Advertisement
Published: November 13th 2009
Before I begin all this, let me say that, all things considered, I like the busses here. They arrive a short walk from my door at five minute intervals, cost next to nothing, and take me anywhere I want. They run late into the night -- by comparison Lincoln busses were off the streets by 6:30. And Perm busses have magic tickets. There are six digits on every ticket, and if the sum of first three digits on the ticket match the sum of the next three, it is a magic ticket and you will have a magical day. To make the magic effective, however, you should eat the magic ticket. If the sums have a difference of one, you will have a meeting (no ticket-eating necessary), and if the difference is two, you should get a drink.
Three weeks ago one of the busses Sveta and I frequently ride went mad. The brakes on Bus 67 went out right in the middle of the main street. The main street is situated on a giant hill. So the mad bus rolled down Komsomolsky Prospect, through intersection after intersection. This happened in the middle of morning rush hour. Shocked pedestrians jumped to the curb (they shouldn’t have trusted the walk signs anyway) as the bus plowed on down toward the river, collecting cars, but thankfully none of those leaping pedestrians. The cameras on the streetlights caught the
amazing images of a man who narrowly escaped the mad bus. Over and over again on the evening news, Permians relived that guy’s singular moment of terror and deliverance. As for those poor souls trapped inside the madness, they broke the windows and leapt out into the relative safety of the street. Thankfully, there’s a little incline right before the river, and this little incline is what ultimately ended the mad bus’s reign of terror.
Madness, however, is not the only malady that afflicts Perm busses. Last year the snow came in late December. This year it was late October. And once snow arrives in Perm, it doesn’t depart until spring. So the summer drivers (a lot of people, like our neighbors, don’t drive in the winter) are now on the busses, which were already overcrowded. Sveta and I consider ourselves lucky. We live at the end of the line, so we usually get seats. Most people stand. At each stop and with each new group, the standers get shoved into ever-smaller spaces. By the fourth stop, there’s no space left. Then the doors open at the fifth stop and another line impossibly files in. Somehow they all make it (there are some pretty funny stories about this forced intimacy, ones Jimmy would no doubt appreciate) and the doors close and the bus starts off again. So it goes, stop after stop, until the bus reaches the city center. As you can imagine, the windows fog up pretty fast. When it’s really cold, as it often is, the condensation from all that formerly hot air freezes on the inside of the glass. If it’s not really cold that means that it’s dirty outside and the windows are too filthy to see out of anyway. But the worst part about the overcrowding in winter is the almost total lack of ventilation. In the summer, you just open a window when it gets hot and stuffy. But in winter, you’re forced to just keep on inhaling all those others’ exhalations. And people this time of the year cough and sneeze and hack and wheeze. I am convinced that bus overcrowding is the biggest single reason the flu has been so bad here. So bad that Sveta’s been sick twice in one month. So bad the schools have been shut for two weeks and counting. So bad even Perm State University, which never cancels classes, was ordered to shut its doors this last week. Busses are good -- there are just too few of them.
I got the sickness and was home for a week. I wasn’t sick for a week, but Sveta called the doctor in (home visits are great), and after taking my blood pressure, listening to my rasp, and putting a spoon in my mouth to get a better look at my throat, she gave me a week’s sick leave. I felt better the next day, but boy was I ever thankful that sick leave kept me home. Of course, given the mania for analysis here (I was ordered to get an EKG, and have urine and blood analysis done), I experienced my fair share of corridor stalking, ie., waiting around for technicians and tests, but the time away from the U revived me. Speaking of stalking, Sveta and I watched Stephen Frears “The Queen” while on sick leave. For me, the most interesting thing about Queen Elizabeth II was that she called “hunting”, “stalking.” It seems that today’s monarchs spend most of their time stalking.
Dr. Smirnova’s a wonder. She works from morning until late at night (or early morning), trudging around the snowy Sadovy streets on home visits or crammed inside a minuscule office. As there’s almost no secretarial staff at our clinic, and so Dr. Smirnova does ALL the paperwork herself. And now there’s this epidemic. But the doctor remains in good humor, or at least capable of offering wry observations. Sveta witnessed some of it while waiting around the clinic. An old pensioner desperately wanted to complete the paperwork that would allow her to claim invalid status. She looked to Smirnova and cried, “all of my diseases should be here!” Smirnova looked at her, “don’t worry,” she smiled, “all your diseases are here.” Later, some malcontent had the audacity to open the door to Smirnova’s examining room and yell at her for taking too much time with her patients. The malcontent’s interjection made everyone else wait a few more minutes. The malcontent pushed Sveta to the limit. She stood up in Smirnova’s defense, reminding the woman that the only reason Smirnova sometimes took longer than the 15 minute allotment with the patients was because the time limit was arbitrary and in fact dangerous if someone had a problem that took more than 15 minutes to diagnose. In any case, Sveta continued, there were so many patients these days that one had to expect some sort of wait, and further still, if this malcontent wanted a shorter wait, she should pony up the cash for a private clinic visit. Sveta's tongue lashing shut the malcontent up for a bit, but she soon started on yammering again so that they had to bring in the head of the clinic. “Smirnova should be put on pension!” She shrieked. The clinic head calmly asked her to put her complaint in writing. The malcontent mumbled some more, but sat down all the same without putting down a thing in writing.
So Perm is ill, but the epidemic has slowed life to a more reasonable pace. And I’ve started running again. I got new shoes in July, and except for the sick leave, have been out on Perm sidewalks about every day. I started getting my legs in October. Snow running is much easier (and more enjoyable) than I expected. I plan to buy skis and cross country ski everyday in January when I have we get our break from the University. The college in Kudimkur has once again invited me to lead a two day seminar, which is, if not fun, an experience. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the University quarantine reading Russian fairytales. The only thing better than reading books of Russian fairy tales is watching the Soviet cartoon versions.
“There Once Was a Dog” is a good place to start. But don’t confuse Soviet animation with the recent and terrible Russian-made, Disney-produced live action “Book of Masters.” It’s bad. Sveta is completing applications to PhD programs. And a few top schools have shown a lot of interest in Sveta, which is really exciting.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.159s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 8; qc: 75; dbt: 0.1147s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
maria Sanchez-Masi
non-member comment
The Perm bus attack made the news here. It might just have been "the Soup" on E!, but it was on US television. We were certain that if it had been you dodging the bus, we would have heard from Aunt Christie.