Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 28 – Officials in Daghestan acknowledge that there have been problems with water and electric supply to people in that North Caucasus republic for more than 30 years, but rising summer temperatures this year have sparked protests because many people are suffering from the lack of water and air conditioning.
Madina Gadzhiyeva, a journalist for Takie Dela, says that people have suffered from such shortages in earlier years but that the temperatures this year have been so high that power and water shortages are taking a serious toll on the population and leading people to go into the streets (takiedela.ru/2023/08/desyatiletiyami-dlitsya-vse-yeto/; for more on the recent protests, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-coincidence-or-cause-daghestani.html).
According to Gadzhiyeva, the problems are most severe in Makhachkala, the capital, and other major cities where people live in apartment blocks and can’t life well unless there is air conditioning. People in the villages are suffering from the heat as well, but most of them, she suggests, are used to living without the amenities people in the cities expect are their right.
The journalist does not extrapolate this problem to other parts of Russia, but the problems Daghestanis face are certainly being faced by people elsewhere. And as temperatures rise and infrastructure collapses, what has so far been confined largely to this North Caucasus republic seems certain to spread to other parts of Russia, particularly the south.
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