Volgograd Schoolchildren Freeze in Unheated Classrooms

In Volgograd, students of schools, gymnasiums, and lyceums are forced to study in unheated premises. Reports of cold in classrooms are coming from all districts of the city since early morning. Many parents, fearing for their children«s health, preferred to leave them at home.

Numerous complaints are being published on social networks:

• «School No. 3, Krasnooktyabrsky District, is also cold. Especially the English classroom — the radiators are icy.»
• «School No. 88, Traktorozavodsky District, children have been forced not to attend school for the third day. We are studying at home and with tutors! If the apartment is just cold, then at school it»s freezing!«
• »In Krasnoarmeysky District, School No. 125, it«s cold in the classrooms, the radiators are cold!»
• «In Gymnasium No. 16 of Traktorozavodsky District, it»s also a freezer. Lessons are not shortened. They study, as always, without jackets.«
• »School No. 33, Dzerzhinsky District, children are freezing. Teachers are sitting in fur coats in the classroom.«

The problem also affects rural schools in Volgograd Oblast. For example, in the khutor of Lozhki, Kalachevsky District, the temperature in the building drops to 4–7 degrees Celsius (39–45°F). «Many parents are not sending their children to school, and I won»t even mention the kindergarten. It«s both cold and there»s an unbearable stench, many children have a gag reflex, but the management just shrugs their hands.«

Earlier, a similar situation arose at School No. 19, where parents, according to reports, were required to purchase heaters for classrooms. Utility services cited malfunctions in internal heating networks, and the director of the educational institution blamed the company «Koncessii» for what happened.