No Power, No Problem

Last night, when I got back from the archives, my hotel staff informed me the whole of Chernivtsi would be without power from 9AM to 4 PM Friday.

I got up for my usual breakfast and stepped outside to witness, nothing much. Talk about anti-climactic. Trolley buses couldn't go through the city centre and traffic lights were out but not much else.

Ukraine has actually been dealing with quite a few power outages in the last few months. On December 23, the nearby city of Ivano-Frankivsk lost power for no discernible reason. Almost 800K residents of the larger region lost power for almost an hour. Weeks later, the culprit was revealed: hackers had infected critical computer systems with malicious programs that wiped out the electrical grid and substation computer systems. US and Ukrainian officials think that the groups may have some affiliation to the Russian government, but there is no definitive link.

In the case of Chernivtsi, the fact I heard about it in advance and the listing on the regional power authorities website point to repairs and maintenance.

Just hope it's back by the time I get home when it's dark out!