They work to the bone. They start in the dark and finish after midnight. They know that without them it will be worse. The work of plumbers and electricians in Kiev is extremely important, especially when it is minus 20 degrees outside.
After the massive Russian attacks on energy facilities, homes in hundreds of blocks in Kiev are increasingly turning into icy concrete boxes - without electricity and heating. Public services, as well as private plumbers and electricians, are trying to "revive" the frozen buildings. Their work, which is usually unnoticed, is now in great demand. They have to work 20 hours a day without a break to restore heat, light and water to homes.
Hunger for personnel: even sick technicians repair breakdowns
Entrepreneur Oleg Karpov and his team service the engineering networks of the blocks in Kiev. Karpov admits to DV that this year has become a real test for him. His working day begins when most people in the city are still sleeping - at four or five in the morning, and ends well after midnight.
After the Russian shelling of Kiev's critical infrastructure at the beginning of the year, Karpov's team has been working around the clock. He says that the workers are exhausted - both physically and mentally, but they continue to go to sites even when sick and with a high fever. "Sometimes you can sleep for two or three hours. Yesterday I went home and went to bed at 2:00, and at 5:30 I was already woken up. We take calls both tired and sick, because if we don't do our job, it will be worse for both the buildings and the people," explains Karpov.
Karpov is a war veteran, demobilized for health reasons. Currently, his team consists of eight people. Most of them are elderly, some have returned from the front after severe physical injuries.
"There were 25 people, but now there are only eight left. Some are at the front, others have gone abroad. The lack of personnel is catastrophic. My welder is 62 years old, one electrician is over 60, the other is a second-group disabled person, and the plumber also has health problems. "Young people don't want to do this kind of work," Karpov says.
Not everyone can handle the workload
The situation in the city's utilities is similar. "There are not enough crews. Because of this, people work for two or three days without a break - they literally collapse. Two locksmiths died from the huge overvoltage. Many have frostbite, as well as mental and physical exhaustion," wrote on Facebook MP Alexei Kucherenko, who is responsible for energy and housing and communal services in the Verkhovna Rada.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed that one of the aforementioned locksmiths died on January 19 while working on a call to an apartment. The man was 60 years old. The city authorities plan to provide financial assistance to the families of workers who died while working on residential projects.
Exhausted craftsmen and nervous Kievans
Private entrepreneurs like Oleg Karpov, who mainly service high-rise buildings, cannot afford to pay high salaries. They work mostly on long-term contracts with established estimates, designed for a certain number of calls, and not for extreme situations like the current one after the Russian shelling.
"That's why I do some of the work for electricians and plumbers myself - I give them a chance to rest," says Karpov. Moreover, as he points out, the most difficult thing about the job is not the total exhaustion or the old pipes and burnt cables, but the lack of basic gratitude. While the technicians try to save the network from overload, residents often react aggressively.
"They insult us, swear at us, call us lazy and demand that we do the impossible - something that contradicts the laws of physics. Sometimes they even get into fights. In a block of 300 apartments, one person will say "thank you", and 299 will say that we are doing a bad job. Sometimes you feel like throwing everything away," admits Karpov.
"I do my job as best I can"
Leonid Kulitsky is 59 years old, he has about 30 years of experience as an electrician and says that this winter has become the most difficult in his practice. He shares that he practically lives at work and returns home to rest only for a few hours.
Because of the destroyed thermal power plants, many apartments in Kiev have no heating, so people are heating themselves with electricity. And the networks cannot cope with the increased consumption. "When there is electricity, people immediately turn on everything - boilers, heaters, kettles. And immediately cables, wires and everything else start burning. They call us and say that we have to go, because people are freezing and standing in the dark," says Kulitsky.
Despite the enormous exhaustion, he does not consider himself a hero - for him it is simply a duty. Kulitsky, whose son is at the front, says that the Ukrainian military in the trenches has it even harder. "Russia is torturing us in all kinds of ways. But we are holding on. I do my job here as far from the front as I can. The important thing is that the children return from the war alive and healthy. "Family and faith in our victory are the only things that keep me warm," says the 59-year-old Kiev resident.