalmius River

The lion’s share of of this 50,000 comes from the Verkhne-Kal’miusskoe Reservoir near Donetsk. (Upper Kalmius Reservoir, named after the Kalmius River.) This reservoir was created in Soviet times as a backup, for times when the pumps in the canal had to be taken down and repaired. It was only supposed to be operational for a week or two at most, as a spare. Another backup system is the Kalmius River itself, which runs through Donetsk. After undergoing a purification process it is suitable for watering plants and grass.

“And we also pull in gutter water from the mines,” Kulemzin confides with a certain aura of satisfaction in his tone. “That’s a long story, I could spend hours telling you how this mine water is processed to the point where we can use it to clean the streets and fill the hydrants.”

“What hydrants?”

“You know, the fire hydrants. Haven’t you noticed how we have fires so routinely, it’s almost like they’re scheduled?” Kulemzin goes on to explain that the mine water helps them economize on technical water. “This is the ninth year already that we find ourselves on the front lines, and nothing has ever quieted down. The only thing that has changed, is that the weapons [used against us] are ever more deadly, and the density of the fires greater than they ever were.”

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