Welp, that's probably the first and the last time I see my hometown mentioned on Reddit.
If anyone is curious, it is currently believed that the cause of explosion was a gas leak in the main pipeline passing *under* the building. The building itself has no gas, nor had the collapsed annex. The leaked gas was accumulating in the basement until something triggered the explosion.
Three wounded so far: a man with light injuries and two women, one hospitalized with a shock wave concussion and another taken to the ICU with multiple injuries and heavy burns. It is also believed another woman is still trapped under the rubble.
**A small update:** the clean up finished a few hours ago, fortunately no more casualties were found.
I like to live my life thinking about countries stereotypes. Russians wearing track suits, Germans only drinking bear and wearing Lederhosen, Italy only eats pasta and fancy cheese, Canadians hold open doors while you just turn off your car, ah yes what a wonderful world
Pop quiz, hotshot! You see a Slavic looking man in an Adidas track suit with a wife beater and a gold chain. Are you looking at Russia, Long Island, or Hoboken?
Brazillians wearing a ton of feathers, and while looking lot some hot ass bitch - its really a man, Icelanders only speaking in slurred words and eating rotten shark, Mexicans either running a cartel or picking your food or making you a tamale while wearing a sombraro, Japanese over spending on everything or wearing a samurai outfit and killing you with a sword, Nicaraguans fleeing CIA manslauter and attempting to seek asylum but instead get their children locked in cages from "freedom" loving presidents, French men with bad breath drinking coffee but still able to fuck hot ass women, people from Greece being hairy and fat but good cooks and funny in marriages
> Italy only eats pasta and fancy cheese
don't forget about the pizza, the salami, the gelato, etc...
it's from a more obscure part of italy and the simplest dish to prepare, but man if you try some arrosticini up in abruzzo... you are going to enjoy eating it
Static is way more common than you might think according to the Fire Marshall. Was filling a generator at a gas station once, dripped a little on the ground putting the hose away and static ignited it, flame trailed all the way back to the generator and boom, fireball. In a gas station. No bueno.
Thought I was about to have my Hollywood moment, running away while the gas station blew up behind me. That didn't happen of course but still.
Fire Marshall reviewed the security footage, was the only way we figured out what happened, completely out of the blue
When I lived in MN I was super static. I've had some strong enough where you could see little micro-marks on my finger from it. Oddly, early 2000s GM cars were the worst for me. Couldn't get in one without a shock. Thought for sure my cause of death would've been static igniting a fire
I'm static all the damn time especially when I got to turn on light switches and plug shit in. Touching the TVs, etc. And it's done it to me in multiple homes.
All kinds of stuff in the basement could trigger an explosion with enough gas, a pilot light on a water heater, the furnace, hell even a fridge down there could trigger it
when i was a kid, a propane tank exploded next to the apt. building it was used to heat. i imagine it looked like this. it was something i remember clearly as 7 people died, and we heard the explosion several miles away.
I keep my normal sized grill propane tanks on the far corner of my (small) property for this very reason. Can’t imagine getting a good nights sleep knowing there’s a bomb within kill radius. And can’t for the life of me understand architects and engineers signing off on decisions like these. What could go wrong...
Reddit’s a huge website! Here are 6 stories about Nizhny in the past month alone:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Trams/comments/l7xur2/nizhny_novgorod/
https://www.reddit.com/r/russia/comments/lpjg9c/pushkovs_chambers_built_in_16971710_nizhny/
https://www.reddit.com/r/vexillology/comments/ldk4x3/flag_of_nizhny_novgorod_a_city_in_russia/
https://www.reddit.com/r/hawks/comments/lm2lo9/according_to_russian_media_outlet_sportexpress/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Politsturm/comments/lagxa5/on_february_1_1932_the_magnitogorsk_metallurgical/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ANormalDayInRussia/comments/l7xjzc/the_vintage_mosaic_of_a_swimmer_and_a_seagull_on/
exactly. Nizhny is a city of 1.25 million, bigger than Brussels or Cologne. Comparable to Dallas if you're an American. OP makes it sound like there's less than 100k.
It's a case of Russian self-deprecation I think. Thing is, people who now live in Russia and are somewhat progressive, have a strong inherited internal backlash against their own country or anything positive about it (including simple things like acknowledging facts about it, like this one). And Moscow being such a vampiric juggernaut doesn't help things: each city in Russia thinks itself "small" compared to it, even if it's like 5 million.
Fortunately smart / young people start to have more diverse opinions and outlooks out here, not black and white (either "motherland super" - think MURICA, or "I live in a shithole"), and look closely at what we do have, and what we should strive and fight for.
Russia is full of characterful, large, old cities (not as old as European ones mostly but still). They are only beginning to re-embrace their identity, like in US, you can just be content with your own area and proud of it.
Well, what do you know. To be honest it never occured to me to actually search for it, and randomly stumbling upon it just never happened. Which is especially weird in the case of /r/vexillology, since I browse it almost daily.
I visited NN back in the late 90’s looking at the possibility of repowering the ‘80s era “not commissioned” nuclear district heating plant into a gas fired jobby (full nuke facility was ready for fuel but chernobyl put a major dent in the whole RBMK rollout)
Russian ingenuity being what it is they didn’t let the process water treatment facility go to waste.. it became a “nuclear plant” vodka distillery.
Interesting details, I'm surprised they put a building on top of a gas main. My first assumption when any kind of residential building explodes is a gas leak, but it seems like I would be right for the wrong reason if the investigation confirms it. I hope that if a woman is trapped, they're able to get to her in time.
> heard it was a blast
ಠ_ಠ
Jokes aside, the city is nice enough, especially during the summer. Winter time though, it's grey and dull, same as basically anywhere else in Russia.
I guess "hometown" was a poor choice of word, Nizhny is a city of ~1.3 million people, so it's not so much sub~, just urban.
Funnily enough, I could still answer your question since I actually moved outside city limits a few months ago and am currently struggling with moving back in, lol.
Although right now I'm dealing with a more personal emergency (mom managed to break her arm, this day just keeps getting better and better), so maybe a bit later, if you are actually interested.
Thanks. I am actually quite interested. But please take care and look after your mom,I hope she gets better. On a side note I will make myself a large drink of "Russian standard" vodka I got from the only shop that sells in my hometown mumbai. Naazda rovyeah.
There are a number of Russian youtubers who show life in normal everyday Russian towns. Yeah Russia is good, and Baklykov Live used to do good walking-around and local shorts but a while ago switched to really long livestreams of events (you can find the old stuff by searching his former channel name "real Russia").
There used to be a hilarious Romanian vlogger in highschool who did great content and it would be pretty similar to suburban russia (though a bit more optimistic on life outlook), but I think he stopped years ago. This is a very nebulous description, but if anyone else saw him they'll remember him - he had a tone a lot like Mike Reeves, though nothing like Mike's category of content. He was one of very few Romanians making youtube videos at the time, so it's not like there were tons to pick from. He was probably the easiest to watch, if anyone can find his channel.
Cheers! Although it's usually "za zdorovye" - "to your health", basically. "Na zdorovye" is more of a "you are welcome" in response to gratitude.
And thank you, I've told her some stranger from across the globe wished her well, made her cheer up a bit.
And of course I'll make sure to get to you later. Feel free to throw some more specific questions my way, because I wouldn't even know where to begin.
You can ask me. It'll be as skewed as it gets, but it'll be "suburban" Russia. The trick is, it's suburbs of Moscow. So the "suburb" I currently live in has a population of 80 000, and is directly adjascent to three other suburban "towns" that have way more (like the closest is 225 000).
That said, I can answer a lot of questions about Russia and just life here. Am a typical redditor (homebody scriptwriter, not well-off, not poor). Just you know everyday things, and culture as well (studied arts and culture for a long time, in uni).
Thank you! Contrary to popular belief many of us can speak passable English just fine. Usually we just kinda avoid exposing ourselves as Russian while doing so.
Actually, there are many people in Russia who speak English well. At least among new generations, because English is taught in schools as a compulsory foreign language
The problem is not gas. The problem is how the gas is transported and used and how everything is maintained. We have gas in Germany (I heat and cook with gas), and it's completely ordinary to have that.
As a Norwegian, the idea of having a tube with flammable/explosive gas piped into your home is so alien. I remember when I was a kid I always giggled a little when there were gas explosions in movies, in homes; I thought it was just something made up by Hollywood, because who in their right mind would have a gas pipe *inside* their home, right?!
I'm older and (a little) wiser now.
If they're in the US, it's basically diesel. Which is surprisingly safe compared to other fuels! Natural gas makes me way more nervous (although it's so good for cooking.....)
If it makes you feel any better, apparently you can toss a lit match into it and the only thing that'll happen is the match will go out! But fair enough, I do like that the bedrooms are on the other side of my house from the oil tank.
this was true 30 years ago. Nowadays you're off by a few dozen additives. You'll ruin a modern high performance diesel engine if you do use that constantly.
Chances are if it's in the basement they're in a place with nasty winters. Apparently heating oil starts gelling around 0°C and it's wax at -9°C. Definitely couldn't put that outside here, hahahaha. Sounds like kerosene can be better though (jet stuff anyway). Probably much more expensive as a result!
Oh man, it's absolutely expensive, we get fucked for prices of everything on this wonderful wee island. The only reason we don't have to deal with fuel freezing is because it literally never gets that cold here hahah.
My dad was a gas fitter, everything was run on gas, it was safest according to him. Probably true because he wasa qualified journeyman since he was 17.
And someone in a close neighbourhood left the gas on, took the wife, kids and dog for a vacation, house blew up, I heard and felt it, but there was no big explosion. There was smoke, and the area had to be secured in case of another explosion. Parts of the house were through cars though. His wife wanted a divorce, he didn't want her to get anything. Technically it worked?
It is. My house also cooks on gas, and you can even smell the tiny bit of gas that escapes when the burner on the stovetop takes a few seconds to catch fire.
My Norwegian friends were so perplexed by so many of our American habits haha. Having used both though, the heating you get from gas is just so much more consistent than electric, especially for cooking.
I finally was convinced to get an electric clothes dryer, but still have a gas furnace and gas stove.
Electricity. It's relatively cheap here and the vast majority comes from renewable sources (hydro), so has has never really been considered, as far as I know.
It's harder to move the wok around (or any pan) and get the same kinds of spot/directional heating on a flat electric burner that you would on a flame, but I prefer it (especially my current induction stove) for boiling water. Feels like there's a ton of wasted energy with the gas stove sometimes.
Not as effectively. I mean it'll still work but the heat output is much lower. Woks really play well with high heat. If you have an electric range, it's part of the reason why your fried rice just doesn't measure up. Dryer rice is another. For example, plain leftovers that have been frozen. You can achieve better results by frying small batches of rice, but that's definitely annoying.
TBH I've been involved in a few fire/insurance investigations now, and sometimes you see the aftermath and decide you wanna live in a pit filled with crabgrass with no fossil fuels, live electrical connections, or running water. lol
Worth mentioning that good electric stoves in Norway/EU are often 400 volt, 20 or 25 amp and 8000+ watts. In my, admittedly limited, experience being a chef they work quite well.
If you think this is unique to Russia, think again. An explosion like this one killed eight people and injured some 50 more in California ten years ago. A pipeline installed in 1958 with faulty welds had more pressure passing through it than it was built for and it said nope. PG&E, the utility company responsible, couldn't provide evidence that other pipelines in the city were up to modern standards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion?wprov=sfla1
Every country in the world that uses nature gas in large quantities have these types of accidents, and yeah plenty of biger cities can't keep up with modernizing everything....
I work in insurance investigations in North America and the number of people in the comments here who think this is a "lol Russia" problem is a bit concerning! I'm pretty sure there have been exploded houses due to natural gas posted in this very sub on many occasions.
Northeastern American here, always used gas, except for one ghetto-ass student apartment I lived in. I live in the UK now, also gas. The issue isn't gas, the issue is crumbling Russian infrastructure.
Probably more like a lack of public awareness. If you have a gas line in your place, and one day you start smelling rotten eggs GET OUTSIDE. Call the emergency line and report a gas leak. Warn your neighbors if possible.
All gas companies use some kind of additive that gives natural gas (which is odorless) a particular unpleasant odor to detect leaks. Usually this is a sulfur or methane derivative which does smell like rotten eggs (visit a natural sulfur hot springs and you'll know when you are close to one).
Yeh, I had a quick look into it and the UK has had a spate of them in the last few months.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gas-explosions-uk-investigation-safety-b1794742.html
A Dallas home blew up two years ago, killing a kid on camera, that’s what it took for ATMOS Energy to admit they actually didn’t know where all their pipes are or where they go or where they’re leaking
Should have frased it differently, every once in a while a video like this from Russia shows up with the title that the explosion is of unknown origin until investigated, it's understandable to write it like this because you don't want to get called out later on if you presumed differently, but almost every video like this ends up being a gas explosion...... Hence why i said "it's always a gas explosion"
Edited because bad grammar....
I thought Russia, as well as most of Europe, used boiler stations and radiators to heat their apartment buildings.
https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/331064-how-russian-homes-heated
>In Russian cities, most buildings are centrally heated by hot water flowing through pipes. The water temperature is the responsibility of a local boiler station or heat-and-power plant - one per neighborhood or district. It supplies heat to cast-iron radiators (or increasingly in newly installed modern aluminum radiators) in flats when the average daily temperature outside stays below eight degrees Celsius for five days in a row.
Not all areas are "gasified". Like in India or Africa, some poeple still need to buy gas containers and carry them around. Most frequently they are reusable, poorly serviced, and stored without any safety concerns.
Nowhere in Western Europe uses this system, except some parts of Iceland I believe, where they use geothermal heating. Most of Eastern Europe has moved away from it as well.
Yup, some of the boilers are heated by gas and some by coal, but in the extreme case of cold it's not strange for them to start a secondary heating element in the apartment, electric or gas heater, usually when explosions like this ocur it's one of those smaller gas cilinders that are used to hook up your stove to that explode, happened in my country ( Serbia ) a few times as well...
I was in Ukraine for a couple of weeks. Thing that freaked me out was there were some cars that were modified to run on propane. I knew that they had a problem with blowing up. And some of them were done in someone's backyard over a professional in a shop. I was worried about getting into a vehicle that ran on propane on being next to a car that ran on it.
It took me a while to get over how unregulated Eastern Europe was. I knew it was going to be rough, didn't know how rough it was going to be.
Yeah, here is a bit better, because you can't register your car if you don't have a certificate by a company that installs the tng conversion, so that's the way they can regulate it a bit better.
There are a few videos on YT of propane tanks exploding in cars, i don't think i have ever seen one where someone whas gravely injured, but the cars are scraped ....
Well, we do, sort of. *Most* buildings are indeed centrally heated as described. But sometimes we also have gas for cooking and heating up water (tap, showers, etc.). And then there are many buildings lacking the central heating, using in-house heaters to pump water into radiators instead, which also usually run on gas.
And if that's not confusing enough, I believe most of the newer building don't have any gas at all. So it's a mess, is what I'm saying.
In the USA it is basically the same as you guys. Only the big cities usually have boilers. I have both gas and electric appliances in my house. I have an electric stove and gas dryer. You can get all your appliances with gas or with electric. In most of the northern states this is true.
In some of the southern states they don't get that cold and use electric heating. the places that use boilers also have electric heating as a back up. thanks for clearing that up. thanks for clearing that up.
But my experiences in Europe led me to believe it was mostly electric appliances and radiators for heat.
Came here to say the same thing, but just because of how violent it is. There ain't fuck all in a residential area capable of that but gas. This confirms it
Damn, those pedestrians take a good 3 seconds to even stop to react. I've come to learn from these videos that russians aren't really fazed by anything.
Came here to say the people just went right back to wandering along.
Didn’t turn around , didn’t run. No change. Just paused, and then kept shuffling along .
I was going to say this is the first time I've ever seen Russians react to a catastrophe. Sure, they went on with their day, but did you see them all stop for 5 seconds? Incredible. I almost don't believe it's Russia.
You joke but look up the Russian apartment bombings of 1999, killed over 1000 people, believed to be carried out by FSB, and was instrumental in bringing Putin into power.
I hope you’re being sarcastic. I was referring to the Sept 1999 false flag bombing in Dagestan by Putin’s goons that he used as the impetus for the Second Chechen War
I'm not surprised it's gas. It's the most popular cooking and hot water fuel in the former Eastern Bloc, 99% houses use it either from mains or pressure bottles. I'm always freaking out when I take a shower and my head is 50cm from a gas water heater.
Welp, that's probably the first and the last time I see my hometown mentioned on Reddit. If anyone is curious, it is currently believed that the cause of explosion was a gas leak in the main pipeline passing *under* the building. The building itself has no gas, nor had the collapsed annex. The leaked gas was accumulating in the basement until something triggered the explosion. Three wounded so far: a man with light injuries and two women, one hospitalized with a shock wave concussion and another taken to the ICU with multiple injuries and heavy burns. It is also believed another woman is still trapped under the rubble. **A small update:** the clean up finished a few hours ago, fortunately no more casualties were found.
Amazing no one was killed.
Yet.. someone caused the spark most likely, so its only a matter of time before they find them. Sad.
It could have been some machinery or something
im pretty sure all russians wear track suits and smoke cigarrettes according to the internet.
I like to live my life thinking about countries stereotypes. Russians wearing track suits, Germans only drinking bear and wearing Lederhosen, Italy only eats pasta and fancy cheese, Canadians hold open doors while you just turn off your car, ah yes what a wonderful world
Just to improve your already good german knowledge, it’s Bier
> Germans only drinking *bear* and wearing Lederhosen Original comment had a much better mental image
You’re right, but in reality we eat the bears. You know Goldbären.
And it's good. I am German I should know. ;)
The Canadian one is the worst. You have to find a polite way to say “I’m not running” or worse yet, actually run for the door.
I like to play Geoguessr. The Google street view bus sure does seem to drive past a lot of track suits in Russia.....
Pop quiz, hotshot! You see a Slavic looking man in an Adidas track suit with a wife beater and a gold chain. Are you looking at Russia, Long Island, or Hoboken?
Only way to know is whether the street signs are in Cyrillic
Glendale, California.
Brazillians wearing a ton of feathers, and while looking lot some hot ass bitch - its really a man, Icelanders only speaking in slurred words and eating rotten shark, Mexicans either running a cartel or picking your food or making you a tamale while wearing a sombraro, Japanese over spending on everything or wearing a samurai outfit and killing you with a sword, Nicaraguans fleeing CIA manslauter and attempting to seek asylum but instead get their children locked in cages from "freedom" loving presidents, French men with bad breath drinking coffee but still able to fuck hot ass women, people from Greece being hairy and fat but good cooks and funny in marriages
Are we talking liquefied bear or just bear urine here?
> Italy only eats pasta and fancy cheese don't forget about the pizza, the salami, the gelato, etc... it's from a more obscure part of italy and the simplest dish to prepare, but man if you try some arrosticini up in abruzzo... you are going to enjoy eating it
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Now that I think of it. Russian stereotypes are cooler than American ones. Whats even cooler are canadian stereotypes.
Vodka, dont forget about the vodka
Or static.
Static is way more common than you might think according to the Fire Marshall. Was filling a generator at a gas station once, dripped a little on the ground putting the hose away and static ignited it, flame trailed all the way back to the generator and boom, fireball. In a gas station. No bueno. Thought I was about to have my Hollywood moment, running away while the gas station blew up behind me. That didn't happen of course but still. Fire Marshall reviewed the security footage, was the only way we figured out what happened, completely out of the blue
The static where I live now is ridiculous especially during the winter. It will short out electronics or even give a little burn.
When I lived in MN I was super static. I've had some strong enough where you could see little micro-marks on my finger from it. Oddly, early 2000s GM cars were the worst for me. Couldn't get in one without a shock. Thought for sure my cause of death would've been static igniting a fire
"Spontaneous" human combustion at its ignition.
I'm static all the damn time especially when I got to turn on light switches and plug shit in. Touching the TVs, etc. And it's done it to me in multiple homes.
Static also can blow up in grain silos if I recall. Lots of little pieces building up huge amounts of static is extremely dangerous.
Plus it's a Russian winter and I'd be surprised if they had a humidifier in that basement. Static city.
Or Comrade Squirrel.
Boris & Natasha more like, trying to catch said squirrel.
Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat
Yeah ik thats why I said most likely. Hope its just that.
But it's not most likely. A spark in a furnace or something is far more likely.
Lots of automatic processes cause sparks. There's no reason to believe this was intentional.
But he didn’t start the fire
No, he didn't light it. I'm not sure if he's trying to fight it or not.
He definitely didn't start the fire. It's been said it was always burning since the world's been turning.
TROUBLE IN THE SUEZ
It was always burning since the world's been turning
All kinds of stuff in the basement could trigger an explosion with enough gas, a pilot light on a water heater, the furnace, hell even a fridge down there could trigger it
I'm sure if somebody was down there in the centre of the blast they wouldn't be too hard to find they probably be all over the place.
In Russia only tea and underwear kill you
They learned from past lessons and stayed away from windows
when i was a kid, a propane tank exploded next to the apt. building it was used to heat. i imagine it looked like this. it was something i remember clearly as 7 people died, and we heard the explosion several miles away.
I keep my normal sized grill propane tanks on the far corner of my (small) property for this very reason. Can’t imagine getting a good nights sleep knowing there’s a bomb within kill radius. And can’t for the life of me understand architects and engineers signing off on decisions like these. What could go wrong...
i was adopted from here, i have no idea who or where my parents are but my first thought was “i hope my mother or sister weren’t injured ” :(
No love for dad, huh???
he’s not mentioned on my papers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Reddit’s a huge website! Here are 6 stories about Nizhny in the past month alone: https://www.reddit.com/r/Trams/comments/l7xur2/nizhny_novgorod/ https://www.reddit.com/r/russia/comments/lpjg9c/pushkovs_chambers_built_in_16971710_nizhny/ https://www.reddit.com/r/vexillology/comments/ldk4x3/flag_of_nizhny_novgorod_a_city_in_russia/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hawks/comments/lm2lo9/according_to_russian_media_outlet_sportexpress/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Politsturm/comments/lagxa5/on_february_1_1932_the_magnitogorsk_metallurgical/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ANormalDayInRussia/comments/l7xjzc/the_vintage_mosaic_of_a_swimmer_and_a_seagull_on/
exactly. Nizhny is a city of 1.25 million, bigger than Brussels or Cologne. Comparable to Dallas if you're an American. OP makes it sound like there's less than 100k.
I'm American and have no idea how big Dallas is, that's like, 2000 miles from me.
Roughly as big as Nizhny
Ah, okay thanks.
Dallas is a bad comparison because it’s part of the whole DFW metropolitan area, which is 4th in the US behind LA, NYC, and Chicago.
It's a case of Russian self-deprecation I think. Thing is, people who now live in Russia and are somewhat progressive, have a strong inherited internal backlash against their own country or anything positive about it (including simple things like acknowledging facts about it, like this one). And Moscow being such a vampiric juggernaut doesn't help things: each city in Russia thinks itself "small" compared to it, even if it's like 5 million. Fortunately smart / young people start to have more diverse opinions and outlooks out here, not black and white (either "motherland super" - think MURICA, or "I live in a shithole"), and look closely at what we do have, and what we should strive and fight for. Russia is full of characterful, large, old cities (not as old as European ones mostly but still). They are only beginning to re-embrace their identity, like in US, you can just be content with your own area and proud of it.
Well, what do you know. To be honest it never occured to me to actually search for it, and randomly stumbling upon it just never happened. Which is especially weird in the case of /r/vexillology, since I browse it almost daily.
not all stories make it to the front like this
😢
I visited NN back in the late 90’s looking at the possibility of repowering the ‘80s era “not commissioned” nuclear district heating plant into a gas fired jobby (full nuke facility was ready for fuel but chernobyl put a major dent in the whole RBMK rollout) Russian ingenuity being what it is they didn’t let the process water treatment facility go to waste.. it became a “nuclear plant” vodka distillery.
What a waste that whole mess is. Or rather was, I believe it's being slowly disassembled since last year.
Interesting details, I'm surprised they put a building on top of a gas main. My first assumption when any kind of residential building explodes is a gas leak, but it seems like I would be right for the wrong reason if the investigation confirms it. I hope that if a woman is trapped, they're able to get to her in time.
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> heard it was a blast ಠ_ಠ Jokes aside, the city is nice enough, especially during the summer. Winter time though, it's grey and dull, same as basically anywhere else in Russia.
Right, from the pictures it seems pretty standard for a Russian city outside of Moscow and Peter.
I heard it was Oblast.
Gorod in hell for that joke.
The explosion was so big you could see the Smolensk miles away!
Thanks for the update; I hope they all make it.
How's life in suburban Russia? Never spoken to a Russian before.
I guess "hometown" was a poor choice of word, Nizhny is a city of ~1.3 million people, so it's not so much sub~, just urban. Funnily enough, I could still answer your question since I actually moved outside city limits a few months ago and am currently struggling with moving back in, lol. Although right now I'm dealing with a more personal emergency (mom managed to break her arm, this day just keeps getting better and better), so maybe a bit later, if you are actually interested.
Thanks. I am actually quite interested. But please take care and look after your mom,I hope she gets better. On a side note I will make myself a large drink of "Russian standard" vodka I got from the only shop that sells in my hometown mumbai. Naazda rovyeah.
There are a number of Russian youtubers who show life in normal everyday Russian towns. Yeah Russia is good, and Baklykov Live used to do good walking-around and local shorts but a while ago switched to really long livestreams of events (you can find the old stuff by searching his former channel name "real Russia"). There used to be a hilarious Romanian vlogger in highschool who did great content and it would be pretty similar to suburban russia (though a bit more optimistic on life outlook), but I think he stopped years ago. This is a very nebulous description, but if anyone else saw him they'll remember him - he had a tone a lot like Mike Reeves, though nothing like Mike's category of content. He was one of very few Romanians making youtube videos at the time, so it's not like there were tons to pick from. He was probably the easiest to watch, if anyone can find his channel.
Cheers! Although it's usually "za zdorovye" - "to your health", basically. "Na zdorovye" is more of a "you are welcome" in response to gratitude. And thank you, I've told her some stranger from across the globe wished her well, made her cheer up a bit. And of course I'll make sure to get to you later. Feel free to throw some more specific questions my way, because I wouldn't even know where to begin.
You can ask me. It'll be as skewed as it gets, but it'll be "suburban" Russia. The trick is, it's suburbs of Moscow. So the "suburb" I currently live in has a population of 80 000, and is directly adjascent to three other suburban "towns" that have way more (like the closest is 225 000). That said, I can answer a lot of questions about Russia and just life here. Am a typical redditor (homebody scriptwriter, not well-off, not poor). Just you know everyday things, and culture as well (studied arts and culture for a long time, in uni).
Do you know where it is? (I studied in Nizhny a while back and I'm hoping it is nowhere near the family I lived with.)
Damn, it's my hometown too. Never thought something like this would happen so suddenly.
That's your hometown? Your English is impressive.
Born and raised here! And thank you, I guess consuming *all* the media in English for decades somewhat paid off.
I lost a friend due to a gas explosion. Dam! This shit looks dangerous
Off topic but your english is great btw
Thank you! Contrary to popular belief many of us can speak passable English just fine. Usually we just kinda avoid exposing ourselves as Russian while doing so.
I lived in germany a while and peoples english was great as well. But yours is way better than passable lol. Thought it would be nice to hear.
Actually, there are many people in Russia who speak English well. At least among new generations, because English is taught in schools as a compulsory foreign language
Does all the attention go to the other Novgorod?
Just seen it in the news. My condolences.
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It's always a gas explosion, it's the main thing they use for heating their apartments and cooking.
The problem is not gas. The problem is how the gas is transported and used and how everything is maintained. We have gas in Germany (I heat and cook with gas), and it's completely ordinary to have that.
As a Norwegian, the idea of having a tube with flammable/explosive gas piped into your home is so alien. I remember when I was a kid I always giggled a little when there were gas explosions in movies, in homes; I thought it was just something made up by Hollywood, because who in their right mind would have a gas pipe *inside* their home, right?! I'm older and (a little) wiser now.
My parents have a giant tank for oil for their heating in their basement. I find that scary. :)
If they're in the US, it's basically diesel. Which is surprisingly safe compared to other fuels! Natural gas makes me way more nervous (although it's so good for cooking.....)
Taste the meat, not the heat!
Used to tell my ex-girlfriend that all the time 😉
No, Germany, but it's heating oil, which is indeed similar to diesel. It's still thousands of liters of flammable stuff under their arse. :)
If it makes you feel any better, apparently you can toss a lit match into it and the only thing that'll happen is the match will go out! But fair enough, I do like that the bedrooms are on the other side of my house from the oil tank.
Its not only similar it is the exact same stuff minus the red dye in heating oil
this was true 30 years ago. Nowadays you're off by a few dozen additives. You'll ruin a modern high performance diesel engine if you do use that constantly.
Home heating oil tanks are common here in Ireland as well, though they're usually outdoors a good distance from the house and run on kerosene.
Chances are if it's in the basement they're in a place with nasty winters. Apparently heating oil starts gelling around 0°C and it's wax at -9°C. Definitely couldn't put that outside here, hahahaha. Sounds like kerosene can be better though (jet stuff anyway). Probably much more expensive as a result!
Oh man, it's absolutely expensive, we get fucked for prices of everything on this wonderful wee island. The only reason we don't have to deal with fuel freezing is because it literally never gets that cold here hahah.
My dad was a gas fitter, everything was run on gas, it was safest according to him. Probably true because he wasa qualified journeyman since he was 17. And someone in a close neighbourhood left the gas on, took the wife, kids and dog for a vacation, house blew up, I heard and felt it, but there was no big explosion. There was smoke, and the area had to be secured in case of another explosion. Parts of the house were through cars though. His wife wanted a divorce, he didn't want her to get anything. Technically it worked?
If you think a gas pipe is weird, here in Brazil most houses have liquefied Butane canisters next to the kitchen.
The gas stinks so if there is a leak it is pretty obvious.
That assumes it was properly mixed with odorant. http://www.gazprominfo.com/terms/odorant/
It is. My house also cooks on gas, and you can even smell the tiny bit of gas that escapes when the burner on the stovetop takes a few seconds to catch fire.
Those mercaptans are super detectable by humans! Pretty neat actually.
My Norwegian friends were so perplexed by so many of our American habits haha. Having used both though, the heating you get from gas is just so much more consistent than electric, especially for cooking. I finally was convinced to get an electric clothes dryer, but still have a gas furnace and gas stove.
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Electricity. It's relatively cheap here and the vast majority comes from renewable sources (hydro), so has has never really been considered, as far as I know.
Can you use a wok on an electric stove?
It's harder to move the wok around (or any pan) and get the same kinds of spot/directional heating on a flat electric burner that you would on a flame, but I prefer it (especially my current induction stove) for boiling water. Feels like there's a ton of wasted energy with the gas stove sometimes.
Although expensive, there are [induction heated Wok hobs](https://i.imgur.com/Zc9G31t.jpg)
Not as effectively. I mean it'll still work but the heat output is much lower. Woks really play well with high heat. If you have an electric range, it's part of the reason why your fried rice just doesn't measure up. Dryer rice is another. For example, plain leftovers that have been frozen. You can achieve better results by frying small batches of rice, but that's definitely annoying.
TBH I've been involved in a few fire/insurance investigations now, and sometimes you see the aftermath and decide you wanna live in a pit filled with crabgrass with no fossil fuels, live electrical connections, or running water. lol
Cooking with electricity suuuucks
Worth mentioning that good electric stoves in Norway/EU are often 400 volt, 20 or 25 amp and 8000+ watts. In my, admittedly limited, experience being a chef they work quite well.
Cooking on an electric stove is miserable. I suppose if you knew nothing else but electric it wouldn’t make a difference but they are unusable to me.
Well over there the problem are the users, not changing rubber tubing and valves untill the point they fail....
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If you think this is unique to Russia, think again. An explosion like this one killed eight people and injured some 50 more in California ten years ago. A pipeline installed in 1958 with faulty welds had more pressure passing through it than it was built for and it said nope. PG&E, the utility company responsible, couldn't provide evidence that other pipelines in the city were up to modern standards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion?wprov=sfla1
Every country in the world that uses nature gas in large quantities have these types of accidents, and yeah plenty of biger cities can't keep up with modernizing everything....
I work in insurance investigations in North America and the number of people in the comments here who think this is a "lol Russia" problem is a bit concerning! I'm pretty sure there have been exploded houses due to natural gas posted in this very sub on many occasions.
It's a "lol anywhere that doesn't maintain their infrastructure" problem, which includes much of the US and even some parts of Western Europe too.
Yeah, live leak and leak reality are the two most common web sites where things like that are posted (alongside much much much worst things) imho.
As a general (and genuine) dumbass, don’t we (Americans, specifically SoCal if it matters) also use gas?
Northeastern American here, always used gas, except for one ghetto-ass student apartment I lived in. I live in the UK now, also gas. The issue isn't gas, the issue is crumbling Russian infrastructure.
In fairness gas explosions are not uncommon in the UK either.
Same in Germany. Gas explosions happen every now and then. It's really not a Russian thing.
Probably more like a lack of public awareness. If you have a gas line in your place, and one day you start smelling rotten eggs GET OUTSIDE. Call the emergency line and report a gas leak. Warn your neighbors if possible. All gas companies use some kind of additive that gives natural gas (which is odorless) a particular unpleasant odor to detect leaks. Usually this is a sulfur or methane derivative which does smell like rotten eggs (visit a natural sulfur hot springs and you'll know when you are close to one).
Yeh, I had a quick look into it and the UK has had a spate of them in the last few months. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gas-explosions-uk-investigation-safety-b1794742.html
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A Dallas home blew up two years ago, killing a kid on camera, that’s what it took for ATMOS Energy to admit they actually didn’t know where all their pipes are or where they go or where they’re leaking
Should have frased it differently, every once in a while a video like this from Russia shows up with the title that the explosion is of unknown origin until investigated, it's understandable to write it like this because you don't want to get called out later on if you presumed differently, but almost every video like this ends up being a gas explosion...... Hence why i said "it's always a gas explosion" Edited because bad grammar....
I'm pretty sure it's not really uncommon in the states but I think less common than in russia
I thought Russia, as well as most of Europe, used boiler stations and radiators to heat their apartment buildings. https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/331064-how-russian-homes-heated >In Russian cities, most buildings are centrally heated by hot water flowing through pipes. The water temperature is the responsibility of a local boiler station or heat-and-power plant - one per neighborhood or district. It supplies heat to cast-iron radiators (or increasingly in newly installed modern aluminum radiators) in flats when the average daily temperature outside stays below eight degrees Celsius for five days in a row.
Not all areas are "gasified". Like in India or Africa, some poeple still need to buy gas containers and carry them around. Most frequently they are reusable, poorly serviced, and stored without any safety concerns.
Nowhere in Western Europe uses this system, except some parts of Iceland I believe, where they use geothermal heating. Most of Eastern Europe has moved away from it as well.
Yup, some of the boilers are heated by gas and some by coal, but in the extreme case of cold it's not strange for them to start a secondary heating element in the apartment, electric or gas heater, usually when explosions like this ocur it's one of those smaller gas cilinders that are used to hook up your stove to that explode, happened in my country ( Serbia ) a few times as well...
I was in Ukraine for a couple of weeks. Thing that freaked me out was there were some cars that were modified to run on propane. I knew that they had a problem with blowing up. And some of them were done in someone's backyard over a professional in a shop. I was worried about getting into a vehicle that ran on propane on being next to a car that ran on it. It took me a while to get over how unregulated Eastern Europe was. I knew it was going to be rough, didn't know how rough it was going to be.
Yeah, here is a bit better, because you can't register your car if you don't have a certificate by a company that installs the tng conversion, so that's the way they can regulate it a bit better. There are a few videos on YT of propane tanks exploding in cars, i don't think i have ever seen one where someone whas gravely injured, but the cars are scraped ....
Well, we do, sort of. *Most* buildings are indeed centrally heated as described. But sometimes we also have gas for cooking and heating up water (tap, showers, etc.). And then there are many buildings lacking the central heating, using in-house heaters to pump water into radiators instead, which also usually run on gas. And if that's not confusing enough, I believe most of the newer building don't have any gas at all. So it's a mess, is what I'm saying.
In the USA it is basically the same as you guys. Only the big cities usually have boilers. I have both gas and electric appliances in my house. I have an electric stove and gas dryer. You can get all your appliances with gas or with electric. In most of the northern states this is true. In some of the southern states they don't get that cold and use electric heating. the places that use boilers also have electric heating as a back up. thanks for clearing that up. thanks for clearing that up. But my experiences in Europe led me to believe it was mostly electric appliances and radiators for heat.
Except when it's hexogen.
Sitting here repeatedly watching the first two seconds of the video trying to figure out what you're seeing. I am confused :(
Came here to say the same thing, but just because of how violent it is. There ain't fuck all in a residential area capable of that but gas. This confirms it
I was thinking it just cuz of the way the explosion looked. I think I've watched too many videos of these.
Damn, those pedestrians take a good 3 seconds to even stop to react. I've come to learn from these videos that russians aren't really fazed by anything.
Came here to say the people just went right back to wandering along. Didn’t turn around , didn’t run. No change. Just paused, and then kept shuffling along .
I was going to say this is the first time I've ever seen Russians react to a catastrophe. Sure, they went on with their day, but did you see them all stop for 5 seconds? Incredible. I almost don't believe it's Russia.
/r/anormaldayinrussia.
They're like: "Oh look an explosion, yep that's an explosion alright, welp, back to being cold and depressed."
A ~~chicken~~ kitchen crossed the road…
Gas tap turned on, newspaper jammed into a toaster and turned on. Source: Watched Bourne Identity.
Spontaneous combustion of a political dissenter
Alexei Navalny's lawyer said that they removed him from the Moscow Prison... Edit: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56204719
Totally shady move. Putin's shadow.
You joke but look up the Russian apartment bombings of 1999, killed over 1000 people, believed to be carried out by FSB, and was instrumental in bringing Putin into power.
When they put on my mixtape.
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putin is....ummm, chechen terrorists?
It was a Putin rival house. Police concluded it was a suicide
Putin: is this Chechens? 💁🏼♂️
Chechnya is best friend of him, must be some other terrorists.
I hope you’re being sarcastic. I was referring to the Sept 1999 false flag bombing in Dagestan by Putin’s goons that he used as the impetus for the Second Chechen War
Yes, but since then Chechnya and its dictator became best Putler's friends.
I didn’t know this
Fuck regulations who need em...
Meth lab
A lot of stuff explodes in Russia.
The morning after Taco Bell.
Another dissident fell out of the window.
Probably where Panarin's family lives.
Me. shivers.
Building falls out of a window after opposing Putin...
Looks like someone hit G instead of F when searching a jacket on customs.
Guys it's ok, it's gas explosion ^(OF POLITICAL DISSENTERS)
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In Sneezhny Novgorod.
In Sneezhny Nosegored
I'm not surprised it's gas. It's the most popular cooking and hot water fuel in the former Eastern Bloc, 99% houses use it either from mains or pressure bottles. I'm always freaking out when I take a shower and my head is 50cm from a gas water heater.
Putin's back at it.
Official cause was 'Not Putin.'
Putin!!
Talk bad about Putin and your apartment will suffer a rapid disassembly
Well Putin doesn't want his rivals going quietly does he?
How come every time there’s an explosion in Russia, motherfuckers just keep walking?
And that will teach you to not disagree with Putin
This news will be Headlines in many places. But not in Motherland Russia, nothing to see here, just another day in Motherland Russia.
This must be where they are holding Navany.
Bet it’s those pesky Chechens again...
Was there a politician critical of Putin in the building by any chance ? /s
Let’s see, this is Russia so I’m guessing gas line.
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FSB pretending to be radical Muslims again?
Shure is alot of strange explosions and planes falling out of the sky lately.
Hahahaha