I didn’t pay much attention. I don’t have a car, and I
was safe from traffic jams, using the metro for all my trips.
Two days later, when the promised snowfall came, I was
surprised to know that all the Kyiv authorities and state services reacted to
the warning the same way I did. They seemingly ignored it.
But I had every right not to pay much attention. They
did not.
I must admit, at some point, the snowfall seemed nice
– but only for a little while. I enjoyed running home from the metro station on
Friday night, jumping in pristine knee-high snow that kept falling. It wasn’t
clear where the road ended and the sidewalk started, because everything was
equally covered with snow. It was fun.
When I left home on Sunday afternoon, the scenery was
pretty much the same, but it didn’t seem fun anymore. Two days after the
snowfall, a narrow passage was cleared in the road, the same with sidewalks.
Huge piles of stiffened and packed snow were topping the street. None of it was
moved away. Other streets weren’t much better. Usually crowded with city
transport even on weekends, Oleny Telihy Street was empty and silent. The only
transport available was metro.
I remember the winter of 2011-2012. I was living at
the same place, and whenever the snow started, even a little one, I heard plows
on my street within a half hour. I was impressed. It was my first winter in
Kyiv, and I thought that was the way things were here.
“Can you imagine that? It’s just a narrow street in
the residential area, and it’s always cleared so fast!” I was telling my
friends, amused.
I should have taken pictures of those plows, because
I’ve never seen them ever since. I’m not sure what happened. Perhaps the
authorities were especially careful, looking forward to the Oct. 28 parliamentary
elections last autumn. The best thing I saw on my street during these most
recent snowy days was an old tractor, which was barely making its way through
the street.
I can find no explanation for why city services didn’t
prepare to the snowfall they were warned about, no reason to their inactivity
on Friday and Saturday. And nobody cared to offer explanation, not to mention
apologies.
I was harassed by the thought that some woman might be
in labor this weekend, stuck at home, or some seniors might be waiting for an ambulance,
having a heart attack with almost no hope for the ambulance to come for them.
I literally thanked God that I was young and healthy,
and had enough food stocked in my refrigerator. Bread became a deficit good
very fast, and meat was the next thing people rushed after, leaving empty
shelves.
Two popular jokes of these days are the following.
“How to instantly clear all the snow in Kyiv?”
“Mayor’s elections must be scheduled for tomorrow.”
Another one is evergreen.
“City services were the only ones who obeyed the
advice not to come out.”
On my way to the office on the morning of March 25,
drowning in snow and slipping on uncleared steps, I was cursing everyone
responsible as hard as I could. I started from wishing them to burn in hell,
but quickly figured that’s too simple.
For corrupted officials there must be something better
out there. Like, suppose there is a rule in hell stating that every inhabitant
gets some treatment once a week to lessen the pain from, well, burning in hell.
In this case, officials responsible for the snow blockade
in Kyiv wouldn’t get the treatment because the corrupted officials of hell
stole all the money meant for ointments and medications. Sorry, guys. Deal with
the fire of hell with no comfort. And by the way, remember how you bought 150
new snowplows for Kyiv and two years later, none of them were seen in the
streets during the most intense snowfall in years?
I am here to remind.
Kyiv Post staff writer
Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].
