Silence from city hall, cold apartments: what lies behind the slogan “Troieshchyna with heat”
10 February 20:35
“Troieshchyna with heat. Restoration work is continuing around the clock in Kyiv.” This wonderful news was announced by the First Deputy Minister of Community and Territorial Development after she visited Troyeshchyna on Monday together with the EU ambassador. And this despite the fact that the day before, foreigners were shown the completely destroyed TPP-4. How did the houses get heated?
Heat has returned, but not to everyone
As Deputy Minister Olena Shkrum wrote on her Facebook page, heat supply has been restored in Troieschyna. This is the result of round-the-clock work by emergency crews — a total of 840 workers in 176 crews, including 83 crews (345 people) additionally recruited from other regions, enterprises in Kyiv, and Ukrzaliznytsia.
“At the same time, it is important to understand that even after the restoration of heat supply, buildings need time to warm up – sometimes it takes several days. At the same time, work is continuing to defrost individual risers and eliminate local accidents in houses and budgetary institutions,” the official emphasized, hinting that it is still cold in the apartments.
At the same time, the situation in Kyiv remains difficult, Shkrum stressed. As of the morning of February 8, 1,126 buildings in the Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi districts remained without heat due to the shutdown of TPP-4 after shelling. Currently, crews continue to eliminate 287 emergency situations in residential buildings and budgetary institutions.
This news was only reported by the deputy minister. The head of the Darnytskyi District State Administration (although Mykola Kalashnyk is usually responsible for the district, the text mentions Maksym Bakhmatov) did not comment on this important event in any way. Moreover, residents of Troieshchyna claim that their cold apartments have not gotten any warmer yet. And there are buildings where it is unclear when they will receive heating due to broken pipes.
The mayor of the capital, Vitali Klitschko, did not comment on the supply of heat in part of the Desnianskyi district, but reported that as of February 10, almost 1,400 residential buildings in the capital were without heat. More than 1,100 high-rise buildings in the Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi districts cannot be supplied with heat due to critical damage to the Darnytska thermal power plant. And more than 200 buildings in various districts have suffered emergency damage, which is being repaired by utility and energy companies.
Only the deputy head of the Kyiv City State Administration, Petro Panteleev, confirmed that heat had been supplied to homes in Troieshchyna. Only four buildings were reportedly the most problematic and are currently without heating.
Heat supply is available, but there is no heat
How heat appeared in the most problematic Troieshchyna, which was heated by TPP-4, remains a mystery. None of the official sources report on how this problem was solved. Everything is shrouded in secrecy. As noted in a comment
, housing and utilities expert Oleg Popenko, he does not understand how they could have restored heat supply if no heat is being supplied.
“If there is no heat in the buildings, then there is no heat supply. Did they restore it to the building, to the entrance, but there is no heat in the apartments because there are frozen pipes in hundreds of buildings, then that means there is no heat supply. Here, with regard to the terminology mentioned by Deputy Minister Olena Shkrum, I don’t understand what they are talking about at all.
And if we look at the figures, according to the latest data, there are 1,400 apartment buildings without heat in Kyiv, and 1,136 in the Darnytskyi and Dniprovskyi districts, in my opinion. At least 260 apartment buildings in Kyiv are without heat. And for some reason, I have serious doubts that these buildings are not located in Troieschyna, in the Desnianskyi district. I am deeply convinced that they are there. Therefore, the statement that there is heat supply but no heat seems somewhat absurd in the current situation,” the expert believes.
Not everything is as good as they say
The problem is that there are problematic buildings where heat supply has not been restored. That is, it cannot be said that everyone has had their heat restored. Yes, there is a positive trend in the increase in connected consumers. But there are still microdistricts that will have to wait quite a long time for heat energy, emphasizes
“This is due to the physical characteristics of the centralized heating pipeline system. Incidentally, this applies not only to Troieshchyna, but also to the Darnytskyi and Desnianskyi districts, where there may be one building, for example, on one side of the street, supplied by, say, the Darnytska CHPP, and the one on the opposite side of the street supplied by CHPP-5. Therefore, in my opinion, it is too early to say that everything is fine and spread this good news throughout the district. Because the problems exist, and repair crews continue to work on solving them,” said Gennady Ryabtsev.
On the other hand, the city’s utility workers, who keep the capital running around the clock, received bonuses for their work. In January, Kyivteploenergo paid UAH 44 million to employees who restore heat and other services to Kyiv residents. Transport workers received a total of UAH 8.3 million across all road maintenance departments. KARS rescue workers were paid UAH 870,000. Management companies paid almost UAH 30 million in bonuses to more than 1,100 employees who work day and night to repair accidents on the city’s networks.
Author: Alla Dunina
