the situation keeps getting worse...

If anyone needs a reason to be thankful, be thankful that you are not living in (or being born in) Tajikistan through one of the coldest winters on record. Even though this is the time when utilities are needed the most, the government has continued to keep people at it's mercy by limiting electricity and gas which people rely on to stay warm. The President recently made a speech telling everyone to "save your money and buy coal", however this just goes to show how ignorant the government is of the lives of its people. When the average person only makes $20/month, how are they supposed to spend the thousands of dollars it costs to heat a house for a single winter on coal? (we buy it for the office, it is VERY expensive). The average yearly income isn't enough to survive a winter if every cent (durum) was spent on coal.

I have heard through friends and co-workers of babies dying, freezing to death in the middle of the night, as well as elderly who already have poor circulation. Homeless people die, frozen to the ground along the streets. Here is an article that will make you shake your head... in a time when we can send people to the moon, map their DNA, and clone living creatures, this country still can't manage to provide the basic essentials for the survival of it's citizens-

Children die because of electricity cut-offs
Posted by Vadim on January 18th, 2008

The energy crisis is Tajikistan is so severe that newly born children die in maternity hospitals because of electricity cut-offs. It is unbelievable but even hospitals are put on schedule of electricity cut-offs. It will be hard to find out who is responsible for the recent deaths of children in the hospitals - doctors or power engineers - but the story of a girl who died because of electricity cut-off in a maternity hospital shocked everyone. This story was excerpted and translated from an article of Asia Plus about the recent deaths of newly born babies in our hospitals.

My wife was taken to a maternity hospital on 8th of January in the evening. Unfortunately her blood pressure went down and doctors decided to make a cesarean operation. The operation went well. The baby (girl) was in a good condition but she needed artificial lung ventilation. However at 9 p.m. electricity was cut off and the ventilation equipment went off as well.
Doctors launched an electricity generator. It took about ten minutes. Again the hospital had electricity. But after about 7 minutes the generator went off. Doctors could not start the generator. Something went wrong with it and obviously the doctors had no skills to fix it.
We called to the local electricity supply department, but a woman who answered, said that electricity was cut off in the area of the hospital according to the schedule. And in addition to that she complained that they are [in the department] tired of answering to everyday phone-calls from this hospital about the same issue.

It was the first time in my life that I felt so helpless. My long-awaited baby was dieing and I couldn’t help him. I felt as if the whole world does not care about the death of my baby.
After that I immediately decided to go home and bring my own generator. At that time, doctors were strained to the utmost trying to help the baby breath. It took me about an hour to bring the generator to the hospital and start it.

At that night two babies needed the artificial lung ventilation because both of them were born with the help of cesarean operation. My daughter was born on 34th week and weighed about 2 kilos. And before the electricity cut off doctors said that she was in a stable condition and she had a chance to live…

But she couldn’t survive.

At about 11 p.m. we had electricity. By that time it was hard for my baby to breath. By midnight her condition went even worse, but her organism was desperately struggling for life. She died at 4 a.m. and at around 11 a.m. she was laid to rest.

We waited for her for so long and we lost her so absurdly.