The Nature of things: airconditioner
Original text translated by Claude
1. Opening titles, voice-over
Those who weren't struck down by the angelic host never repented of their ways. They kept right on praying to demons and to idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, metal, and wood — idols that can neither see, nor hear, nor walk.
(The nature of objects has always been the nature of civilization itself. What surrounds a person is, in effect, the contents of all of humanity's collective mind.)
2. Voice-over
On the road to universal control, the world keeps working to give unpredictable nature — with all its authority of raw truth and lived reality — as little room as possible to compete with civilization.
The greenhouse effect stopped being just a newspaper headline a long time ago. Global warming has arrived, bringing with it a whole set of inconveniences that get in the way of humanity's smooth working rhythm.
The host walks past an office building, saying all this. A woman rushes past him and slips through an entrance door, talking on her phone — it's clear from the conversation that she wants to buy an air conditioner.
Fade in — the camera looks at a thermometer mounted on the double-glazed window of a Moscow office. The red line running up the thermometer disappears somewhere far above the frame, well past the 30-degree mark — so it's clear the heat outside is at least that. The camera then pans right into the office, where a sweaty office worker sits slumped back in his chair, arms thrown behind his head in exasperation. Promotional flyers for the very company whose office we're in are scattered across the desk: "We sell air conditioners!" they announce. The camera pushes in on his sweat-soaked armpit, discreetly covered by a white shirt. As it does, a weather report plays over the scene:
— The last time we saw weather like this was in 1634, during a terrible drought. World Meteorological Bureau research shows the average annual temperature has been rising by 4.5°C...
The camera pulls back from the armpit — now it's a print shop worker's armpit, seated beside a large printing press churning out one copy of the New York Times every two seconds. They're defective copies: instead of the correct masthead, the header reads "New yo Times." The print worker, sipping still-legal whiskey (it's 1902), inspects the defect and mutters in frustration: "Yo-yo." He sets the bottle down, and, puzzled and thoughtful, pulls a toy — a yo-yo — out of a drawer and starts rolling it up and down its string. He looks half-dazed. Suddenly the door bursts open — a man in a suit rushes in with papers, calculations, and a big smile on his face. He starts rapidly explaining something to the print worker in English. The camera cuts between the inventor and the print shop man, who looks utterly lost at first, then breaks into a grin once he sees the diagrams.
Subtitles run alongside: Hello, my name is Willis Carrier. My invention here is a device that...
He unrolls a blueprint.
...can maintain the proper humidity level in a room.
Carrier and the print worker shake hands. Cut to: a perfectly printed copy of the New York Times.
3. Voice-over
The first air conditioner was built in 1902, though its purpose at the time was extremely narrow. It was installed in a Brooklyn printing plant, where excessive humidity was hurting print quality. Something had to be done. The man behind that cooling machine — built to keep other machines running properly — was Willis Carrier, and print shop workers embraced his invention enthusiastically. Using it for human comfort came a bit later.
The woman we saw at the start bursts into the company's office and starts chatting with the "sweaty" clerk. We can't hear what they're saying, since it plays under a voice-over. He shows her brochures for the units they have available. She listens, nodding, and helps herself to some water from a plastic bottle without asking; the clerk, still talking, does the same — it's really hot. The clerk sits back down at his desk, grabs the air conditioner remote, and turns it down — the papers on his desk start fluttering, catching the woman's attention away from the brochures. She smiles, points at the unit that just cooled the room, and closes the brochures — she's sold, having felt the effect firsthand. She gets up and walks right into the airflow; the camera cuts to the clerk, who winks at the camera (an old trick), then pushes in on the AC vent, catching the woman's hair fluttering along the way, before diving inside the unit itself, where the cold air originates. The camera drifts past the unit's intricate components and follows the condensation water out through a drain hose to the street outside.
Fade out.
4. The first thing to figure out when picking your future air conditioner is the type. There's no real risk of getting lost in the options, since air conditioners generally fall into three categories. First is the standard window unit — cheap, easy to install, capable of supply-and-exhaust ventilation, though it has its downsides too: it's noisy, and it blocks part of the window. If you're constantly on the move and want cool air wherever you land, a portable unit was invented specifically for you. And if you've put down roots and genuinely call your home your castle — skip the rest and go straight for the option that suits you best: a split system with a wall-mounted indoor unit. Yes, that one.
That's exactly the option most exhausted shoppers land on — something like eighty percent of buyers. Are you with them? Or against them?
5. Fade in.
A drop of water falls from an air conditioner and lands on a passerby's head. Startled, he raises a hand and feels the top of his head. We see his face — worried, a mix of sadness and deep gloom, dark circles under his eyes, a hungry, restless look. He reaches into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes — empty. (The brand is blurred out.) He walks over to a nearby kiosk, hands over money, and asks for the same brand. The vendor's hand sets a pack on the counter; the man walks off, tearing it open, lights up, and exits the frame — the camera returns to the kiosk, and we realize the vendor is actually the host, standing behind the counter reading his lines. The camera pulls away from the host and lands on a TV, the kind that keeps street vendors entertained during slow hours. On screen: city streets, factory smokestacks, then passersby. Unexpectedly, our familiar smoker — the one who just bought his second pack — shows up among them on screen. He doesn't look good. His face is furrowed, pained. He walks down the street, smoking. The camera shows him full-length, then the screen switches to an X-ray view, revealing his lungs — we feel the full weight of smoking's harm, on top of everything else his body's already absorbed. The camera creeps closer and closer to this internal view, then pulls back — now for a detailed look inside an air conditioner instead. After touring its "internal organs," we flow out through the drain hose along with the condensation water, landing as a single drop in a small flowerbed on a neighboring balcony.
6. Voice-over
An air conditioner is, in a way, a set of lungs — breathing in everything floating around in the air. That's why the filter, and how often it gets replaced, is the single most important safety factor in air conditioning. Statistically, a person eats up to a kilogram of food a day, drinks several liters of water, and breathes in at least fifteen kilograms of air. While people can more or less keep track of what they eat and drink, the air that keeps them alive can easily carry a whole mass of harmful substances straight into their lungs. Sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, various lead compounds — and, without going any further, ordinary dust — all of it floats through the air of major cities and industrial towns, easy to inhale and just as easy for it to settle inside your body. Not all at once, but bit by bit, it takes a toll on overall health. Now imagine: an air conditioner draws in that same outdoor air, processes it internally, and releases artificial coolness back into the room.
7. Most modern units come with a triple-stage filtration system. LG's engineers came up with an interesting innovation of their own: an air-purification system called Plasma, which runs the airflow through a section charged at 4,800 volts, killing off microorganisms and viruses while breaking chemical pollutants and odors down into harmless components. But no one would have bothered inventing such an elaborate air-purification system if it weren't for a deadly virus that air conditioning itself once helped design.
8. Medicine first encountered Legionnaires' disease in 1976, in Philadelphia. City authorities decided to hold an American Legion convention there, and everything about that thoroughly American city was prepared for such a major event — except, it seems, for the fact that the air-conditioning system in the meeting hall hadn't been cleaned in a long time. Twenty-nine convention delegates came down with the terrifying illness; twenty-six of them died. The risk factor shared by everyone affected, guests included, was simply that they'd either booked a room at the deceptively "fresh" Bellevue-Stratford hotel, or had walked nearby.
The insidious thing about Legionella — the bacteria behind this deadly illness — is that its symptoms closely mimic pneumonia. Drawing on standard medical practice, doctors initially prescribed penicillin-based antibiotics as the safest bet for recovery — but against this industrial-age bacterium, the antibiotics did about as much good as ordinary vitamins. Because of that misdiagnosis, 34 people in Philadelphia ultimately died of the mysterious illness in those days. Everything fell into place a few months later: right after the Philadelphia tragedy, intensive research began into the microbe responsible, and scientists eventually traced it to a small, then-unknown bacterium that earned the name Legionella. Its preferred habitat is warm, damp environments — and condensation droplets sitting inside long-unmaintained air-conditioning systems turned out to be an ideal breeding ground. Legionella also thrives comfortably in plumbing systems, as long as it's warm, damp, and sealed off from nature. It's rare to find it in rivers, lakes, or other open bodies of water, where the natural environment tends to leave it cold and uncomfortable. From 1976 to today, outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease have kept recurring in different parts of the world, and the grim constant is that each outbreak, on average, still claims 10 to 15 lives.
9. The camera pulls away from an old air conditioner and lands in a large convention hall in Philadelphia. We can't see the hall itself, but the impression of a packed room is unmistakable. We see a gray-haired American man in a suit. Smiling, he walks up to the podium to applause, papers with his speech in hand. As he takes his place, microphones from various well-known broadcasters bristle from the podium in front of him. He glances at his notes, then out at the audience. A brief pause. He clears his throat quietly, then, looking down at his written speech, takes a deep breath — but instead of words, an ugly cough erupts from his mouth. The look of ceremonial delight drains from his face. The coughing grows louder, more violent; he throws out an arm to steady himself, knocking a few microphones to the floor with a burst of feedback. The coughing keeps building, more and more alarming — until he finally collapses behind the podium in a faint, amid an anxious murmur from the audience. The pages of his speech drift down to the floor, one by one. The camera pushes in on one of them. At the top, printed in English, it reads "American Legion," followed by a handwritten note from the Legion member himself, in small handwriting. Suddenly, from above, a gloved medical hand stamps the page decisively with a slanted red stamp: LEGIONELLA.
10. Amid all this, the convention descends into a controlled version of panic. Gasps, the rush of people offering first aid, and shouts of: "Somebody! Make air-conditioning with full power, please!!!!" Suddenly, as if from a powerfully cranked-up air conditioner, the page is swept away, and an entirely different view opens up before us. Rivers, lush forests along their banks, lakes — basically something out of a Rossiya TV channel ident. The camera races faster and faster over the water, and soon we're out over open sea, unmistakably southern in character. The lands that come into view after crossing the endless expanse betray their ancient age. We're in India. Indian villages flash by, elephants and all the accompanying details. Almost imperceptibly, we slip through a ventilation opening in a palace wall into the private chambers of an Indian raja. He's lying on his couch, playing chess with his chief vizier. To his left and right stand a pair of young boys fanning him with an ancient prototype of the air conditioner: peacock feathers, kept carefully out of the vizier's own airflow. The raja, running low on time, makes his move — promoting a pawn to a queen — and the vizier answers by moving his rook and delivering checkmate. The raja, unwilling to believe it, studies the board carefully and concludes he really has lost. He accepts defeat, and the fanning boys shift their attention to the vizier instead. The vizier, delighted, resets the pieces for another game. The raja wipes the sweat from his brow, shoots the vizier a sly look, and claps his hands three times. Two more boys come running and start fanning him too. The raja smiles.
The illness comes with severe pneumonia, fever, and damage to the central nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, and kidneys. Symptoms first appear anywhere from two to ten days after exposure, depending on the person's immune system. The pathogen behind this dangerous infectious pneumonia is a waterborne bacterium, and condensation droplets inside long-unmaintained centralized air-conditioning systems provide an excellent environment for it to multiply.
11. Voice-over
A teenager walks into his bedroom, sparsely furnished in an IKEA sort of way: a rug, a stereo in the corner, a mattress on the floor, a computer desk. He's holding a steering wheel and pedals for a racing-sim setup. He plugs the wheel into the computer, puts on headphones, loads the game... then suddenly gets up and leaves. A moment later he's back with a fan in hand. He sets it on top of the monitor, switches it on, points it toward himself, and starts the race. His hair blows in the artificial breeze, hands on the wheel, feet on the pedals, eyes reflecting the racing landscapes on screen. The camera pulls away from his face and turns toward the window, where the street below is visible. A motorcyclist speeds past the building. A moment later, a Gazelle van pulls up outside the same entrance; a woman and two technicians step out, the woman carrying a brand-new air conditioner — clearly, the technicians are there to install it in her apartment. She's on her phone, telling a friend she just bought an air conditioner and is about to have it installed — how much it cost, the best way to go about it. They disappear from view as they head into the building; the camera cuts back to our young racer. His screen reads "Game Over," and the boy is busy stuffing an advertising flyer for an air-conditioning company under the spinning blades of his fan, producing a comically farting sound.
His mother — the same woman who just bought the air conditioner — walks into the room, followed by the technicians. The boy obediently shuts down the computer and leaves the room as the installation begins.
12. Voice-over
Air conditioners are expensive — unlike simply opening a window for free. Which is exactly why, in these uncertain times, there's always a risk of running into shoddy work while still paying full price. To reliably avoid scammers, it's best to go through official distributors or certified dealers. Companies that have been in the market for years value their reputation and won't touch questionable equipment. Quality installation matters just as much. If someone offers to do it for next to nothing, think three times — it's a fairly demanding job requiring real skill and expensive tools. Reputable companies typically spend $3,000 to $5,000 outfitting a single installation crew, which is exactly what drives up installation costs. And while local installation runs 20–25% of the unit's price here, the same service abroad can cost 50–70%.
13. Voice-over
Heading into the kitchen, the son turns on the TV, which happens to be airing a program about air conditioners. The host appears on screen:
It would be hard to call any modern technical invention a marvel if it weren't for the collaboration of two completely different pieces of technology. The De'Longhi company has introduced consumers to its new GSM Gateway system. Now, using a mobile phone, you can control your home's climate remotely. The GSM control system consists of two units — a GSM module and a control module. For the GSM module to work, you need to insert a SIM card into it. In other words, you're essentially buying your air conditioner its own phone number, so it's always reachable.
14. The clerk we saw sweating in his office at the start of the story is leaving work — his day is done. He strides down the street with a spring in his step; Vasya walks past him. Vasya's mood is still miserable. Glancing back at Vasya's retreating figure with a bit of suspicion, the clerk pulls out his phone and calls his girlfriend. Close-up on his hand gripping the phone. On the digital display: dialing "Kisska." A moment later comes the familiar automated female voice: "The subscriber is not answering or is temporarily unavailable." The clerk ends the call and starts typing a text instead. He then gets into his foreign car, rolls the windows up tight despite the heat, and turns on the AC inside. The camera speeds away from him, racing down the street, ignoring traffic lights, turning right, then left, arriving at a high-rise apartment building, rising up to an eighth-floor window, and diving inside the apartment. It's the clerk's own place — an air conditioner mounted near the ceiling has just received his text message; suddenly a green light flicks on, and a strong stream of cold air rushes into the room. The vanes directing the airflow shift from horizontal to vertical, transforming into the doors of a storage closet.
15. The storage closet. A television and a remote control.
— Something's not right with me... I know I look every inch of my 54 inches, with plenty of color resolution... And yet, my conscience is eating at me.
— Over what?
— Over all the bright minds who wasted their time sitting across from me. Every one of my 30 channels, filled to capacity, is a straight, well-lit path to despair. So many people, putting off what actually matters until tomorrow, drowning instead in someone else's illusion of a life — someone else's achievements, someone else's news, broadcast around the clock if you let it be used the wrong way. How many cases of obesity and dullness are on my conscience... how many movies watched that, honestly, nobody actually needed. You know that 90% of what a person sees on TV is never absorbed or remembered. What I give people is chewing gum... If useful information is food for thought, then gum is something that just gets in the way of proper digestion — especially on an empty stomach...
— Oh, relax. If it weren't for me, humanity wouldn't be stuck in a television-induced hallucination. It's precisely because I was ever invented that people stopped getting up off the couch to change the picture. I also synthesized a whole new disease of the mind — channel-surfing. Do you know how many once-bright minds spend their days doing exactly that...
— Yes, yes! They don't even know what they want! They flip and flip through the channels. Cartoons — news — home shopping — a movie — a sports channel... on and on. None of the programs actually interest them, and yet they keep flipping. I do as I'm told, but honestly, I'm in shock... why does this happen?
— Because the moment they realize they're not actually interested in TV, they also realize they don't have the energy to get up off the couch either. And to give their TV-induced lethargy at least some illusion of activity, they press my buttons — feeling, in that moment, like they're in control...
— If it weren't for you... if it weren't for the remote... channel-surfing would never have existed at all. You little bastard!!!
16. The spinning wheel of an air conditioner smoothly morphs into a rotary phone dial, frantically dialing the digits three and zero. Something seems to have gone wrong — maybe an answering machine picked up. After a brief pause, the finger dials zero-three again. The camera pulls back to a wide shot, revealing an air conditioner mounted by a window, and, as the frame widens, we see who's calling — it's the same smoker from before (let's call him Vasya). His face is once again twisted in anguish; behind him, a woman lies under the covers, soaked in sweat — clearly seriously ill. She tosses and turns, delirious, running a fever above 41°C. Vasya glances back at her, his face contorting with worry once more. Then, startled by the long-awaited answer on the line, he starts explaining the situation. The camera rises toward the ceiling, closing in on the glowing coil of a light bulb. The light takes on an unnaturally white tone, then rushes away, followed by another white flash, and another. The camera pulls back, and we're seeing the world through the eyes of a young woman lying on a gurney, staring straight up. Hospital ceiling lights rush past overhead. The camera descends alongside the gurney, and we see the corridor ending at the ICU, where doctors are already waiting by the doors... The camera spins 180 degrees, revealing Vasya standing at the opposite end of the corridor. He can't go any further.
17. The storage closet, again.
— Hello, I'm Pablo Escobar's pager. Not entirely sure why he even needed me — he got everything important from couriers, over the phone. Really, everything he needed to know, he already knew without any communication device at all. There was only one time I was genuinely useful to him. It was the one message I ever passed along, buzzing in his pocket: it told him she was pregnant. Pablo was overjoyed. And once it landed, in his excitement, he started firing his Colt off in every direction.
— Interesting story, that. Mine's much simpler. I'm Carl Lewis's electronic stopwatch. I remember, before every one of his evening training runs, Carl would talk to me, ask me — every single time — to show 9 and 9 hundredths. But, as much as I loved my champion, I couldn't lie... And once I actually decided to shave a little off the results. I thought it might push him to train even harder, give him more drive... I thought it would keep him from getting complacent... Instead, he turned to doping, and got disqualified for it. I'm sorry, Carl! I meant well, and it just... went the way it went. And now here I am, lying around, useless to anyone, even with 9 and 9 hundredths still glowing on my display.
— Well, now at least it's clear what Pablo Escobar and Carl Lewis actually have in common.
18. Voice-over
We've all known for a while now that any device whose job is to change air temperature affects the environment and the ozone layer in some way, one way or another. The air conditioner is no exception — if anything, quite the opposite.
An air conditioner works the same way a refrigerator does. Cold is essentially taken from one environment and moved into another; a kind of exchange takes place. In a refrigerator, that shows up as warmed air just outside it, against sub-zero temperatures inside. But a refrigerator handles this task more safely — the food stays cold behind a tightly sealed door. A person in an air-conditioned room is a bit like food in that refrigerator, since the door is usually kept shut to keep the cool air from escaping the room.
As for what air conditioning does to the ozone side of the equation, we'll need a quick chemistry detour to make it concrete. Imagine what life would be like without ozone, without that thin blue halo wrapped around planet Earth. The main negatively charged light ions in our atmosphere are ozone ions (O3−), and the main positively charged ones are nitric oxide ions (NO+). Inside a sealed, air-conditioned room, though, the dominant contributors to light-ion content become water-vapor ions instead (H2O− and H2O+), while O3− concentration drops by a factor of 30 to 70, and NO+ drops by a factor of 3 to 6. In other words, the composition of natural air, and its original properties, get altered yet again — and not for the better. During air conditioning, the level of "beneficial" light ions drops by another 35–40%! That ion loss can be made up for either through artificial ionization or, just as effectively, good old-fashioned ventilation. In the first case, common sense runs into a mental block: why buy an air conditioner at all if you're still going to need to crack a window open for free anyway? As for artificial ionization, it only actually helps under one strict condition — if the room stays within the comfort range of 20–22°C! At lower or higher temperatures, ionization becomes far less effective, and can even be harmful — say, if the air already contains too much dust or toxic material, in which case we'd end up "activating" those harmful particles too, helping them penetrate the body even faster. On top of that, dust is an ideal breeding ground for disease-causing microorganisms, and it's not hard to imagine what artificial ionization would do in that scenario.
The condensation drain hose empties into a tray holding some balcony flowers. The flowers have wilted. A woman stands nearby, visibly upset by this turn of events. With a pained, wounded expression, she touches the withered petals, which fall away at her touch, dropping off the balcony. They land on the pavement below, and a moment later crunch under a man's shoe as he steps on them without noticing.
We cut to the United States, 1924. A man discreetly pulls a flask from his inner coat pocket and takes a quiet sip. The camera rises, revealing a wide shot of a typical American department store from the Prohibition era, with a sign reading "AIR CONDITIONER INSIDE." The man strides confidently toward the doors, loosening his tie along the way — as he enters, his shoulder brushes past the host.
19. Voice-over
More than 20 years passed between Willis Carrier's invention and the moment air conditioners started working for the sake of human comfort. The first documented case came in Detroit in 1924, when a department-store owner installed air conditioning in his shop and tripled his revenue within just two years.
An air conditioner is, at its core, a machine producing what might be the single most essential thing a person needs — air — which its owner can then shape however they like, adjusting humidity and temperature to taste. There are many approaches to air conditioning, and nearly all of them point to the same conclusion: it really is a convenient thing to have. Plenty of people can no longer imagine life without that bracing chill, plenty want to carve out a little world entirely their own, complete with its own custom-tailored climate.
The air conditioner has replaced people's need for a free, natural breeze with the simple desire to press the "plus" button on a remote. In doing so, this object has taken on almost cult status in more advanced social circles, bringing with it a whole new set of required knowledge — because mishandling airflow from an air conditioner can genuinely damage your health. Uncomfortable microclimates accelerate fatigue during both physical and mental work and slow down the body's recovery during rest. Which is exactly why it's worth learning how to use an air conditioner properly before ever buying one.
The host stops beside a building; the camera pulls back to reveal its façade — dotted all over with individual air-conditioning units. The camera zooms in on one unit and dives inside.
20. Inside the unit. Voice-over.
The core component of a modern residential air conditioner is a compression refrigeration system. Let's walk through its internal structure and operating principle using a split system as an example. The refrigeration system consists of a compressor, an evaporator, a condenser, a thermal expansion valve, and two fans. All these components, except for the fans, are connected by piping into a closed loop containing the refrigerant.
The compressor keeps the refrigerant circulating through the system. It draws refrigerant vapor from the evaporator, compresses it, and forces it into the condenser. There, the refrigerant vapor cools until it reaches saturation and condenses — that is, turns from vapor back into liquid. The thermal expansion valve lets liquid refrigerant pass from the condenser into the evaporator, throttling the flow so the liquid refrigerant enters the evaporator at low pressure — necessary for it to boil at a low temperature.
Here's how it all works together: while the compressor runs, pressure drops inside the evaporator, on the suction side, causing the refrigerant there to evaporate rapidly, absorbing the heat it needs to do so from the surrounding environment through the evaporator's metal walls. The compressor then draws in that refrigerant vapor, compresses it, and forces it, at roughly 10–15 atmospheres of pressure, straight into the condenser. There, cooled by a fan blowing outside air across it, the high-pressure, high-temperature refrigerant condenses back into liquid and passes through the expansion valve into the evaporator. As it squeezes through the valve's narrow opening, its pressure drops from condensing pressure down to evaporating pressure. The low pressure the compressor maintains in the evaporator lets the refrigerant boil, or evaporate, at a low temperature, absorbing exactly the heat needed to do so.
In short: running an air conditioner moves heat out of the space where the evaporator sits (indoors) and into the space where the condenser sits (outdoors).
After a tour through the unit's insides, the camera, as if it were the very air pulled in from outside, arrives inside the apartment of the woman who bought her air conditioner earlier that morning. The technicians who just finished installing her split system are in frame. She sees them out, pays, and returns to the room to enjoy her new purchase. Her son walks in; she shows him the remote and explains how to use it. They walk over to the window, where the outdoor condenser unit is mounted. Down below, we see Vasya again — he's just walking into his building's entrance.
The elevator doors open. Vasya steps out with grim resolve, walking straight into the sunlight hitting his face. His intentions are dark. The camera turns away from Vasya and points directly at the sun. The sun blinds the view with its brightness.
21. Host
Over the past seven years alone, roughly half a million air conditioners have been purchased in Russia. The air conditioner has become a marker of material harmony with the world, and proof that inside a properly equipped apartment, life follows its own independent rhythm, untouched by the outside world. And air conditioning's influence hasn't stopped at the walls of private homes. Any self-respecting driver, mindful of their passengers, has long since had a split system installed in their car, so that fully sealed windows and sunroofs while sitting in traffic no longer look like some kind of self-punishment to onlookers — proof, instead, that everything's fine with the fresh air inside.
It looks like, before long, personal air conditioners or "Personal Environment Zones" will hit the market — small split systems designed to purify, humidify, cool, and ionize the air directly in front of the wearer's face.
22. The device consists of several modules. The main one resembles a kind of collar, no bigger than a portable CD player, and handles filtering and delivering clean air. The second module — the power supply — clips onto the belt and is essentially a standard nine-volt battery, wired to the "split system." Several versions of the device exist, differing in price and features. The model called the Personal Cooling System comes with a miniature fan and a water reservoir, while the Personal Cooling/Warm System version adds a heating element. All versions include a special adapter for plugging into an outlet.
23. The screen fills with red light. A sweltering summer traffic jam, horns blaring, cars roaring through on green lights. The camera drifts slowly past the cars — most with their windows rolled all the way down, drivers fanning themselves with newspapers or handheld fans. Some honk uselessly into the void, the heat clearly becoming unbearable. We reach a familiar foreign car with its windows and sunroof shut tight. Inside sits our clerk, suit and all, smiling. He's in no rush — he doesn't need to run from the heat, he's got AC. The radio plays the theme from "The Children of Captain Grant" — "Sing us a song, cheerful wind!" The scene of complete contentment is capped off by a text message arriving: "Waiting for your call, Kisska." Reading it, the carefree clerk starts honking cheerfully along with the annoyed drivers around him.
A stylish young man strolls past on the sidewalk, sporting a personal air conditioner around his torso. He too looks carefree and happy, flipping through a guide to Moscow's clubs, glancing up at passersby now and then. At some point, a young woman catches his eye. She walks toward him; smiling, he steps aside to let her pass, but not before angling his neck-mounted cooler in the direction she's about to walk. Just as she draws level with him and is about to keep going, a fresh gust from his personal split system catches her hair; she takes another step or two out of momentum, then stops and turns back toward him with sudden interest — struck by his own personal chill. A conversation strikes up between them, and the two of them, thoroughly charmed, continue their walk together.
The camera swings back to the road, where the light has turned green and traffic surges forward again. Almost imperceptibly, the flow of Moscow street traffic morphs into a computer racing game. The camera pulls back, and we're back in the boy's room, still deep in his racing sim — only now, instead of the fan's propeller, a freshly installed air conditioner blows on him, adding to the full-immersion effect. His happiness knows no bounds.
Suddenly, a loud crash sounds from somewhere off to the side. It's Vasya, who's just thrown himself off the roof. His girlfriend died of Legionnaires' disease, which is exactly why he made this fateful decision. But the suicide attempt fails — he catches himself on an outdoor condenser unit.
25. Voice-over
No one's yet invented an air conditioner that runs forever. Sooner or later, every unit can break down, for any number of reasons. Let's go through the most common causes of split-system failure.
First, dirty filters in the indoor unit. These filters are just a fine mesh, located behind the front panel where air gets drawn in. Essentially, an air conditioner works like a vacuum cleaner, and the filters act as its dust bag. Cleaning them just takes a rinse in warm water and a few minutes to dry — removing and reinstalling them is no harder than swapping out a vacuum cleaner bag.
The second most common cause of failure is refrigerant leakage. A certain amount of leakage — around 6 to 8% per year — happens even with the highest-quality installation, since it's an unavoidable consequence of how the interconnecting piping is flared and joined. To compensate, the system needs its refrigerant topped up every 1.5 to 2 years. Otherwise, if the leak goes unaddressed and the compressor doesn't get proper cooling during operation, it risks overheating and eventually failing altogether — at which point the cost of replacing the compressor could easily have covered installing a whole new unit instead.
26. The racing boy's hair stops fluttering (the split system has been damaged); startled, he turns toward the window and locks eyes with Vasya's twisted, panicked face as he clings to the outdoor condenser — a moment later he tumbles down along with it. But the third floor isn't the roof. The boy turns away from the window and sits down on the floor, lost in thought. His mother rushes in at the noise, runs to the window. Both of them grab for their phones — the mother her cell, the boy the landline, his eyes falling, without thinking, on the fan he'd tossed on top of the wardrobe once it was no longer needed. His fingers dial 03. The camera cuts from the mother making her call to the now-broken air conditioner — no indicator lights showing on its panel. Then, suddenly, a green ready light flicks on.
Cut to the clerk's apartment — he's just gotten home. His phone rings just as he's arming his car alarm. Kisska is already waiting for him by the entrance; delighted, he heads toward her, answering the call on the way. Whatever he hears after his "Hello?" makes him freeze, his expression changing completely, and shout: "WHAT?!"
Ambulances race past him. The camera dives inside one — Vasya lies there, exhausted but alive, being rushed to the hospital. The camera looks back through the rear window. Rattled by the phone call, the clerk hurries back into his car, completely forgetting about his girlfriend.
The ambulance arrives at the hospital; paramedics pull Vasya out and unload him. The camera follows them, then lingers on an air conditioner hanging in one of the windows. The host appears in that same window, delivering his closing words on the nature of things.
The broken unit Vasya dislodged lies on the pavement below. Kids playing in the courtyard examine it curiously until their attention shifts to a couple strolling by arm in arm — the same "air-conditioned" pair from earlier. A striking-looking free-spirited artist walks past them, carrying scraps of wire and metal. His gaze lands on the abandoned, broken unit.
Push in. Pull back. The abandoned unit has become the centerpiece of a surrealist sculpture, sitting front and center amid the creative clutter of this eccentric artist's studio. The room is packed with technical odds and ends — televisions, lamps, unrecognizable metal structures, all in the same spirit. The broken unit now stands in for a nonexistent window set into the wall, shutters fixed on either side, with a metal curtain hanging above it.
Those who weren't struck down by the angelic host never repented of their ways. They kept right on praying to demons and to idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, metal, and wood — idols that can neither see, nor hear, nor walk.
(The nature of objects has always been the nature of civilization itself. What surrounds a person is, in effect, the contents of all of humanity's collective mind.)
2. Voice-over
On the road to universal control, the world keeps working to give unpredictable nature — with all its authority of raw truth and lived reality — as little room as possible to compete with civilization.
The greenhouse effect stopped being just a newspaper headline a long time ago. Global warming has arrived, bringing with it a whole set of inconveniences that get in the way of humanity's smooth working rhythm.
The host walks past an office building, saying all this. A woman rushes past him and slips through an entrance door, talking on her phone — it's clear from the conversation that she wants to buy an air conditioner.
Fade in — the camera looks at a thermometer mounted on the double-glazed window of a Moscow office. The red line running up the thermometer disappears somewhere far above the frame, well past the 30-degree mark — so it's clear the heat outside is at least that. The camera then pans right into the office, where a sweaty office worker sits slumped back in his chair, arms thrown behind his head in exasperation. Promotional flyers for the very company whose office we're in are scattered across the desk: "We sell air conditioners!" they announce. The camera pushes in on his sweat-soaked armpit, discreetly covered by a white shirt. As it does, a weather report plays over the scene:
— The last time we saw weather like this was in 1634, during a terrible drought. World Meteorological Bureau research shows the average annual temperature has been rising by 4.5°C...
The camera pulls back from the armpit — now it's a print shop worker's armpit, seated beside a large printing press churning out one copy of the New York Times every two seconds. They're defective copies: instead of the correct masthead, the header reads "New yo Times." The print worker, sipping still-legal whiskey (it's 1902), inspects the defect and mutters in frustration: "Yo-yo." He sets the bottle down, and, puzzled and thoughtful, pulls a toy — a yo-yo — out of a drawer and starts rolling it up and down its string. He looks half-dazed. Suddenly the door bursts open — a man in a suit rushes in with papers, calculations, and a big smile on his face. He starts rapidly explaining something to the print worker in English. The camera cuts between the inventor and the print shop man, who looks utterly lost at first, then breaks into a grin once he sees the diagrams.
Subtitles run alongside: Hello, my name is Willis Carrier. My invention here is a device that...
He unrolls a blueprint.
...can maintain the proper humidity level in a room.
Carrier and the print worker shake hands. Cut to: a perfectly printed copy of the New York Times.
3. Voice-over
The first air conditioner was built in 1902, though its purpose at the time was extremely narrow. It was installed in a Brooklyn printing plant, where excessive humidity was hurting print quality. Something had to be done. The man behind that cooling machine — built to keep other machines running properly — was Willis Carrier, and print shop workers embraced his invention enthusiastically. Using it for human comfort came a bit later.
The woman we saw at the start bursts into the company's office and starts chatting with the "sweaty" clerk. We can't hear what they're saying, since it plays under a voice-over. He shows her brochures for the units they have available. She listens, nodding, and helps herself to some water from a plastic bottle without asking; the clerk, still talking, does the same — it's really hot. The clerk sits back down at his desk, grabs the air conditioner remote, and turns it down — the papers on his desk start fluttering, catching the woman's attention away from the brochures. She smiles, points at the unit that just cooled the room, and closes the brochures — she's sold, having felt the effect firsthand. She gets up and walks right into the airflow; the camera cuts to the clerk, who winks at the camera (an old trick), then pushes in on the AC vent, catching the woman's hair fluttering along the way, before diving inside the unit itself, where the cold air originates. The camera drifts past the unit's intricate components and follows the condensation water out through a drain hose to the street outside.
Fade out.
4. The first thing to figure out when picking your future air conditioner is the type. There's no real risk of getting lost in the options, since air conditioners generally fall into three categories. First is the standard window unit — cheap, easy to install, capable of supply-and-exhaust ventilation, though it has its downsides too: it's noisy, and it blocks part of the window. If you're constantly on the move and want cool air wherever you land, a portable unit was invented specifically for you. And if you've put down roots and genuinely call your home your castle — skip the rest and go straight for the option that suits you best: a split system with a wall-mounted indoor unit. Yes, that one.
That's exactly the option most exhausted shoppers land on — something like eighty percent of buyers. Are you with them? Or against them?
5. Fade in.
A drop of water falls from an air conditioner and lands on a passerby's head. Startled, he raises a hand and feels the top of his head. We see his face — worried, a mix of sadness and deep gloom, dark circles under his eyes, a hungry, restless look. He reaches into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes — empty. (The brand is blurred out.) He walks over to a nearby kiosk, hands over money, and asks for the same brand. The vendor's hand sets a pack on the counter; the man walks off, tearing it open, lights up, and exits the frame — the camera returns to the kiosk, and we realize the vendor is actually the host, standing behind the counter reading his lines. The camera pulls away from the host and lands on a TV, the kind that keeps street vendors entertained during slow hours. On screen: city streets, factory smokestacks, then passersby. Unexpectedly, our familiar smoker — the one who just bought his second pack — shows up among them on screen. He doesn't look good. His face is furrowed, pained. He walks down the street, smoking. The camera shows him full-length, then the screen switches to an X-ray view, revealing his lungs — we feel the full weight of smoking's harm, on top of everything else his body's already absorbed. The camera creeps closer and closer to this internal view, then pulls back — now for a detailed look inside an air conditioner instead. After touring its "internal organs," we flow out through the drain hose along with the condensation water, landing as a single drop in a small flowerbed on a neighboring balcony.
6. Voice-over
An air conditioner is, in a way, a set of lungs — breathing in everything floating around in the air. That's why the filter, and how often it gets replaced, is the single most important safety factor in air conditioning. Statistically, a person eats up to a kilogram of food a day, drinks several liters of water, and breathes in at least fifteen kilograms of air. While people can more or less keep track of what they eat and drink, the air that keeps them alive can easily carry a whole mass of harmful substances straight into their lungs. Sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, various lead compounds — and, without going any further, ordinary dust — all of it floats through the air of major cities and industrial towns, easy to inhale and just as easy for it to settle inside your body. Not all at once, but bit by bit, it takes a toll on overall health. Now imagine: an air conditioner draws in that same outdoor air, processes it internally, and releases artificial coolness back into the room.
7. Most modern units come with a triple-stage filtration system. LG's engineers came up with an interesting innovation of their own: an air-purification system called Plasma, which runs the airflow through a section charged at 4,800 volts, killing off microorganisms and viruses while breaking chemical pollutants and odors down into harmless components. But no one would have bothered inventing such an elaborate air-purification system if it weren't for a deadly virus that air conditioning itself once helped design.
8. Medicine first encountered Legionnaires' disease in 1976, in Philadelphia. City authorities decided to hold an American Legion convention there, and everything about that thoroughly American city was prepared for such a major event — except, it seems, for the fact that the air-conditioning system in the meeting hall hadn't been cleaned in a long time. Twenty-nine convention delegates came down with the terrifying illness; twenty-six of them died. The risk factor shared by everyone affected, guests included, was simply that they'd either booked a room at the deceptively "fresh" Bellevue-Stratford hotel, or had walked nearby.
The insidious thing about Legionella — the bacteria behind this deadly illness — is that its symptoms closely mimic pneumonia. Drawing on standard medical practice, doctors initially prescribed penicillin-based antibiotics as the safest bet for recovery — but against this industrial-age bacterium, the antibiotics did about as much good as ordinary vitamins. Because of that misdiagnosis, 34 people in Philadelphia ultimately died of the mysterious illness in those days. Everything fell into place a few months later: right after the Philadelphia tragedy, intensive research began into the microbe responsible, and scientists eventually traced it to a small, then-unknown bacterium that earned the name Legionella. Its preferred habitat is warm, damp environments — and condensation droplets sitting inside long-unmaintained air-conditioning systems turned out to be an ideal breeding ground. Legionella also thrives comfortably in plumbing systems, as long as it's warm, damp, and sealed off from nature. It's rare to find it in rivers, lakes, or other open bodies of water, where the natural environment tends to leave it cold and uncomfortable. From 1976 to today, outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease have kept recurring in different parts of the world, and the grim constant is that each outbreak, on average, still claims 10 to 15 lives.
9. The camera pulls away from an old air conditioner and lands in a large convention hall in Philadelphia. We can't see the hall itself, but the impression of a packed room is unmistakable. We see a gray-haired American man in a suit. Smiling, he walks up to the podium to applause, papers with his speech in hand. As he takes his place, microphones from various well-known broadcasters bristle from the podium in front of him. He glances at his notes, then out at the audience. A brief pause. He clears his throat quietly, then, looking down at his written speech, takes a deep breath — but instead of words, an ugly cough erupts from his mouth. The look of ceremonial delight drains from his face. The coughing grows louder, more violent; he throws out an arm to steady himself, knocking a few microphones to the floor with a burst of feedback. The coughing keeps building, more and more alarming — until he finally collapses behind the podium in a faint, amid an anxious murmur from the audience. The pages of his speech drift down to the floor, one by one. The camera pushes in on one of them. At the top, printed in English, it reads "American Legion," followed by a handwritten note from the Legion member himself, in small handwriting. Suddenly, from above, a gloved medical hand stamps the page decisively with a slanted red stamp: LEGIONELLA.
10. Amid all this, the convention descends into a controlled version of panic. Gasps, the rush of people offering first aid, and shouts of: "Somebody! Make air-conditioning with full power, please!!!!" Suddenly, as if from a powerfully cranked-up air conditioner, the page is swept away, and an entirely different view opens up before us. Rivers, lush forests along their banks, lakes — basically something out of a Rossiya TV channel ident. The camera races faster and faster over the water, and soon we're out over open sea, unmistakably southern in character. The lands that come into view after crossing the endless expanse betray their ancient age. We're in India. Indian villages flash by, elephants and all the accompanying details. Almost imperceptibly, we slip through a ventilation opening in a palace wall into the private chambers of an Indian raja. He's lying on his couch, playing chess with his chief vizier. To his left and right stand a pair of young boys fanning him with an ancient prototype of the air conditioner: peacock feathers, kept carefully out of the vizier's own airflow. The raja, running low on time, makes his move — promoting a pawn to a queen — and the vizier answers by moving his rook and delivering checkmate. The raja, unwilling to believe it, studies the board carefully and concludes he really has lost. He accepts defeat, and the fanning boys shift their attention to the vizier instead. The vizier, delighted, resets the pieces for another game. The raja wipes the sweat from his brow, shoots the vizier a sly look, and claps his hands three times. Two more boys come running and start fanning him too. The raja smiles.
The illness comes with severe pneumonia, fever, and damage to the central nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, and kidneys. Symptoms first appear anywhere from two to ten days after exposure, depending on the person's immune system. The pathogen behind this dangerous infectious pneumonia is a waterborne bacterium, and condensation droplets inside long-unmaintained centralized air-conditioning systems provide an excellent environment for it to multiply.
11. Voice-over
A teenager walks into his bedroom, sparsely furnished in an IKEA sort of way: a rug, a stereo in the corner, a mattress on the floor, a computer desk. He's holding a steering wheel and pedals for a racing-sim setup. He plugs the wheel into the computer, puts on headphones, loads the game... then suddenly gets up and leaves. A moment later he's back with a fan in hand. He sets it on top of the monitor, switches it on, points it toward himself, and starts the race. His hair blows in the artificial breeze, hands on the wheel, feet on the pedals, eyes reflecting the racing landscapes on screen. The camera pulls away from his face and turns toward the window, where the street below is visible. A motorcyclist speeds past the building. A moment later, a Gazelle van pulls up outside the same entrance; a woman and two technicians step out, the woman carrying a brand-new air conditioner — clearly, the technicians are there to install it in her apartment. She's on her phone, telling a friend she just bought an air conditioner and is about to have it installed — how much it cost, the best way to go about it. They disappear from view as they head into the building; the camera cuts back to our young racer. His screen reads "Game Over," and the boy is busy stuffing an advertising flyer for an air-conditioning company under the spinning blades of his fan, producing a comically farting sound.
His mother — the same woman who just bought the air conditioner — walks into the room, followed by the technicians. The boy obediently shuts down the computer and leaves the room as the installation begins.
12. Voice-over
Air conditioners are expensive — unlike simply opening a window for free. Which is exactly why, in these uncertain times, there's always a risk of running into shoddy work while still paying full price. To reliably avoid scammers, it's best to go through official distributors or certified dealers. Companies that have been in the market for years value their reputation and won't touch questionable equipment. Quality installation matters just as much. If someone offers to do it for next to nothing, think three times — it's a fairly demanding job requiring real skill and expensive tools. Reputable companies typically spend $3,000 to $5,000 outfitting a single installation crew, which is exactly what drives up installation costs. And while local installation runs 20–25% of the unit's price here, the same service abroad can cost 50–70%.
13. Voice-over
Heading into the kitchen, the son turns on the TV, which happens to be airing a program about air conditioners. The host appears on screen:
It would be hard to call any modern technical invention a marvel if it weren't for the collaboration of two completely different pieces of technology. The De'Longhi company has introduced consumers to its new GSM Gateway system. Now, using a mobile phone, you can control your home's climate remotely. The GSM control system consists of two units — a GSM module and a control module. For the GSM module to work, you need to insert a SIM card into it. In other words, you're essentially buying your air conditioner its own phone number, so it's always reachable.
14. The clerk we saw sweating in his office at the start of the story is leaving work — his day is done. He strides down the street with a spring in his step; Vasya walks past him. Vasya's mood is still miserable. Glancing back at Vasya's retreating figure with a bit of suspicion, the clerk pulls out his phone and calls his girlfriend. Close-up on his hand gripping the phone. On the digital display: dialing "Kisska." A moment later comes the familiar automated female voice: "The subscriber is not answering or is temporarily unavailable." The clerk ends the call and starts typing a text instead. He then gets into his foreign car, rolls the windows up tight despite the heat, and turns on the AC inside. The camera speeds away from him, racing down the street, ignoring traffic lights, turning right, then left, arriving at a high-rise apartment building, rising up to an eighth-floor window, and diving inside the apartment. It's the clerk's own place — an air conditioner mounted near the ceiling has just received his text message; suddenly a green light flicks on, and a strong stream of cold air rushes into the room. The vanes directing the airflow shift from horizontal to vertical, transforming into the doors of a storage closet.
15. The storage closet. A television and a remote control.
— Something's not right with me... I know I look every inch of my 54 inches, with plenty of color resolution... And yet, my conscience is eating at me.
— Over what?
— Over all the bright minds who wasted their time sitting across from me. Every one of my 30 channels, filled to capacity, is a straight, well-lit path to despair. So many people, putting off what actually matters until tomorrow, drowning instead in someone else's illusion of a life — someone else's achievements, someone else's news, broadcast around the clock if you let it be used the wrong way. How many cases of obesity and dullness are on my conscience... how many movies watched that, honestly, nobody actually needed. You know that 90% of what a person sees on TV is never absorbed or remembered. What I give people is chewing gum... If useful information is food for thought, then gum is something that just gets in the way of proper digestion — especially on an empty stomach...
— Oh, relax. If it weren't for me, humanity wouldn't be stuck in a television-induced hallucination. It's precisely because I was ever invented that people stopped getting up off the couch to change the picture. I also synthesized a whole new disease of the mind — channel-surfing. Do you know how many once-bright minds spend their days doing exactly that...
— Yes, yes! They don't even know what they want! They flip and flip through the channels. Cartoons — news — home shopping — a movie — a sports channel... on and on. None of the programs actually interest them, and yet they keep flipping. I do as I'm told, but honestly, I'm in shock... why does this happen?
— Because the moment they realize they're not actually interested in TV, they also realize they don't have the energy to get up off the couch either. And to give their TV-induced lethargy at least some illusion of activity, they press my buttons — feeling, in that moment, like they're in control...
— If it weren't for you... if it weren't for the remote... channel-surfing would never have existed at all. You little bastard!!!
16. The spinning wheel of an air conditioner smoothly morphs into a rotary phone dial, frantically dialing the digits three and zero. Something seems to have gone wrong — maybe an answering machine picked up. After a brief pause, the finger dials zero-three again. The camera pulls back to a wide shot, revealing an air conditioner mounted by a window, and, as the frame widens, we see who's calling — it's the same smoker from before (let's call him Vasya). His face is once again twisted in anguish; behind him, a woman lies under the covers, soaked in sweat — clearly seriously ill. She tosses and turns, delirious, running a fever above 41°C. Vasya glances back at her, his face contorting with worry once more. Then, startled by the long-awaited answer on the line, he starts explaining the situation. The camera rises toward the ceiling, closing in on the glowing coil of a light bulb. The light takes on an unnaturally white tone, then rushes away, followed by another white flash, and another. The camera pulls back, and we're seeing the world through the eyes of a young woman lying on a gurney, staring straight up. Hospital ceiling lights rush past overhead. The camera descends alongside the gurney, and we see the corridor ending at the ICU, where doctors are already waiting by the doors... The camera spins 180 degrees, revealing Vasya standing at the opposite end of the corridor. He can't go any further.
17. The storage closet, again.
— Hello, I'm Pablo Escobar's pager. Not entirely sure why he even needed me — he got everything important from couriers, over the phone. Really, everything he needed to know, he already knew without any communication device at all. There was only one time I was genuinely useful to him. It was the one message I ever passed along, buzzing in his pocket: it told him she was pregnant. Pablo was overjoyed. And once it landed, in his excitement, he started firing his Colt off in every direction.
— Interesting story, that. Mine's much simpler. I'm Carl Lewis's electronic stopwatch. I remember, before every one of his evening training runs, Carl would talk to me, ask me — every single time — to show 9 and 9 hundredths. But, as much as I loved my champion, I couldn't lie... And once I actually decided to shave a little off the results. I thought it might push him to train even harder, give him more drive... I thought it would keep him from getting complacent... Instead, he turned to doping, and got disqualified for it. I'm sorry, Carl! I meant well, and it just... went the way it went. And now here I am, lying around, useless to anyone, even with 9 and 9 hundredths still glowing on my display.
— Well, now at least it's clear what Pablo Escobar and Carl Lewis actually have in common.
18. Voice-over
We've all known for a while now that any device whose job is to change air temperature affects the environment and the ozone layer in some way, one way or another. The air conditioner is no exception — if anything, quite the opposite.
An air conditioner works the same way a refrigerator does. Cold is essentially taken from one environment and moved into another; a kind of exchange takes place. In a refrigerator, that shows up as warmed air just outside it, against sub-zero temperatures inside. But a refrigerator handles this task more safely — the food stays cold behind a tightly sealed door. A person in an air-conditioned room is a bit like food in that refrigerator, since the door is usually kept shut to keep the cool air from escaping the room.
As for what air conditioning does to the ozone side of the equation, we'll need a quick chemistry detour to make it concrete. Imagine what life would be like without ozone, without that thin blue halo wrapped around planet Earth. The main negatively charged light ions in our atmosphere are ozone ions (O3−), and the main positively charged ones are nitric oxide ions (NO+). Inside a sealed, air-conditioned room, though, the dominant contributors to light-ion content become water-vapor ions instead (H2O− and H2O+), while O3− concentration drops by a factor of 30 to 70, and NO+ drops by a factor of 3 to 6. In other words, the composition of natural air, and its original properties, get altered yet again — and not for the better. During air conditioning, the level of "beneficial" light ions drops by another 35–40%! That ion loss can be made up for either through artificial ionization or, just as effectively, good old-fashioned ventilation. In the first case, common sense runs into a mental block: why buy an air conditioner at all if you're still going to need to crack a window open for free anyway? As for artificial ionization, it only actually helps under one strict condition — if the room stays within the comfort range of 20–22°C! At lower or higher temperatures, ionization becomes far less effective, and can even be harmful — say, if the air already contains too much dust or toxic material, in which case we'd end up "activating" those harmful particles too, helping them penetrate the body even faster. On top of that, dust is an ideal breeding ground for disease-causing microorganisms, and it's not hard to imagine what artificial ionization would do in that scenario.
The condensation drain hose empties into a tray holding some balcony flowers. The flowers have wilted. A woman stands nearby, visibly upset by this turn of events. With a pained, wounded expression, she touches the withered petals, which fall away at her touch, dropping off the balcony. They land on the pavement below, and a moment later crunch under a man's shoe as he steps on them without noticing.
We cut to the United States, 1924. A man discreetly pulls a flask from his inner coat pocket and takes a quiet sip. The camera rises, revealing a wide shot of a typical American department store from the Prohibition era, with a sign reading "AIR CONDITIONER INSIDE." The man strides confidently toward the doors, loosening his tie along the way — as he enters, his shoulder brushes past the host.
19. Voice-over
More than 20 years passed between Willis Carrier's invention and the moment air conditioners started working for the sake of human comfort. The first documented case came in Detroit in 1924, when a department-store owner installed air conditioning in his shop and tripled his revenue within just two years.
An air conditioner is, at its core, a machine producing what might be the single most essential thing a person needs — air — which its owner can then shape however they like, adjusting humidity and temperature to taste. There are many approaches to air conditioning, and nearly all of them point to the same conclusion: it really is a convenient thing to have. Plenty of people can no longer imagine life without that bracing chill, plenty want to carve out a little world entirely their own, complete with its own custom-tailored climate.
The air conditioner has replaced people's need for a free, natural breeze with the simple desire to press the "plus" button on a remote. In doing so, this object has taken on almost cult status in more advanced social circles, bringing with it a whole new set of required knowledge — because mishandling airflow from an air conditioner can genuinely damage your health. Uncomfortable microclimates accelerate fatigue during both physical and mental work and slow down the body's recovery during rest. Which is exactly why it's worth learning how to use an air conditioner properly before ever buying one.
The host stops beside a building; the camera pulls back to reveal its façade — dotted all over with individual air-conditioning units. The camera zooms in on one unit and dives inside.
20. Inside the unit. Voice-over.
The core component of a modern residential air conditioner is a compression refrigeration system. Let's walk through its internal structure and operating principle using a split system as an example. The refrigeration system consists of a compressor, an evaporator, a condenser, a thermal expansion valve, and two fans. All these components, except for the fans, are connected by piping into a closed loop containing the refrigerant.
The compressor keeps the refrigerant circulating through the system. It draws refrigerant vapor from the evaporator, compresses it, and forces it into the condenser. There, the refrigerant vapor cools until it reaches saturation and condenses — that is, turns from vapor back into liquid. The thermal expansion valve lets liquid refrigerant pass from the condenser into the evaporator, throttling the flow so the liquid refrigerant enters the evaporator at low pressure — necessary for it to boil at a low temperature.
Here's how it all works together: while the compressor runs, pressure drops inside the evaporator, on the suction side, causing the refrigerant there to evaporate rapidly, absorbing the heat it needs to do so from the surrounding environment through the evaporator's metal walls. The compressor then draws in that refrigerant vapor, compresses it, and forces it, at roughly 10–15 atmospheres of pressure, straight into the condenser. There, cooled by a fan blowing outside air across it, the high-pressure, high-temperature refrigerant condenses back into liquid and passes through the expansion valve into the evaporator. As it squeezes through the valve's narrow opening, its pressure drops from condensing pressure down to evaporating pressure. The low pressure the compressor maintains in the evaporator lets the refrigerant boil, or evaporate, at a low temperature, absorbing exactly the heat needed to do so.
In short: running an air conditioner moves heat out of the space where the evaporator sits (indoors) and into the space where the condenser sits (outdoors).
After a tour through the unit's insides, the camera, as if it were the very air pulled in from outside, arrives inside the apartment of the woman who bought her air conditioner earlier that morning. The technicians who just finished installing her split system are in frame. She sees them out, pays, and returns to the room to enjoy her new purchase. Her son walks in; she shows him the remote and explains how to use it. They walk over to the window, where the outdoor condenser unit is mounted. Down below, we see Vasya again — he's just walking into his building's entrance.
The elevator doors open. Vasya steps out with grim resolve, walking straight into the sunlight hitting his face. His intentions are dark. The camera turns away from Vasya and points directly at the sun. The sun blinds the view with its brightness.
21. Host
Over the past seven years alone, roughly half a million air conditioners have been purchased in Russia. The air conditioner has become a marker of material harmony with the world, and proof that inside a properly equipped apartment, life follows its own independent rhythm, untouched by the outside world. And air conditioning's influence hasn't stopped at the walls of private homes. Any self-respecting driver, mindful of their passengers, has long since had a split system installed in their car, so that fully sealed windows and sunroofs while sitting in traffic no longer look like some kind of self-punishment to onlookers — proof, instead, that everything's fine with the fresh air inside.
It looks like, before long, personal air conditioners or "Personal Environment Zones" will hit the market — small split systems designed to purify, humidify, cool, and ionize the air directly in front of the wearer's face.
22. The device consists of several modules. The main one resembles a kind of collar, no bigger than a portable CD player, and handles filtering and delivering clean air. The second module — the power supply — clips onto the belt and is essentially a standard nine-volt battery, wired to the "split system." Several versions of the device exist, differing in price and features. The model called the Personal Cooling System comes with a miniature fan and a water reservoir, while the Personal Cooling/Warm System version adds a heating element. All versions include a special adapter for plugging into an outlet.
23. The screen fills with red light. A sweltering summer traffic jam, horns blaring, cars roaring through on green lights. The camera drifts slowly past the cars — most with their windows rolled all the way down, drivers fanning themselves with newspapers or handheld fans. Some honk uselessly into the void, the heat clearly becoming unbearable. We reach a familiar foreign car with its windows and sunroof shut tight. Inside sits our clerk, suit and all, smiling. He's in no rush — he doesn't need to run from the heat, he's got AC. The radio plays the theme from "The Children of Captain Grant" — "Sing us a song, cheerful wind!" The scene of complete contentment is capped off by a text message arriving: "Waiting for your call, Kisska." Reading it, the carefree clerk starts honking cheerfully along with the annoyed drivers around him.
A stylish young man strolls past on the sidewalk, sporting a personal air conditioner around his torso. He too looks carefree and happy, flipping through a guide to Moscow's clubs, glancing up at passersby now and then. At some point, a young woman catches his eye. She walks toward him; smiling, he steps aside to let her pass, but not before angling his neck-mounted cooler in the direction she's about to walk. Just as she draws level with him and is about to keep going, a fresh gust from his personal split system catches her hair; she takes another step or two out of momentum, then stops and turns back toward him with sudden interest — struck by his own personal chill. A conversation strikes up between them, and the two of them, thoroughly charmed, continue their walk together.
The camera swings back to the road, where the light has turned green and traffic surges forward again. Almost imperceptibly, the flow of Moscow street traffic morphs into a computer racing game. The camera pulls back, and we're back in the boy's room, still deep in his racing sim — only now, instead of the fan's propeller, a freshly installed air conditioner blows on him, adding to the full-immersion effect. His happiness knows no bounds.
Suddenly, a loud crash sounds from somewhere off to the side. It's Vasya, who's just thrown himself off the roof. His girlfriend died of Legionnaires' disease, which is exactly why he made this fateful decision. But the suicide attempt fails — he catches himself on an outdoor condenser unit.
25. Voice-over
No one's yet invented an air conditioner that runs forever. Sooner or later, every unit can break down, for any number of reasons. Let's go through the most common causes of split-system failure.
First, dirty filters in the indoor unit. These filters are just a fine mesh, located behind the front panel where air gets drawn in. Essentially, an air conditioner works like a vacuum cleaner, and the filters act as its dust bag. Cleaning them just takes a rinse in warm water and a few minutes to dry — removing and reinstalling them is no harder than swapping out a vacuum cleaner bag.
The second most common cause of failure is refrigerant leakage. A certain amount of leakage — around 6 to 8% per year — happens even with the highest-quality installation, since it's an unavoidable consequence of how the interconnecting piping is flared and joined. To compensate, the system needs its refrigerant topped up every 1.5 to 2 years. Otherwise, if the leak goes unaddressed and the compressor doesn't get proper cooling during operation, it risks overheating and eventually failing altogether — at which point the cost of replacing the compressor could easily have covered installing a whole new unit instead.
26. The racing boy's hair stops fluttering (the split system has been damaged); startled, he turns toward the window and locks eyes with Vasya's twisted, panicked face as he clings to the outdoor condenser — a moment later he tumbles down along with it. But the third floor isn't the roof. The boy turns away from the window and sits down on the floor, lost in thought. His mother rushes in at the noise, runs to the window. Both of them grab for their phones — the mother her cell, the boy the landline, his eyes falling, without thinking, on the fan he'd tossed on top of the wardrobe once it was no longer needed. His fingers dial 03. The camera cuts from the mother making her call to the now-broken air conditioner — no indicator lights showing on its panel. Then, suddenly, a green ready light flicks on.
Cut to the clerk's apartment — he's just gotten home. His phone rings just as he's arming his car alarm. Kisska is already waiting for him by the entrance; delighted, he heads toward her, answering the call on the way. Whatever he hears after his "Hello?" makes him freeze, his expression changing completely, and shout: "WHAT?!"
Ambulances race past him. The camera dives inside one — Vasya lies there, exhausted but alive, being rushed to the hospital. The camera looks back through the rear window. Rattled by the phone call, the clerk hurries back into his car, completely forgetting about his girlfriend.
The ambulance arrives at the hospital; paramedics pull Vasya out and unload him. The camera follows them, then lingers on an air conditioner hanging in one of the windows. The host appears in that same window, delivering his closing words on the nature of things.
The broken unit Vasya dislodged lies on the pavement below. Kids playing in the courtyard examine it curiously until their attention shifts to a couple strolling by arm in arm — the same "air-conditioned" pair from earlier. A striking-looking free-spirited artist walks past them, carrying scraps of wire and metal. His gaze lands on the abandoned, broken unit.
Push in. Pull back. The abandoned unit has become the centerpiece of a surrealist sculpture, sitting front and center amid the creative clutter of this eccentric artist's studio. The room is packed with technical odds and ends — televisions, lamps, unrecognizable metal structures, all in the same spirit. The broken unit now stands in for a nonexistent window set into the wall, shutters fixed on either side, with a metal curtain hanging above it.