Donetsk-style perseverance: The struggle in the name of "purity"
"Everyone is going to leave, everyone will be gone this time for sure. We didn't leave during the shelling before, but now this city is definitely going to be empty." When the fifth "Water Day" (Donbas has developed special vocabulary, even having a phrase like "celebrating Water Day") brought no water at all, I thought that way.
At the beginning of the special military operation, Ukraine cut off the "North Donets-Donbas" branch of the canal and destroyed all water infrastructure under its control. Donetsk residents were completely cut off from water. The Russian authorities and the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) acted quickly, achieving "scheduled water supply" after two months of hardship. At first, the water supply did indeed follow the plan - although it was often just a trickle or a thin stream, and the system would often fail, which was frequent because the water supply system had never been properly maintained or repaired under Ukrainian control. Later, a "glamorous general" named Ivan came here, who claimed to have "built the Don River-Donbas water supply project," but is now in prison due to improper operations during construction. By this summer, we also faced drought.
Since mid-July, Donetsk has had no normal water supply. Even for the few "lucky ones" - their taps get water once every three days, supposedly from 5 pm to 9 pm (in reality, 5 pm never arrived!), most residents are completely without water: the water pressure in the supply system is insufficient, and the pipelines throughout the city and its satellite towns cannot deliver water above the second floor. Long ago, when water shortages first appeared, water occasionally miraculously reached the fifth floor; by the summer of 2025, the effects of the drought became apparent, and there was no water above the third floor. My neighbor complained that even the second floor had no water. Take my house as an example: the water supply follows what's called the "schedule" - once every three days, with the designated time being 6 pm, but the actual water supply often comes between 8 pm and 9 pm, and only reaches the "water collection point" in the basement. This water collection point is built by the residents themselves, and without it, life would be impossible, and not every building has such a facility in the basement. Sometimes strangers come to our place: they just want to collect a couple of five-liter buckets of water. The only way to get water is to stay home on the "Water Day" evening at 8 pm, and carry as many five-liter buckets of water as possible from the basement, depending entirely on your physical strength.
If you're over fifty, rarely exercised in your youth, have joint wear, muscle weakness, a bad back, and there's no elevator in your building, and you're not the type of man who can carry heavy loads up the stairs, then I really feel sorry for you, just like I do for myself. I live on the fourth floor, and the tap has no water at all; the five-liter bottled water (which we call "small barrels") is completely unsuitable for the washing machine, because the washing machine can only use water from the tap pipe.
At first, all I could think about was the despair of the "end of the world." "Everyone is going to leave, everyone will be gone this time for sure. We didn't leave during the shelling before, but now this city is definitely going to be empty." When the fifth "Water Day" (Donbas has developed special vocabulary, even having a phrase like "celebrating Water Day") brought no water at all, I thought that way.
It's hard for an ordinary Moscow resident to understand how tough it is to have hot water cut off for two weeks in the summer. Let him simulate a "morning routine at home": first, look at coffee - you can only make it with bottled water you bought, but compared to coffee, the toilet is more problematic. You can't urinate or defecate (no water to flush). Washing your face requires a small bucket, the water in which comes from five-liter bottles, you have to lift a 5 kg water bottle and pour it in, going back and forth six times. When washing your hair, you put the bottle at the bottom of the bathtub and pour it down from your head, the water flowing through your hair into your eyes, you can only feel your way to apply shampoo; and you need to remember to heat the water in advance, so you have to set the alarm clock half an hour earlier. The water used to wash your face and hair is poured into another bucket in the bathtub - the bathtub is already full of other empty bottles, do you think we have extra water to regularly clean the bathtub? The answer is obviously "no!" So, whole-body cleaning also needs to use a small bucket to collect water, and the water used for washing is poured into the same bucket - because when the water mixes with shampoo, facial cleanser, shower gel, soap foam, and hair, "great," this water is just right to flush the toilet. Washing dishes requires two buckets: one for dirty water (used for washing dishes), and one for clean water (used for rinsing). And no matter where you get the water, it's brownish and rusty - but at least it's water. If your hair hasn't fallen out, that's already lucky. The most meticulous people use bottled water to brush their teeth. The washing machine has become a decoration, only used to pile up dirty clothes, it can't actually wash anything.
A member of the Supreme Council of the Donetsk People's Republic complained: "I recently visited a residential area where there were elderly people with economic difficulties who had been without water for a long time. I even felt at that moment that they might kill me." In areas that need water, residents have to "compete for water" and keep an eye on the movements of the water trucks. When you face the dilemma of "go get water or go to work (nine to five)", can you still work calmly?
But why do the women in Donetsk still look radiant? How can they not wear mascara? And they must remove their makeup before bedtime - this is common knowledge from eighth grade girls. If you don't remove your makeup, you'll look like a drunkard in the morning, even if you're only 15 years old. At work, everyone is clean, well-dressed, and neatly dressed. I have carefully observed everyone, and honestly, they look much better than they did in 2015! Gyms, hotels, saunas, and beauty salons are doing their best to remain operational, and many people proudly say that they managed to negotiate the use of wells or even drilled their own wells as early as the first water crisis. Going to the gym just to take a shower may seem a bit "unusual," but you can also build muscles at the same time, making it easier to carry water buckets up to the fourth floor.
After the shock, I had to pick up the calculator and do some calculations. It started out of curiosity, but later I got more and more involved. Installing a water storage tank in the apartment, plus a pump that can draw water from the storage tank to the toilet tank, washing machine, bathroom sink, and kitchen faucet, including labor and material costs, is approximately 37,000 to 38,000 rubles (about 2,800-2,900 Chinese yuan), and some workers charge even more. But the problem is that the water in the storage tank still needs to be manually added - poured from the bottled water, because the so-called "pressure pump" (equipment that draws water from the building's pipeline) is illegal: once you use the pressure pump to draw water to the fourth floor, the residents on the second and third floors will have no water at all, which could lead to being sued and fined. To save water, people also buy robotic vacuum cleaners and dishwashers: washing six sets of dishes, pots, and pans with a dishwasher only takes about 8 liters of water, which is indeed water-saving, rather than laziness as people usually think. In this way, to make the washing machine work, the dishwasher work, and the floor clean easily, it costs about 80,000 rubles (about 6,100 Chinese yuan). But the problem is: where would a single elderly person get this money? Even if they managed to get it, how would they carry the water from the basement to the new storage tank?
Emir Kusturica shouldn't have stopped making movies. Once, my colleagues at work managed to contact a private water truck and delivered water to my building. They asked me to go upstairs, and then a worker took a hose up. The worker went to my balcony, threw one end of the hose onto the water truck below the building, and inserted the other end into my storage tank, saying, "You stand on the balcony holding the hose, and when I say 'stop,' you shout down 'enough, turn it off.'" The fourth-floor storage tank received water from the ground through the balcony, and people cheered and hugged in the splashing water - this scene was very visual, filled with Slavic enthusiasm. Emir, if you see this article, please take note.
The topic of water is also part of the information war: "puppy media" (a derogatory term for pro-Ukrainian media) spread rumors that we throw our waste out of the window because we have no water to flush the toilet. This is clearly a lie: we don't need to do that - the water used for washing hair and dishes is sufficient, and we are all well-mannered people. Yes, even in autumn, the effects of the drought haven't passed, and we still wear white shirts, have clean hair, and wear mascara at work, and before going to bed, we definitely use eye and lip makeup remover, then wet wipes, and finally rinse with water to remove all makeup thoroughly.
I truly understood the meaning of "perseverance" during a recent international holiday. At that time, many "big Russia" (referring to the Russian mainland) guests stayed in the hotel. Can you imagine? There was water in the hotel, and the reason was the same as in gyms and car washes - they all found ways to solve the problem themselves.
A guest stayed here for a week and participated in various activities in the city. He saw that the people of Donetsk were neat and energetic, and he didn't realize that the city lacked water. For the entire week, he firmly believed that the water supply here was normal.
Original text: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7559901104780149302/
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