Parts of Skopje aren't running today. EVN North Macedonia announced planned power cuts across three Skopje municipalities - Centar, Kisela Voda, Karpoš. At the same time, neighbourhoods in Đorče Petrov are losing water because of a fault on "Luka Gerov" street. A morning where half the city waits for repairs to finish.

The electricity schedule? In Centar municipality, users on "Crvena Voda" street number 7 will be without power from 9 AM to 12 PM. In Kisela Voda, users on "Sasa" street, branch 24 - from 9 AM to 1 PM. In Karpoš, part of the users on street 6 in the Bardovci neighbourhood - from 9 AM to 2 PM.

The longest cut is from 9:15 AM to 3:15 PM in the central city zone - on "Samoilova" and "Joakim Krčovski" streets. Along with residential buildings, the cut will hit the Museum of Contemporary Art - Skopje. Six hours without power for a cultural institution - that's a logistics story for guards and alarm systems.

Water is a different matter. The Public Water and Sewerage Utility - Skopje says the water cut starts at 8:30 AM, hitting users in the Dame Gruev, Novo Selo, Volkovo, Stopanski Dvor, Kisela Jabuka, Orman and Nikištan neighbourhoods. That's nearly all of Đorče Petrov. End time: "until the repair is completed".

For a Balkan reader this is a standard Macedonian morning. Skopje residents already know - if you see a planned shutoff coming, you fill bottles with water, charge the laptop, and don't depend on air conditioning. The less obvious cost is economic. Businesses operating in these zones - all those small cafés, corner shops, craft workshops - lose half a day of monthly income. Nobody pays compensation.

The question that doesn't get asked out loud: why do these cuts always come on weekdays, not weekends? Because the crews work on the working schedule. Because nobody thinks about the consumers - only about EVN's and Vodovod's operational efficiency. That's the reality of public services when there's no market competition.