Translated material
Wounded life
Chita is an unfortunate city. Journalists, if they live long enough, see, as a rule, many cities. Not only the cities are happy and rich, but also the collapsed cities, where half of the inhabitants are dead. The poor cities where the population lives in dugouts and in the evenings feeds not all children, but those children who came for dinner. Cities where the commandant hour. The cities where the epidemic began ... However, the Chita, in which, thank God, nothing terrible happened, still made a painful impression.
To start with the fact that there are no children in the city. Nowhere. Neither in the streets, nor in squares, nor in the yards. It can be assumed, of course, that there are no children because of August. That the children went on the holidays to gain the sun on the eve of the cold Mongolian winter. But after all, there is no visible evidence that the children in Chita were or will be. No playgrounds in squares. No carousels in the square. Not a poster that the circus is coming. The only place for children that managed to detect was a school. She was discovered by the fact that the prison authorities brought and placed in the school building of prisoners who were supposed to be interrogated in court.
The landscape surrounding the city, all these hills, covered with broken stone, empty bottles and used condoms, leaves no doubt that this land is not Russia. The impression is strengthened by the fact that all the inscriptions in public places are duplicated in Chinese, all cars on the streets with the right wheel, and pedestrians, if they are vigorously along the street, they are Chinese, and if they are Russians, they are gloomy on a bench and escort the Chinese with remarks from the series “came up here”.
Life seems to be wounded and crawls on the last gasp. If at nine in the morning you put money on the account of a mobile phone, then they are enrolled well if by seven in the evening. If you put the card to the ATM, then the ATM, as a rule, turns off from this to recover a couple of hours after such an unexpected event as Cash Advance. A girl in a plane, when you ask her to start writing a ticket while you yourself run to an ATM, notes fearfully: “Are you sure? What if the ATM does not work? " If you sit in a taxi, then the car drags at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour, and this speed seems dizzying and dangerous.
On the way, on the right, then on the left there are cars that tightly failed with the front wheels into gaping and non -stranded pits. For some reason, the Chita road workers are embedded (literally pour concrete), but gutters, which is why the streets of the city turn into spilled rivers into the rain, and you can’t cross the road, and you can’t drive without pouring the Chinese energetically hasty somewhere.
In the center of the city there is a Ltaikalier hotel. There, in the restaurant, they say that there is no toilet accessible to visitors, because a restaurant for guests, and they can visit the toilet in their room.
On the outskirts there is another hotel - Panamasiti. It is a few plank bungalows that surrounded the wooden building of the bath. There are a diverse garden and two restaurants on the territory of this hotel. In the first in the evenings, men dressed in jackets and ties, and women dressed in evening dresses come together. They eat and dance next to the tables under the unbearably loud music, usually the Vladimir Central. The second restaurant is Chinese, but “Vladimir Central” there sounds just as loudly there. The waitresses there so do not understand the Russian language that if, desperate to explain differently, you point a finger at a glass in the sense that you would like another fault, they bring a new glass. To get wine, you should wave your finger in the wine.
Next to this hotel there is another entertainment center: bowling, bar, roulette. One has only to sit in the bar, how the bake and grabbing you by the lapel jacket immediately fits, says: “Pay and leave, you are in outerwear, this is prohibited.” He likes to feel his power.
On the territory of the hotel, which is damaged by some cars, through the barrier, nevertheless, a taxi, even a taxi that came for guests, can not enter. You have to go to a taxi in the rain past the frying ram that remained from yesterday evening on the barbecue and past the flagpole, on which there is no flag, but there is a sign that the idea of this hotel belongs to the owner of a gas station located across the road.
People are not just unkind, they simply do not understand how politeness is arranged. On weekends, women, if it happens to them somewhere on the street to meet a wedding, surround the bride, touch her dress and exclaim, turning to whom: “Take me married!” The bride suffers this feeling favorably, therefore, it is likely that recently he herself was so trampled on the street of the dresses of randomly encountered brides. The groom at this time takes off his jacket and carefully throws the bride on his bare shoulders. Apparently, this is the only sign of attention known to men in Chita.
Aircraft to Moscow are departed from Chita twice a day. Airplanes are mercilessly late. Late for two hours is considered insignificant. At the same time, the cafe at the airport is already located behind the security line, and while the flight is not declared for landing, even simple water cannot be obtained.
At the airport’s ticket office, employees always say that there are no seats. They don't even check. They are just sure that it is impossible to leave Chita. And when the place is still located, when you insist, when you express your readiness to immediately pay for a ticket in cash, the people are going to see how a person gets 22 thousand rubles from a wallet and how to fly away, contrary to the laws of nature.
From above, the Chita looks distinctly lonely: not a single city around, nor a large village, nor a road interchange. Local stewardesses in a six -hour flight are not offered for nothing and do not sell alcohol: they are afraid that the passenger will lose control of themselves.