What do passenger transportation live in the Russian outback
Moskow try to ensure that buses arrive at the bus stop on a schedule with an accuracy of a minute. Besides, they are testing the transfer of passenger vehicles to electric buses. Intervals in the Moscow metro do not exceed 2 minutes. Contactless payment systems, the ability to choose a tariff system based on your needs, modern transportation hubs. But in Russia there are places where the latest innovations in the field of transport have not reached.
Scheduled Life
A small district center in the central Russia. Not to say that it is too far from Moscow. A town with a population of about 40 thousand people and a scattering of villages, spread from it in all directions. The distance to the most remote can reach up to 60 kilometers. But people live in all villages, summer residents travel. Although life does not so active as in Moscow, it flows in its measured rhythm. Young people studying in a district or regional center hurry to their parents for a weekend in the village, and parents themselves sometimes arrive at regional center — to a doctor, go shopping, do household chores, or just visit relatives.
Life is rigidly tied to the bus schedule - local people don’t even need to write it down anywhere, it’s well known.
Here you can’t just come to a stop and wait for the nearest bus. The schedule does not change for years, and if it does, it will only be reduced after the next optimization. You must always be prepared to cancel a trip. Failure, the absence of a single sick driver, and finally, the transfer of the car to plug a hole on another, more important route. Locals usually know that this bus race may not exist, but it must be necessary.
The trip itself is usually also very atmospheric - along an unlit road in the evening. Around - endless forest landscapes, similar to each other - it’s easy for a non-native to get confused. Nearby - just a couple of strangers and a deserted edge outside the window. The road was last repaired for a very long time - it is generally still accaptable, automobile intensity on road is not so high. But all the same, the priest feels good all the defects of the coating, mixed with rare interventions in the form of patching and reinforced by the old depreciation system of the bus.
Road in the Russian outback
The price will surprise
The price of a ticket is usually quite high - around 100 rubles and above. Even taking into account the large distances, in terms of kilometer it is usually higher than in urban passenger transport. However, transportation is usually unprofitable - buses often travel half empty.
A single fare, regardless of big distances, as in Moscow and other major cities, is a rare phenomenon. Locals will not understand, they will rebel - people do not live well and know how to count money. They will not agree to pay the same amount for a trip to a neighboring village to a store or pharmacy as for a trip to a district center. Therefore, the conductor keep "chess" table with prices. On one side is the departure point, on the other is the arrival point, at their intersection is the fare. Experienced passengers and conductors know the table by heart.
Conductor armed with skeins of ticket rolls
The direct consequence of differentiated prices is the lack of a single ticket. Payment terminals have not yet reached these places - you will be given several tickets, each of which has a money face value. On the chest of the conductor - several weighty skeins, from which she alternately tears off the desired number of coupons. It’s difficult to control that you will leave at your stop, but this is the conductor’s direct task. The conductor herself - usually a middle-aged woman who wants to save his work - it is hard to find another in the district.
Technique can fail
The main source of replenishment of vehicles - used buses from the regional center. They come to these places to live out their automobile age. Sometimes Hyundai and other foreign cars come across - it all depends on the tastes of the donor car enterprise. And sometimes you can see absolutely museum exhibits from childhood - Liaz 677, PAZ 672 or Ikarus 260. But the foundation of the park is still usually PAZ 3205. Unification of the fleet, low-floor buses, painting all cars in one color, eco-friendly road transport and other fashionable things are from another world; rides what rides. And it is being repaired until it is possible to repair.
LiAZ 677
Schedule
The most amazing thing on provincial routes is the schedule. Have you heard about the combined route? This is when one of the two routes is done simultaneously - the bus turns off its usual path in order to hook with all the passengers and drop into one of the villages, drop off some passengers, and then return back to its main route. It can easily be that on some days and hours, routes operate separately, and on some, together. And what about the weekly routes? This is when a bus travels to a certain village only once a week - on a strictly appointed day and time. Another typical option is the “summer” routes, designed to serve the interests of summer residents. They go from May to September. Sometimes residents are asked to extend the route to October if the weather is expected to be good and gardening is not over yet - for this they usually write a collective letter to the head of the motor transport company or local administration. Finally, there are shortened routes - this is when on some days the bus does not call to distant villages - or, for example, a Saturday or Sunday schedule with a higher frequency of trips.
If you are planning a trip to these places for the first time, then it will be very difficult to understand all the features and exceptions.
Automobile enterprises usually do not have sites with a schedule - only a stand at the bus station. All this is superimposed on frequent cancellations and transfers - they usually find out about the cancellation of the trip directly at the stop, and instead of Yandex transport or an electronic display with the next flights, they call the driver on a cell or a friend in bus enterprice.
Sometimes the heads of municipalities experiment with private owners. “I was allowed on the route in trial mode,” the Gazelle driver tells his passengers. It was decided to decline the old large municipal bus, as passenger traffic became very low. “If the gazelle pays off, we will work, if not, then maybe it will be completely canceled.” Passengers are unhappy - on the first day, a novice driver selected incorrect the route and left several elderly passengers at the bus stop - the rest forced him to return and pick them up.
If the proposed schedule does not suit you, then a taxi is at your service. No order through the application and filing in five minutes - you need to agree with a taxi driver in advance. The tariff will be laid as a way empty from the district center to you, and vice versa - usually at least 1000 rubles are obtained, which is sensitive for elderly passengers. You can combine your plans with your neighbors - this is "a village blablacar". By the way, taxi driver is one of the most popular professions for men in the district center and villages.
But anyway - it’s better than without transport at all. And while there is a bus, there is life.
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