That's not quite correct. Thermal power plants supply heat, but local water heating stations can typically work autonomously.
Hot water is typically turned off to allow for maintenance and tests. Hot water pipes corrode about 10-20 _times_ faster than cold water pipes.
Agree with the sentiment on OP. These libertarian views are so often held by comfortable Americans who've never seen what an absence of government looks like.
As someone who is currently living in Central Asia, yes I do have no water for two weeks a year, they switch it off for "maintenance". However all last 5+ years, I had water through summer, with only occasional failures. We did have no heating one year, but water was all the time present.
Respectfully you have no idea, planned hot water downtime in summer is reality for most cities in Russia (including SPb with official maximum length of two weeks), don't try to paint it look better than the mess it is.
Other post-Soviet countries probably do better, especially in Europe, but I have no info
> Old Soviet style communities get hot water from central plants, mainly used for heating but also for showers, so when winter is over, they shutdown the heating plants for the season and no hot water at all
Because if you reread it, you'll get the ridiculousness of that claim. So what you saying that situation in ex-USSR is such that there is only hot water during the winter. This is ridiculous, even taking into account grievances you have about Russian infrastructure.
What is your point?
By the way, that's not quite a flex since people still use hot water to wash heads when there's no central hot water. My friends and relatives in Russia were doing that before this month ;) (spoiler: kettles and buckets)
> It is so incorrect, it is boderline idiotic urban legend. post-Soviet cities have hot water year around.
Probably every city in Russia most certainly don't have water "all year around", and never have going back into USSR times.
How the plants work exactly I have nothing to say, but if there is an urban legend perpetuated here then I'll tell it which it is: it's how good soviet and Russian infrastructure is.