Portraits of Russia: Mikhail, train chief

Mikhail Zemskov-a cheerful 30-year-old resident of Nizhny Novgorod. He studied on a philologist, and in the end he became the head of the train. Mikhail tells how much a minute of downtime of a train costs for a broken stop cran, who pays and how much he pays for stolen cup holders, which happens with drunk passengers and why the country does not look like what is shown on TV.

How to become a train chief

In his student years, he worked as part, the salary was very small, received a thousand two hundred, working at three bets. He worked in the sanatorium - an electrician, a carpenter, a joiner. He studied at the University of Lobachevsky, at the faculty of philology. I wanted to have time everywhere, participated in student assets. Once I saw an ad - the studio -row is recruiting the guides. I signed up for the courses - and immediately realized that I want to become the boss of the train. It was in 2004. He worked and studied. He received a diploma of a philologist, and became the head of the train. I am a versatile person.

The first year worked on the Nizhny Novgorod-St. Petersburg train, then went to Adler. He graduated from the university and decided to try himself in his specialty - he went to the private college, but there were also low salaries, and I believe that a man cannot receive little. And he returned to the railway - to the conductors.

About the guides

Here people think: what is a conductor? Just think, collected tickets, produced tea, bedding, and that’s all. In fact, in order to become a conductor, you need to study for three months: to study the technical part, equipment, and then control its work, you need to know the basics of medical care.

The guides report to me about the condition of the wagons, I now have few wagons - 9, but there were 17. As cars are undergoing inspection and wagons, and I am responsible for this. On the way, we also need to control everything, including trading on the train. They, these sellers, came up with - they buy tickets, and then they sell everything. And we have no right to expel them, we are not the police.

I don’t know how others have, but in our direction there are passengers who buy tickets to change specific conductors in our team. They get used to it. It happens, of course, that people write complaints, swear, conflicts also happen. Where without it.

About alcohol and hooligans

There are usually no police on trains. Only in the problematic ones - where the shift goes to Vorkuta, to Usinsk. And calm trains travel without police support. In the summer it was restless: we drove the fans - CSKA, Dynamo, Spartak. They turn the wagons into trash: they break, break, cut, beat the glass. There is no council on them.

Passengers sometimes drink, of course. Alcohol does not make anyone smarter. Somehow we had boxers from 6 to 14 years old. And nearby they rode from the shuttle of the hard workers, who were very much drunk. One of them drank, took out his good and let's empty the child. Then the boxer coach got angry and clung to this uncle. We drove in the taiga at night - you can’t land the passenger, because he will freeze and get lost. Because of this bully, the train was detained. If the train stands through the fault of the passenger, he is forced to pay for it. In 2008, 1 minute of the train delay cost 10 thousand rubles.

There was also a case - the girl on a drunken bench dropped the phone. I wanted to get it and pressed the stop crank. Again the train lingered. I say - alcohol does not bring to good. I don't drink at all.

About toilets

They try to do it as in the West it happens in the service sector. But this is not so simple, because Russian people behave in a special way. For example, we have put the closets that can be used even during the train stop. In southern directions, for example, there are a lot of sanitary zones. But you can’t explain to our people that you can’t throw any pieces of paper and garbage into such a toilet because it breaks. And then people begin to swear that there are no toilets.

About the syndrome of the stewardess

There is such a stewardess syndrome when you smile all day in a row all day, and then you come home and look at one point, because there is no strength to smile. On the road, people are different, which go with different moods: romantic, for example, either on business, or some kind of sad reason. And all passengers need to smile, as in the West - we have such a new manner in the service sector. This is very difficult, because there are no more smiles left.

About the lottery and cup holders

We have a lottery in the Russian Railways, jackpot is 1.5 million rubles. There was a case: the young man had to go to the girl in St. Petersburg, but the girl came to him herself. Thank God, he did not give up a ticket. He was glued to the ticket at the checkout. A month later, he found out that he had won these one and a half million. That's lucky: both the girl arrived and won the money. Lucky.

We have not only a lottery, but also the souvenirs are different, the same cup holders. The cup holders often steal. If the passenger stole a cup holder, then 200 rubles from the conductor. And the conductor receives 10-15 thousand. Here is such arithmetic. If anything, in the souvenir there is this cup holder of 800 rubles.

That they forget in trains

Often people leave something: passports, phones, money. It also happens that we lose bags, hats and expensive underwear here. Funny, yes. Everything happens. And then they come running - we, of course, give everything.

About foreigners and bam

My favorite direction is the Bama road, the construction of the century in Soviet times. It was very interesting to talk with people. There were a lot of foreigners to North-Baikalsk, Germans, Austrians, and the French especially. They went there by volunteers, this is a wild, non -observant area. If you look at the North-Baikalsk on top-it is like in the bowl: around the mountain, and inside the lake. The hotel business is not developed there, people with tents come. You go around the bam and see - there are still dugouts on the slope of the mountain. And on these sheds - satellite plates are screwed, and in the windows - curtains. Foreign passengers say to me: "How good, Russians, you live-you even have curtains in the sheds!" I did not upset him, of course. Although the dugouts are not simple. You go into this dugout, and there are renovation inside.

How do I know that? We had a train parking there for two days. Everything can be in time: to take a walk, and to swim in Baikal, to lift the mountains, and ski to ride.

About a poor country

I drive around the country, and it seems that only large cities live normally: Moscow, Peter, Yekaterinburg. The feeling that the country is so poor ... You look at these grandmothers at stations who run with baskets, sell a bunch of onions. These grandmothers say that they have 2 thousand jobs for 10-15 thousand of the population. And where to go? We have to get out. Or, it happens, the salary is given out by expired yogurts. What do people do? Pay for the apartment with yogurts? It's a shame for the country.

You watch on TV - it seems that everything is not so bad. And this is not true. Therefore, I stopped watching TV.

When there were elections, I went in the direction of Vorkuta. On TV, they reported that United Russia won there, and people told me that no one there voted for United Russia. They want to return Soviet power there and vote for Zyuganov. I will not say who I voted for, but not for Putin.

About family and fate

When I got on the railway, I told myself that I would never marry a railwayman, but life punished me. We had everything like in a movie. In 2009, he went to study at a train mechanic to improve his qualifications. I took an internship and on December 27 I met a girl-she was a waitress of a restaurant car. We arrived home, in Nizhny Novgorod, December 31. I told her: move to me. We spent the New Year holidays together, then we went to Chelyabinsk to her grandmother - to get married. Got married. Here is my family: wife and little daughter, year and eight.

About planes and cars

I spend my free time with my family. While the daughter is small, it is not possible to travel. I really love the road, but I never flew by plane myself. I love the steering wheel, especially in the summer. It used to happen, if the flight was given heavy, I returned home, poured a full tank of gasoline and drove where my eyes looked.