Vlad: ‘We live in the cold during the winter. We wait for 30 minutes for the cold water to turn into hot running water. In 2021, in a European capital.’ Bucharest, Romania
Vlad is an IT engineer renting a one-bedroom flat in a block built in 1978. His complaints about cold water echo the fears voiced by several other participants: people feel that the shortages typical of the communist years have crept back into their lives. Vlad, who lives on the 9th floor of his block, says that it takes much longer for hot running water to reach those living on the higher floors. The water’s temperature also depends on the block’s distance from central heating infrastructures across the city: if a block, school, or hospital are close to a heating point, it will benefit from more heating than those that are further away. But access to warm water is not necessarily straightforward for those living on lower floors, either. Like Vlad, 70-year-old Doina lives on the first floor of a block built in 1977, during the socialist years. Writing about what makes her happy, Doina shared that one of her favourite ways to relax is to take a hot bath. Almost fifty years since her block was first built, however, Doina’s building is not always able to provide her with warm baths.