Quality, Treatment Varies in Russia

There are few problems more worrying (вызывать беспокойство) in Russia than the quality of the tap water. This water, with its unpleasant taste and smell, comes mainly from polluted rivers: it is said to be full of metals, sulfates and other chemical products or to transmit diseases and cause dental decay.

Tourists and Western expatriates (эмигранты) see this as another example of catastrophic hygiene conditions in Russia. The Russians themselves are alarmed by what they read in the papers. They refuse to drink tap water without having filtered it or boiled it beforehand.

“Your Health” interviewed half a dozen Russian and foreign scientists in order to find out the truth. The scientists recognized that the quality of tap water in Russia is not satisfactory. Over 20 percent of the water analyses performed throughout Russia proved sanitary or chemical parameters of the water were beyond (выше) the recommended norm. Microbiological standards were not met in 11 percent of the cases. To tell the truth, one glass in five was simply unpleasant in taste or odor, or even contained an excessive amount of noxious chemical compounds. More than one in ten did not meet all standards from the microbiological point of view.

The areas where the water is most defective in microbiological terms include Kaliningrad, Smolensk, Omsk, Kaluga, Ingushetia and Kalmykia. From a sanitary and chemical point of view, the worst results come from Daghestan, the northern region, Kurgan, Chukot and Kalmykia. According to the research taking into 90 percent of the country’s network of drinkable water does not meet the recommended sanitary, chemical or microbiological standards, either permanently or periodically.

This state of affairs can be explained, first of all, by the pollution of its initial supply source, rivers and streams, into which industries and agriculture dump large amounts of waste each day, chemical compounds like nitrates, lead, mercury, zinc, copper, nickel etc. Unfortunately, water treatment stations do not always have the necessary material and technical resources to eliminate all these substances.

The provinces receive insufficient (недостаточный) quantity of the active ingredients needed to ensure quality drinking water; some villages do not even have the equipment necessary for cleaning the water.

The network for drinking water is very old in parts and it is an additional factor in the degradation of the quality of the water.

So, the seriousness of the water problem in Russia can not be denied (отрицать). Biologically-polluted water can play a role in the transmission of certain diseases. Chemically polluted water can have serious, long-term consequences for those who drink it on a regular basis. It can attack the liver, the kidneys and the nervous system. Certain chemical compounds can even have serious effects on genetic makeup and encourage the development of cancer.

The problems connected with tap water are in effect (в сущности) a true reflection of the serious ecological crisis sweeping the country and the deplorable state of health of the population. Modernization of water treatment plants and of the water network demands a considerable investment and it would take years. Since the state does not have the necessary financial means (средства) for this, Russians will have to live with the current situation without any perspective view in the near future.

1. The quality of tap water in Russia is a real problem, isn’t it?

2. Why is the quality of tap water unsatisfactory?

3. Where is the water most defective from the micro-biological point of view?

4. Where is the quality of tap water unsatisfactory from the sanitary and chemical point of view?

5.Can this state of affairs with water in our country be explained by the pollution of the initial supply sources only?

6. What should be done to improve the situation with the quality of tap water in Russia?

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