In society

Girls - left, boys - to the right!

February 5, 2016 Vladimir Nadein

Among the series of articles where the results of the past year were summed up, the New York Times placed a small publication under the heading of the “Year of the Laders”. (Or, if more pleased with the feeling: "Year of Sortiers").

In the last days of December, many high -profile events happened: oil was catastrophically cheaper, exchange courses fell into the underworld, Saudi Arabia with Iran nearly clung to each other fierce war, hordes of sexually preoccupied refugees rolled into Europe, shallow snowstorms and Lily floods, America with growing attention followed the pre -election struggle of one elderly elder Ladies with a dozen selected politicians.

But a small note about the toilet affairs surpassed and pushed into a shadow all these news in terms of quantity and intensity of readers' responses.

I must say right away that I personally relate with complete seriousness to the problem of true handling of the life of human organisms. Rights, not bombs determine the level of civilization. Here is just one indicative fact: not so long ago, the World Monetary Fund (IMF) allocated to India the target loan for the construction of public toilets with a size of one and a half billion dollars. However, from New Delhi, the capitals of India, there were already disappointed voices that for a country with a population of a billion and knee-deep excrement, this would not be enough even for the coop of the toilet healing program.

These troubles are clear to me. Like the vast majority of readers, I myself was born and raised in a deeply backward, molested country, where tanks and aircraft, individually, were produced hundreds of times more than rolls of toilet paper. He learned at the university, worked in prominent institutions, where only for the authorities, and not for days long, the central newspapers were cut by the stacks: their paper was considered softer and more comfortable than local publications.

But it seemed to me that the New York newspaper approached the well-groomed America with excessive exactingness. A hundred years ago, or a little smaller, the brilliant Mikhail Zoshchenko rightly noted: “They say, citizens, in America the baths are excellent.” This is true. And the toilers too. Their local people even call Restroom with respect. That is, the main goal -setting is not just to be relieved, but such a rest room, such as a specialized living room, where you can and should be caught a buzz.

In New York, what the city is large for, and almost on every corner the passerby comes across the eyes or poster about the nearby restroom, or the arrow-the tip again into the surrounding toilet. The same is outside the city. From New York to Washington, the capital, 360 kilometers of a wonderful highway. With their huge cars, a trained person from Ulyanovsk or, say, Blagoveshchensk to endure from point A to point B - a pair of trifles.

Meanwhile, on this insignificant section of the path, a dozen completely special complexes are built. Each of them takes a place, approximately, from the stadium in Luzhniki. In the center of such a world is, of course, toilet, travelers rush to it first of all.

It is difficult to resist, so as not to devote at least a few words to these marvelous complexes open 24 hours a day and ready to serve thousands of travelers each. A series of huge advertisements informs about the approach of the “recreation areas”: they say, ten miles later, such and such a restaurant, after five miles, such and such refueling is fuel.

The buildings are typical. At the entrance right left - like an ideological hall. There are paintings with views of this state, a portrait with a greeting of the governor, stacks of booklets and color road schemes. In the kiosk newspapers, compact discs, detailed atlases - but this is for money.

To the right clockwise - the coveted object. Very clean, chemistry smells of fresh spruce, there are no crowds. However, on the holidays (July 4, thanksgiving) and here is crowded, but still (tested on himself) tolerantly.

As you go out and more meters from ten-a hall with Fast Food by restaurants. Their number of a dozen, everyone works during the day, at night-three or four. There is also a regular restaurant where visitors sit tightly, slowly discussing the menu with the waiters. Sometimes there are two such restaurants, but no more.

Around this building, invariably one -story, vast expanses of parking lots, each for several hundred cars. Outside of their borders, gas stitches are attracted to dazzlingly, and the price of gasoline is at least a little, but also different. This pricing algorithm is still not clear to me: here Shell sells 7 more expensive more than an Exxon-Mobil side by side, and you will drive miles 50, and Exxon is already selling the same product, but cheaper.

But back to our topic, raised, I admit, for me, a completely unexpectedly solid newspaper of world influence. Good would she slander us. And then - for yourself. And again we, it turns out, is, as if on the side. What is unfair.

Not so long ago, my wife and I made an introductory journey along the Volga by car. They took everything necessary with them. In addition, alas, a hiking toilet. In America, they are given to water tourists so that they do not spoil rivers and lakes.

From Nizhny Novgorod to the village of Karats, the Astrakhan region is about one and a half thousand kilometers. Which is four times longer than from New York to Washington. Along the way, there are heroic cities, district centers and steam villages. But not a single toilet. Not a single one! Attempts from non -visible travelers to use the benefits of wildlife are attracted to immediate punishment, from the aroma of which it is very difficult to wash themselves from the aroma.

The famous exclamation of Steni Razin "Saryn to Kichka!" It has long been relevant in the Volga expanses. On both sides of the endless highway, everyday life created difficultly appropriate obstacles. The impression is that every bush, with each birch, had just stopped a crowded foreign bus and tormented by overeating passengers under pressure squeezed out of the open doors, from where the deafening “girls - to the left, boys - right!”

In Paris, an exhibition of utilities closed the other day. A modern public toilet with an area of ​​55 square meters was also represented there. meters. Its cost is 1.5 million euros, not counting the land, which, as a rule, is not cheap in city centers. If the nations were not led by spent, near younger officers, then instead of all these stupid springboards and tracks, instead of the winter and summer Olympiads, they would let money on business so that people could experience natural satisfaction, without destroying the country.

However, what am I? Or, more precisely, what is New York Times? Didn't you do so in America? First, Los Angeles (California) and Atlanta (Georgia) were equipped with all the necessary sanitation, and then with a light heart they began to jump in length.

However, wasn't I too superficial? Let's take it, perhaps, slowly. So:

“Of course, there were terrorism, and conversations about immigration and weapons,” wrote the New York Times, Jennifer Weiner. “And yet 2015 appeared as a year of toilets, when private business became part of public debate regarding acceptability, the inclusion of a part in the whole, double standards and equality.”

Hmm, somehow not in our opinion. It is not entirely clear how double standards are harmonized with "girls - to the left, boys - to the right." But we will continue to read J. Wayner: “It began when transgender men and women were in the spotlight and some conservatives tried to hang the public noodles on their ears with worthless panic, without a shadow of arguments that the resolution of men's passage to women's restrooms would be invited to disasters. In the spring, the Ministry of Labor (USA) issued instructions, which said that employers should allow transgender workers to use toilets at their choice. However, in November, the voters of Houston (the city in Texas - V.N.) rejected the anti -abdominal decree that would protect the right of transgender citizens to make their choice. "

I’m afraid that further translation of this text will deserve no greater success in our public than the first two paragraphs. Therefore, I will try in my own words, briefly, but not moving away from the author’s core thought, to convey the conflict that has become more important for readers of New York Times than the war in Syria and the fall of the Chinese yuan.

So, imagine that you, a man, were out of need in a ladies' toilet. Scandal, huh? Firstly, the neighbors in the booths are unlikely to be happy for you. Yes, and you yourself, if you do not feel a powerful hooligan potential after you, feel like your ease. Even if something pushes a lot from the inside of the body, still hurry.

As I understand it from the indicated publication, a transgender woman experiences similar emotions. To her (to him?) Also embarrassed among people of the fair sex. As well as a transgender man who allows himself to relax only among his close parameters of the fair sex.

However, toilets in public places are strictly separated. “What is the essence of the concept of“ restroom ”? - J. Wayner asks and answers like this: - This means "welcome." The consciousness that there are establishments that you can use in schools, at enterprises, in libraries or in the theater means pleasant accessibility for you, which is indicated by the whisper of the mandate or a surge of automatic flushing. Yes, this is all yours. They will not be shared, and will not be offended, and they will not be forced to run away from here, and they will not force you to wait longer than that guy or other candidate for the pedestal freed behind the door. ” (Italics the author).

And now let me admit to conscious cunning. Of course, I immediately realized what a note in the New York Times, barely read it. And then I realized that for me she was in the threshold of understanding, and the glorious 86 percent of the population of the former superpower simply would not penetrate through the first rows of words.

For the “year of restrooms” in American is not at all about the toilers. In America, there are already as many toilets as necessary. And it will be required - they will build more. The “year of restrooms” therefore attracted the increased attention of readers that we are talking about a person. More specifically - about the minority of citizens. More precisely - about their smallest faction. But each of them is a living person, with his own needs and needs, with the limits of patience. And society is in a hurry to indicate to the authorities that the problem should be solved immediately.

“It is very symbolic that the toilets have become the subject of fierce disputes just when they are no longer“ M ”and“ F ”, but from“ M ”to“ F ”and“ F ”to“ M ”, as well as those people who determine themselves, like nothing of the above,” summarizes the New York Times correspondent.

Between the toilets of America and Russia, the difference is huge. But between readers of Izvestia and New York Times, between the state of minds and souls of Russians and Americans, a bottomless and boundless abyss.

I grew up and lived in a country where there was not a single normal toilet, although the basic principle of the state structure was as if entirely pulled out of the design of the village tolerate: I always hung a dirty ass of a higher boss, from where the bad and night fell through the overstrained remains of the nomenclature soldering. So millions of people lived for a hundred years. On the grounds that we did on the day, how much it turned out, and we did, how much we wanted and to whom are not lazy, we considered ourselves experts - albeit not in the field of skyscrapers, so at least in the original Russian sitting on seven winds and in any atmospheric conditions.

This is a mistake. We forever lagged behind in everything. At least 86 percent of compatriots in the eye did not see the usual modern restroom and does not even imagine its decoration. 86 percent never saw a normal policeman. In the most violent fantasies, they are not forces to imagine what a modern hospital is, how the usual judge leads the process and why the Belgian king rides a bicycle.

Few of us represent what the president of the country is and why V. Putin resembles him so little in profile and anfas. Of course, after the idiot of Lenin, after the bloody maniac of Stalin, the infinitely false Khrushchev, the unicellular Brezhnev, the insidious Andropov, the hopeless Gorbachev, the squabble Yeltsin - and the current Gesogovets will go beyond the encyclopedist.

We no longer understand each other for a long time, even when we use common words. The restroom in Russian never meant “welcome”-and will not mean. There are foggy evidence that the famous call “Girls - to the left, boys - to the right!” I came up with Genghis Khan. I just forgot how it sounds in Mongolian.


Photo: Vladimir Astapkovich/TASS