Dec 29 2008

Too Hot, Cold Or Dirty?

Category: Kazakhstan,Personal — ChrisM @ 11:49 pm

Irina has asked for all British tap manufacturers to take note – STOP selling individual kitchen sink taps or anywhere where your hands come into contact with hot water, PLEASE combine them into one stream, so we don’t have to choose between freezing cold or scalding hot water. I originally was going to write about how brilliant it is to now be able to drink water straight from the tap back here in Britain, but decided it would sound to much like a whiny ex-expat. Given Ira has voiced her opinion on combined vs. separate taps, I no longer feel bad about proclaiming clean drinking water as a good thing 🙂

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5 Responses to “Too Hot, Cold Or Dirty?”

  1. Ruslan says:
    July 18th, 2010 9:33 pm

    Your wife makes a good point. Any post-Soviet person visiting or living in Britain is completely dumbfounded by separate water taps.
    You’d think the argument was to be ‘it helps the environment’ and further such non-sense, but I heard somewhere that it is ‘tradition’…

    • ChrisM says:
      July 20th, 2010 9:27 pm

      I can’t defend the separate taps thing at all. No idea why it survives to this day, but it is true that that is how nearly all taps used to be. That said, we can drink straight out of ours without wondering what exactly is in the water/wanting to vomit when orange water comes out 😉 The reason why the water went brown sometimes in the older parts of Astana would really make you want to bleach your mouth!

      • Ruslan says:
        July 20th, 2010 9:40 pm

        Yep. I fully agree with you about the orange water. Really disgusting. But it is a relatively new city (as in, when it started properly expanding) with no drainage system. I know, they spend millions repairing fully functional road over and over again, but they won’t spend any money on drainage.

        • ChrisM says:
          July 20th, 2010 11:03 pm

          I just with the (clean) water pipes were replaced with high quality ones, that there was enough pressure in the summer, and that our local KSK didn’t cut off the hot water when others owe money!

          • Ruslan says:
            July 21st, 2010 12:42 am

            That is despicable behaviour from the KSK. I hate when they use that excuse, as if paying customers don’t matter to them.
            Yes, the water pressure is also a problem in this city. Also the roving blackouts. This isn’t Africa, get your stuff together Kazakhstan.