'Don’t flush — or we all drown in it': Kyiv’s deep freeze turns homes into sewage nightmare

Trash bags instead of toilet

“Brace yourselves: it does not smell very nice in there,” Natalia says. She lives in a high-rise at Akademika Zabolotnoho 86 and leads the way to the technical floor. A group of residents has gathered outside the entrance; they have been asking everywhere for publicity.

In this building and neighboring “corner” buildings, all utilities run not in the basement but overhead — above the arches. Residential floors begin on the fourth level; the second and third are technical. That is why they freeze faster, and pipes burst, residents say.

“We have a real catastrophe here. The walls are thin, so everything froze through. On the entire fourth floor, the radiators burst. Feces are floating in my bathroom. I have already left,” says Svitlana, who lives on the fourth floor.

On the technical floors, there are no emergency crews present. Yet the pipes here are in terrible condition: some have burst, others leak sewage. Pipes have frozen all the way up to apartments on the floor above, as water in the toilets has turned to ice. Residents are therefore asked not to use the sewer, because everything ends up back in their homes.

We have had no heating since January 9. You cannot use the toilet since the 19th. But you cannot run off somewhere every time… We use trash bags. Then we carry them out. What else can we do? I am telling you as it is.Liudmyla, a resident of a high-rise building in the Holosiyivskyi district

“Radiators on our (fourth — ed.) floor have all burst. The sewer is frozen. Everything neighbors flush from above ends up on my floor,” Svitlana says as she leads the way to her apartment.

In the toilet, there is a rag and a bucket of waste. Ice in the bowl. The thermometer reads minus 1 degree Celsius.

In the room, a team of railway workers is removing a radiator cracked by frozen water. The woman says she has not seen utility workers here. Though the men insist the utility company coordinates them.

“Our chief engineer comes to the housing office, then tells us: ‘Guys, here is the building, here is the plumber.’ He explains what to do, and we do it. This is not our first time in this building,” says a taciturn young repairman.

But when asked what to do about the frozen sewer, he spreads his hands: “What can we do? We can only thaw the pipes.”

“We fix it there; it bursts here. You cannot even get into the apartments”

A short distance away in a similarly designed building, water pours through an arch, steaming in the frost and leaving icy streaks on the walls and long icicles at the joints. That is how the latest attempt to restart heating ended.

“Oh my God, it’s a nightmare here!” a woman says as she enters the stairwell, where visibility ends at arm’s length because of thick steam.

“They are finally trying to give heat — see, it burst. And the resident is not home,” another woman explains to her.

Emergency railway crews bustle here. They come from different regions: some from Lviv Oblast, some from Dnipro. They say they could not enter one apartment where a radiator had burst. That is what caused the break.

“We work on many buildings. Right now, on 14, but today overall we are responsible for 30,” says Serhiy Panfilov, who coordinates the railway workers on emergency restoration.

The situation is similar everywhere, he says, because water was not drained from the system in time, and radiators and pipes burst. But he does not blame utility workers.

“They did drain the water, but in some places it remained in air vents and simply froze. Because of that, in some buildings, the water did not drain completely. But we weld, we replace. Right now, we will change a valve and start [heating] again. Believe me: I personally stay in constant contact with the housing office and the management company all day. We coordinate all our work with them,” Serhiy explains.

Meanwhile, in the basement, where the central heating control node is located, water stands at waist height.

“I am having a meltdown. We fix it there, weld everything. And here it all bursts again, you cannot get into apartments, nothing can be shut off,” one emergency worker complains.

“No need to start a rally,” Serhiy says in a boss’s tone. “Come on, get moving. Go to all points at once — and we keep going.”

“Everything was covered in sewage here”

“How is your situation?” I ask a man carrying water jugs in a nearby corner building.

“Worse than everywhere else,” he says.

A more telling sign is the notice posted on the stairwell door: “Caution! Do not use the sewer! The riser [water] has already frozen up to the 5th floor! If you do not stop — we will all be swimming in it!”

“Come on in, see what is happening…” Svitlana invites me into her fifth-floor apartment. Residents here have been without water for a week and without heating for three weeks, she says. Experts are now trying to restart heating, but the left riser is solid ice.

“This riser is completely frozen. And everything flows down to me. This is what I already scooped into the bucket… It was all in sewage here, honestly. I already bleached it. This is just awful,” the woman says, nearly in tears.

People say, “We are so fed up.” I say, I understand you, but do I have to carry this filth out in buckets?! I understand there are children and everything. But my husband had a stroke too. And I have to run around 24/7. I cannot take it anymore.Svitlana Rozlach, resident of the building at 108 Akademika Zabolotnoho

Her husband has been bedridden in the room next door for over nine years. The woman bought electric sheets that heat up when power is on. Svitlana herself works as a cleaner in a nearby shopping center. Overall, she does not complain. She understands residents are “tearing plumbers apart,” but she says she no longer has the strength to run and carry buckets of waste.

“I’ve no idea where that plumber is. Our activists chase him; he is torn between three buildings. The railway guys are killing themselves here from morning till night, but it feels like they have been going in circles for a week,” the woman says.

On the technical floor, several residents bustle about, deftly climbing over pipes and carrying out bags of trash.

“There is no one here today. They told us to clean old insulation off the pipes,” a man explains, adding that “the plumber will come and show how to knock feces out of plastic pipes.”

He leads us farther into the sewer maze: “This is what the sewer looks like here. These frozen pipes are the new ones they have installed. And they froze again with renewed force.”

This was not designed for such an apocalypse

Portable toilets have been placed near these buildings. About 20 high-rises in this microdistrict remain without heating. Residents from various problem addresses came to the housing office building, with emotions boiling over as each describes their pain.

“Dear people, do you understand what times we live in?” the office manager says, breaking into tears. Calming down, she adds that plumbers work around the clock, on day and night shifts.

We are working. But do appreciate that my plumbers were not designed for such an apocalypse. I have seven people. And the microdistrict is huge. Today, the guys are going around restarting whatever can be started. I gathered everyone. I even asked plumbers who had already quit for help. Olha Demyanchuk, Head of Housing Maintenance Organization-109

She admits that they did not expect technical floors to freeze so badly that frost would appear on the walls. Those floors should have been insulated. But that is expensive, so “it is beyond the housing office’s means.”

“We do not have money for that. So we ask residents for help — please assist. Organize yourselves. Like in one building, they stand watch and heat pipes with heat guns…

You see, we thaw a pipe — and [because of water pressure] it starts cracking. Then welding is needed. We organize welders after the thawing crews, then sewer workers. Right now, the railway workers are working… But they are not plumbers. Soon teams of actual plumbers will arrive to help,” Olha Demyanchuk adds.

It is only now that the district has provided generators for the power and water pumping stations, so heating can finally work, she says. Until today, if electricity went out, there was neither water nor heat.

“Girls, we will not abandon you. We are all working. We will go through every building…” Olha tells the residents reassuringly.

“We hope you will not leave us.”

“I understand everything, but I am not God either. I cannot do everything at once. And if there is another strike tomorrow — we will be without anything again…”

“We understand all that, yes. If only that damn thing would stop flying…”

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Overall, more than 1,200 high-rises in the capital remain without heating. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on local authorities and government officials to “act faster” to help the population.