On Russian Taps
A little-known and unreported issue recently threatened to derail Russia’s passage into the WTO.
Full member countries are obliged to become signatories to the Hague Convention on Hot and Cold, which requires taps to be colour-coded red and blue, in compliance with international standards.
As it happens, there are already many red and blue taps appearing in Russian bathrooms but, like those in my Novgorod apartment, they are often connected the supposed ‘wrong’ way round.
At the recent summit, Russian negotiators hinted darkly that plumbing all this vast country’s red and blue taps the ‘right’ way round would cost millions of roubles and prejudice Soviet debt repayment to the Paris Club. But of course this was just diplomatic bluster.
What really irked Russia was the crass foreign ignorance of Russian tapwater culture. As everyone knows, if you invite a plumber to your Soviet apartment, he will invariably ask you to close either the brown or white tap, depending where the problem lies. Hot water is always brown in Russia while cold water is an opaque, high chlorine white - actually perfect for the indoor swimming pools many Russians have. Tak. Red and blue taps are a confusing irrelevance for Russians.
In any case, most Russian domestic water is filtered before use - even for boiling high-immunity cabbage. The commonly used filters are an intricate mesh of charcoal, plastic and wishful thinking. A study of the cross-section diagrams on the packaging has left me none the wiser, though I confess to being challenged by laws of physics.
Here in Novgorod, some of the new elitny kitchenware kiosks now sell designer water filter jugs - a must have for your new Soviet-style home. (See Home Soviet Home.)
Do you have any source for your statement that “most Russian domestic water is filtered before use”? The vast majority of Russian homes I’ve visted have no such mechanism in place, and simple economic data would seem to indicate that that majority of Russians, with monthly incomes of $300 or less, can’t afford such devices. What’s more, the fact that the population is declining and adult lifespans are very short would also tend to support the conclusion that most Russians are powerless to defend themselves from the dangers of their drinking water. Which is to say nothing, of course, of dangers that cannot be filtered out, such as radiation, a common contaminant in many Russian cities.
Russophobe wrote:
“The vast majority of Russian homes I’ve visted have no such mechanism in place”
You never looked in the cupboard under the sink? Most filters are plumbed in with the sink unit.
Quote: ‘majority of Russians, with monthly incomes of $300 or less, can’t afford such devices’
Then why are such shops so common? The jug filters cost a few roubles and last for three months.
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