Valentine's day

Governor Valentina Matvienko came up with a revolutionary initiative: one day a month, all St. Petersburg officials will travel to work and business meetings only by public transport, so that “many people have an adequate understanding of its work” and so that they experience first-hand all the delights of buses, trolleybuses and the metro. Valentina Ivanovna will not stand aside either, but will set an example for her subordinates: once a month, she intends to get to work exclusively by public means.

Standing at a stop...
I’ll say right away: not a single initiative of the governor has ever evoked such warm approval! Both Valentina Ivanovna herself and her subordinates will be able to be closer to the people, breathe the same air with them, feel like an integral part of them - what could be more beautiful?
Where else do you get such a delightful feeling of elbow grease, if not on a crowded bus going along Slavy Avenue to the Moskovskaya metro station?
Where else can you become so one with the people than in the morning on the Primorskaya or Vasileostrovskaya, where thousands of passengers squeeze through doors so narrow that in them one lightly armed warrior could hold back forty thousand barbarians, reinforced by two siege towers?
Where, finally, can one find out the true attitude of the people towards the governor and members of her government, if not at the Sennaya – Technological Institute section?
Well, then, having received a charge of popular energy, you can take on the improvement of public transport with renewed vigor...
Generally speaking, it was not Valentina Ivanovna who was the pioneer of this method of studying the life of the people.
Back in the eighth century, this was practiced by the Baghdad caliph Harun Al-Rashid, who, together with the vizier Jaffar (Allah be with them both!) walked around the city entrusted to him in order to hear and see everything that was happening in the capital. Details can be read in The Thousand and One Nights.
Twelve centuries later, the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU, Boris Yeltsin, followed the same path, traveling around the capital on a trolleybus and visiting ordinary (not City Committee) stores. Having gained popular love in this way, he became president, after which security no longer allowed him near public transport.
And now - Valentina Matvienko. So you see: in the morning you go down to the subway, and there she is! He stands modestly on the platform, waiting for the train. And everyone who is not too lazy can ask: tell me, Valentina Ivanovna, how do you fulfill your duties with taxpayers’ money? What else has been done for the people's well-being? I got on the bus - and there was Viktor Lobko, out of breath, disheveled, with his hat knocked to one side. And the conductor shouts at him: they say, citizen, hand over the fare! I boarded a trolleybus and was stunned: it was Alexander Vakhmistrov himself, whom the passengers who recognized him were swearing at, demanding that he stop the compact construction. And in all the newspapers there are charts: then such and such a senior official will go to work on such and such public transport. Everyone is invited to see this unprecedented miracle...

Will there be traffic jams in the metro?
Alas: at the first contact with the prose of life, this idyll crumbles to dust.
I do not rule out that Valentina Ivanovna will actually make study trips on the metro once a month. True, she used to live somewhere on Tverskaya Street - a stone's throw from Smolny, and she had no need for the metro as a way to get to work, even if the company car suddenly disappeared. But now, they say, she lives in a country residence, and the metro may come in handy.
It will look something like this: first - the closure of one of the metro lines for passengers on this "Valentine's Day" (for about two or three hours), then - a big search (to detect possible terrorists), then - a ceremonial trip of the governor, accompanied by security, secretaries, assistants and a Channel 5 camera in a separate carriage, then - a press conference where Valentina Ivanovna will share impressions that she has not had in the last thirty years...
Of course, it will be easier with the rest of the city government. They may well limit themselves to allocating a special car in the metro, a separate bus or trolleybus, where they will travel with all the amenities. In extreme cases, they will be surrounded by specially trained passengers in civilian clothes for a TV report. After which they will be able to report to the governor about how they experienced it in their own skin and what unbearable torment they suffered as a result.
In order for the situation on St. Petersburg public transport to really change, Valentina Ivanovna’s fruitful idea must be significantly improved. One day a month, both she and her officials should be allowed to go to work in a company car - and all other days they should live like everyone else. And - without any concessions. And so on until city transport starts working normally. As in that very Europe, whose standards are so dear to Valentina Ivanovna.
By the way, why limit yourself to public transport? Is it only in this area that we still have some shortcomings? Let all officials, starting with the governor, try to live on the average salary of a St. Petersburg resident for one day a month. On another day, they will visit a regular clinic. On the third day, they will try to call a plumber from a regular housing office. On the fourth day - live in a communal apartment. And on the fifth day - hold an unauthorized picket or march...
We are, of course, not animals. But how useful it would be if the servants of the people lived more often as masters...

Boris VISHNEVSKY

Verbatim:
At the next meeting of the city government (during a discussion of transport problems in the region), Governor Valentina Matvienko said literally the following:
“I give an order to Alla Manilova (Chairman of the Committee on the Press and Interaction with the Media - Ed.): Determine the date from next month when all administration employees, including the governor, will travel by public transport to work, from work and on business,” the governor said, adding that then “we will feel the peculiarities of the city’s transport infrastructure.”
By the way, Smolny officials already have experience in traveling by public transport. True, not for work, but with inspections. For example, Vice-Governor Mikhail Oseevsky once practiced traveling around the city on a bus - checking where travel tickets were issued and where they were not.
However, in St. Petersburg, only vice-governors and committee chairmen use official transport, and the rest of the city administration employees, in the absence of a personal car (and this happens), move around like all mere mortals.

Comments about:
“This is a typical example of fake politics,” the St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko party assessed the governor’s initiative. – The policy of putting everyone on the vertical, which Valentina Matvienko is pursuing with Komsomol fervor in St. Petersburg, leads to the fact that the official exists separately from the citizens. But such senseless populist measures will not change this situation.”
United Russia, on the contrary, expresses the hope that “this experiment will allow officials to plunge headlong into the problem of the state of public transport in St. Petersburg.”
The chairman of the Committee for Improvement and Road Maintenance of the city administration, Oleg Virolainen, does not see anything wrong with the governor’s proposal: “I sometimes use public transport on weekends, and that’s okay.”
The press service of Vice-Governor Kostkina also welcomes the governor’s initiative: “Lyudmila Kostkina is very positive about this idea, she often rides the tram - she has a direct line from Victory Park.” We think this experience will be in demand.” Vice-Governor Alexander Polukeev “has a positive attitude towards Valentina Ivanovna’s decision.” According to Alexander Ivanovich, when he was the head of the district, “he periodically traveled by public transport to understand the real state of affairs. Therefore, this is not new to me personally. But many of my colleagues have not traveled by land for a long time, and I think this will be useful for them and will allow them to understand the life of the city.”
The press service of Vice-Governor Tikhonov noted that it will be difficult for Valery Vladimirovich, since he lives outside the city where there is no public transport. However, the vice-governor himself has not yet spoken out on this issue.
The press service of Vice-Governor Lobko was unable to comment on the news, citing the fact that Viktor Nikolaevich was on vacation. The Committee on External Relations and the Committee on Culture also declined to comment.
The Housing Committee said that the chairman was on vacation, “but if the governor said so, then, of course, we are for it.”

Prepared by Elena GRUZDEVA, Alexander BALAYAN