St. Petersburg and Moscow are great places to live if you are rich. Otherwise, not so much.
Find a youtube channel over 3 years old showing devastating flooding.
Now, you can find some harshness of life in this young lady’s channel. She has become a big vlogger. From Yakutsk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAZ4GXMwH4M
That is post war, from a pre war channel. No evidence of exploding pipes, and if there was, it would be justified.