Each booth has a brick

How to make the northern capital more European? While sociologists are scratching their heads, different companies are trying, each in their own way, to bring closer the longed-for moment of the city’s merger with Western civilization. The publishers of the telephone directory “All Petersburg” are making a significant contribution to this difficult but noble cause: by the anniversary they promised to equip a thousand street payphones with their products. Today there are already two hundred such “civilized” cabins.

“Weighty” is not an accidental word: the yellow Talmuds of one and a half thousand pages are really heavy, like a bunch of bricks. And there is no need to scold the proofreader for missing the word “equip” that is not appropriate in the context: books will be chained to telephone booths with a special cable. According to the deputy head of the publishing house, Alexander Yakovlev, there is nothing humiliating for St. Petersburg residents here. “In most European cities, in open street booths, directories are also attached in one way or another. Not because every passerby is suspected of being a thief, but simply so that there is no temptation!” - he says.
Based on this, it is interesting to follow the evolution of the process of “every telephone booth - according to the directory” in the city on the Neva... The first precedent was created three years ago. Then the information product lay on the shelves of payphones for exactly one night. Last summer they decided to repeat the experiment, and were quite surprised that the reference books were “disassembled for souvenirs” only after two or three weeks. Psychologists attribute this both to “some growth” in the general culture of the population and to the massive introduction of Internet resources into life.
This time the publishers want to hold out for two to three months. But since we still cannot count on a significant increase in the consciousness of citizens, they will take in quantity. For a thousand telephone booths, three to three and a half thousand copies of the book are allocated and a team of several employees is charged with the duty of regularly visiting points and placing new reference books where they will no longer be found.
While emphasizing “concern for the citizens,” the company’s representatives do not hide their commercial interests - it is no coincidence that they launched their “Europeanization campaign” precisely on the eve of the 300th anniversary. Whether there will be a continuation next year is still unknown. By the way, according to information from the same Mr. Yakovlev, St. Petersburg, although not for long, will become the first Russian metropolis where street payphones in such numbers will be equipped with the latest edition of the city telephone directory. “In Moscow they also started something similar, but they don’t risk going beyond telephone booths located in enclosed spaces,” the publisher emphasized. It turns out that, at least in some ways, we have surpassed Moscow.

Valeria STRELNIKOVA
Photo INTERPRESS