Moscow: why cut the gas?

I have a hunch that things are going to get exciting here in Bulgaria.  There have been reports all week that the natural gas supply in Bulgaria from Russia has been reduced.  Then yesterday it was clear that the country is entering a gas crisis.  The country has limited gas reserves and gas flow to residential areas was being cut.

This morning I woke up and turned on the tv.  The news was reporting on the taxi cabs that run on natural gas.  The footage was of lines and lines of taxis waiting in hopes of filling their tanks.  Tanks that they have converted to run on natural gas given the high prices of petrol in the country.

Mind you the country is blanketed in about 8 inches of snow and the temperature floats around between 18 and 26 degrees Fahrenheit.   It’s damn cold.  The kind of cold that makes you think you should wear two turtlenecks (which I’ve been doing), put on an extra pair of socks (check) and even contemplate putting on your yoga pants under your jeans (to date, I’ve just been thinking about doing this but I am not above it).

So after having coffee with friends today, I decided that I’d better write a post about this gas cut.  Oh and I also turned on my hot water heater so that I can take a shower just in case we start having rolling electricity outages.  Apparently this is a real possibility.  The funny thing is I am a little freaked out about this whole thing and my Bulgarian friends are pretty blase about it.  Then again maybe they are just heartier than I am after living through the 1990’s after the fall of communism maybe the fact that our gas has been cut in the middle of winter is merely an annoyance.

Once I was home the situation didn’t seem as dire.  I think part of the reason I was a little freaked out is because 90% of the news on the gas cut is in Bulgarian.  It means that I have to rely on other people to tell me what’s going on and I am someone who understands and makes sense of a situation by gathering as much information as possible. 

I knew that things weren’t great but after reading the piece on the NYT “Ukraine says Russia shuts down all gas supplies to Europe” which never mentions Bulgaria, I thought okay.  Things aren’t so bad.  Then I read two pieces on the BBC “European gas supplies disrupted” and “Dispute hits Europe gas supplies.” The first published yesterday doesn’t mention Bulgaria and the second published today mentions Bulgaria and the fact that we only have enough gas for a couple of more days.  This fact didn’t mean too much to me at the time because I was busy being angry with the NYT because I expect better reporting. Really, no mention of Bulgaria in your entire article?

Then I got an email from the US Embassy in Bulgaria. An excerpt follows:

The U.S. Embassy would like to make Americans in Bulgaria aware that supplies of Russian gas to Bulgaria were cut off as of early Tuesday morning, January 6.  The Bulgarian Council of Ministers met to discuss a response and the Government put in place consumption restrictions for the entire country.

There are reports of heating disruptions in cities throughout Bulgaria, with the effects particularly acute in large cities – with residential buildings experiencing dramatic drops or loss of heating and either lowered hot water pressure or loss of hot water altogether.  Many residents are attempting to heat their homes and offices with electrical heaters, placing greater demand on stretched electricity grids and possibly leading to rolling power brownouts.

The U.S. Embassy urges Americans to keep abreast of local news on this issue and be prepared for outages in heat, electricity and hot water.

Sounds great.  I’ll see what I can do.

Back to point, how awesome is it that the dispute Russia and Ukraine are having over natural gas lines and stolen gas result in natural gas being cut or drastically reduced all over Europe.  As if it couldn’t get any better, Georgi Purvanov, Bulgaria’s president, apparently suggested yesterday that Bulgaria should restart a nuclear reactor that the EU deemed unsafe too help get the country through this crisis.  Sounds great, lets restart an unsafe nuclear reactor.  The thing is this is a communist era reactor that Bulgaria had to turn-off as a part of EU membership but given energy prices there are people here who think the risk is worth the reward. It seems to me, however, Purvanov is taking advantage of the situation to try to restart reactor that should not be restarted.

So to recap, in Bulgaria a huge part of the country relies on centralized heat (thank-you communism).  So if and when the gas goes out whole buildings will be without heat. Luckily, my apartment is not connected to centralized heat which is both good and bad.

It means that I rely on electricity to heat my home and if/when the gas runs out everyone who used to be heating their homes visa vie centralized heat will plug in electric space heaters. (Sweet.)  If/when this happens, it appears very likely that the electric grid wont support the added demand and we’ll have rolling electric outages.  (God this is going to get exciting.)  Of course, what this means is that those of us without electricity will now be without electricity and heat.  I have a hunch that this will also be when you’ll be able to find me  layering up.  I’ll be wearing: two pairs of smartwool socks, leggings under jeans, two turtlenecks and a wool sweater and probably for the first time, I’ll be thinking: Really?! Carolyn, you chose to move here!?! Ahhh…..

But you know what the worst thing is about this whole gas cut and potential electricity outage is? I won’t be able to use to my coffee machine.