Romance from a high road

For which the drivers of heavy car hate power, why they hope for Putin and what they think about the prospects of their own protest - The New Times found out on the spot

The protest stalled, the driver decide what to do next, Khimki, on December 4, 2015, parking near the Khimki shopping center near Moscow. Today, 15 heavy trucks are parked here. People have been living in them for more than a week. One of them, Sergei, at 40, came here on his truck from St. Petersburg. About why he is here in Khimki, Sergei tells this:

“Look by yourself: we subtract the monthly tax with individual entrepreneurs and annual transport, subtract fuel costs - from 30 to 40 liters of the solarium are obtained for a hundred kilometers, and a considerable excise tax is included in each price, the cost of repair and maintenance of the machine, mandatory spending on the way, including paid segments of federal highways, subtract all other expenses - and with a successful one with a successful We get 40-50 thousand rubles. dry residue. And on me two families - mine, where two children are waiting for at home, and the old people are the parents of the wife. The spouse herself brings 14 thousand teachers. Dmitry Medvedev asks us to get used to paying. Does that mean - getting used not to eat? "

In the most successful months, truckers earn about 150 thousand rubles. "Dirty." At the same time, for one kilometer passed during the delivery of the load, they ask for from the customer from 3 to 4 rubles. And back they often return empty. The system for traveling for travel along the federal routes Plato (for more information about it, see NT No. 40 of November 30, 2015), against which these angry men are protested, today requires to pay 1.53 rubles from them. With every thousand meters regardless of loading. But since March next year, the price will increase to 3.73 rubles. And tens of thousands of individual entrepreneurs who own one or more trucks will put their cars to the wall.

It will hit each

In mid-November, when Plato just started working, hundreds of heavy trucks from Dagestan, Kalmykia, St. Petersburg and other regions and cities rushed to Moscow. Most trucks intercepted on distant approaches exhibited by the traffic police posts ahead of time. They took away rights from rebellious drivers under far -fetched pretexts, they wrote out protocols, turned out the contents of the cabins, and in all other ways they beat off the desire to continue the trip. But even those who managed to break through the cordons and police ambush, having got into the Moscow region, could not be coordinated for a long time. Only a few days later, the hard workers chose representatives who are now trying to establish the contact of disparate groups and agree on joint actions.

The main problem of truckers who had gone to the capital is the lack of a clear understanding of what they will do if the protest does not reach its goal. The authorities seemed to have already met them: it reduced the amount of the fine for violation of the rules currently on November 15 from 500 thousand to 5 thousand rubles. And she made it clear that this is the maximum indulgence, and everyone dissatisfied will have to come to terms. That is, either go at a loss, or increase the prices and automatically lose competition for the railway and large transport companies that can afford to function in new realities.

“Dmitry Medvedev asks us to get used to paying. Does that mean - getting used not to eat? "

Drivers claim that they will stand to the end. The traffic cops promptly hung on the streets leading to the parking lots of the parking lot in Khimki, signs prohibiting the arrival of trucks, so heavy trucks that arrived to support colleagues now stop at a nearby refueling and the sidelines along the Leningrad highway. In total, about 40 trucks gathered there. A few dozen cars smoke the sky on the other highways leading to Moscow. For example, Dagestan drives settled on the Kaluga highway. As a result, the number of auto Protestants who reached the goal was small-compared to 700 thousand truckers, who had already registered, according to Prime Minister Medvedev, in Plato, it can be considered arithmetic error. The probability that a serious reinforcement will arrive to the protesters is melting every day. Cathedral Muscovites bring food and fuel daily. Collects money for them. But there are few compassionate.

Last week, reports appeared on the Internet that members of the STOPHAM youth movement want to visit drivers known to the prison. After conferring, the truckers decided not to succumb to provocations, even if they try to lift them up. However, no one came to check the driver’s patience.

“Where are the federal television channels? Why not explain to people what Plato will become all Russians in? - the elderly driver Alexander from Ivanovo is surprised. - Take the simplest - bread. First, the collected grain must be brought from the field to the elevator. Then deliver him to the mill. Transport flour, milk and other components to the bakery. And only from there to retail outlets. It really turns out five to six ends at least. And all this is only trucks. After all, the railway tracks, which in Soviet times led to all enterprises, have long been dismantled, cut and passed into scrap metal. As a result, prices for the most popular goods will increase in the coming months by at least a third. We go broke. OK. Let's go to taxi drivers. But everyone will have to pay something without exception! "

“It is clear that now the crisis and the state need money. For the war in Syria, for the football championship, for new limousines with flashing lights. But is it honest to take them from the pockets of ordinary people? "

Trying to convince his comrades to move on to more active actions, Alexander recalls the recent combat experience gained in the Donbass: “When they retreated from Slavyansk, I said to the peasants that we should go to Moscow right away. We missed the moment. "

However, most drivers still adhere to less radical views. Throwing power in the last words, they believe that the good president will hear them, understand and restore justice. However, even the most stubbornly begin, in their own words, to suspect something amiss.

A defying protest

Among the truckers, the version is popular that Igor Rotenberg, which owns a company that organized, servicing and removing cream from the Plato system, with the help of his father, entrepreneur Arkady Rotenberg, close to Putin, under the guise of caring for Russian roads (formally, Plato’s quality is in order to maintain the quality of Russian roads. - NT) lobbies the transfer of the maximum number of transportation of transportation Iron on the road. Say, the head of the Russian Railways is now standing a person close to these oligarchs. “No, well, everything is clear. Arkady Romanovich came to Vladimir Vladimirovich, with whom they were engaged in judo as a child, and explained that because of his sanctions imposed by the insidious West, his children were starving. Putin could not refuse his old friend. And people will endure. "

According to truckers, they feel the trick of officials with their own backwards. Having wound thousands of miles through the endless Russian expanses, they know all about our roads firsthand. And we are sure that no fees will help to solve one of the eternal Russian troubles. “So that we have normal roads, you need to try to build them qualitatively for a start,” says the stocky driver from the Moscow Region Boris. - We are told that trucks spoil asphalt. But he is divided even in the left ranks where trucks never drive. The coating is shifted twice a year, stealing 70 % of the allocated budget in conspiracy with bureaucrats. We go abroad and see that there they carry out road works no more than once every ten years. So, maybe to start already western companies to attract? And no "Plato" will not be necessary! "

“Our profession is now on the verge of profitability,” the young trucker Andrei from Tver, twisting the steering wheel of a multi -ton car, echoed him. - Officials say that Plato will bring all private carriers working “to gray” from the shadow. Say, more than half of the truckers do not pay taxes, take cash instead of non -core and generally drive as they want. Even if you imagine that officials tell the truth - well, so, from such a scheme, our services are only cheaper! ”

Drivers are waiting for the support of Russians, Khimki, December 4, 2015

It is clear to Andrei that now the crisis and the state need money - "to the war in Syria, for the football championship, for new limousines with flashing lights." But is it honest to take them from the pockets of ordinary people? - Tverich asks the question.

Despite the declared determination to achieve the complete abolition of imposed fees, truckers have not yet planned any active shares, limiting themselves to only loud statements and low -comprehensive threats. The time exhibited by the drivers of the ultimatum, in which they promised, if they did not fulfill their requirements to block all the entrances to the capital, has long expired. The movement on the Moscow Ring Road, not far from the place of protest standing, is blocked by the traffic police inspectors, allegedly conducting an anti -terrorist operation. And even if the truckers have a desire to try to do something, it will hardly be allowed law enforcement officers who took the parking lot in Khimki in a dense ring: all the entrances and trips are securely sealed by numerous police crews, and nearby, without hiding, there is a riot police bus.

However, no one is trying to disperse a meager protest yet. Apparently, the authorities decided to wait for the protesters to get tired of living in marching conditions and will be shattered home. Some drivers really think about this option. Others hold pride and faith in a miracle. But how much this plant is enough - it is unclear. It is only obvious that no revolution in the country with truckers will begin.

“Dmitry Medvedev asks us to get used to paying. Does that mean - getting used not to eat? "

Experience

"They think they will not touch them, and sit quietly"

Text: Alexey Kuvshinov

In 2014, Moscow doctors went to rallies against “optimization” (or rather, abolitions) of hospitals and clinics, dismissal and deterioration of patient service. They, as long -range truckers today, "went towards." After a year and a half, the authorities returned to their previous plans, but now few are ready to protest.

Then 26 institutions planned to reform. Instead of new jobs, doctors in their specialty offered the work of nurses and cleaners. In November last year, about 5 thousand people, on the second one, too. The city hall quickly reoriented, the ONF indicated errors - they paid compensation to the dismissed, and they promised to reduce the number of reduced hospitals.

Now Moscow doctors are facing a new wave of optimization. In 2014, 9.5 thousand people were fired, during 2015-2017, another 14 thousand should be added to them. About two hundred people gathered for a rally against new abbreviations on the Suvorovskaya Square. “Yes, there are few people. Most are afraid of dismissal, they think that they will not touch them, and sit quietly. I create an independent trade union with us, but colleagues said that if they enter it, they are waiting for problems, ”says the deputy chairman of the“ action ”trade union, the doctor Ekaterina Chatskaya.

According to her, after thousands of protests in 2014, the authorities took a step back: they promised compensation to the fired, the number of hospitals that fell under the optimization of hospitals promised to revise. “But compensation is paid until December 31 of this year. Therefore, people are not fired now, they will do this in early 2016, already without compensation. The protest had an action - some of the hospitals managed to defend, compensation appeared. But the authorities did not refuse their plans and, instead of fulfilling them at once, began to act a little bit, ”says Chatskaya.

The President of the League of Patient Defenders Alexander Saversky confirms that the number of places for patients in Moscow has already declined three times. “Russia refuses the budget model, while the whole world goes to it,” he is indignant. When asked why not only patients do not want to protest against the reductions of places in hospitals, but even doctors who are threatened with dismissal, he answers as follows: “Nobody wants to fight seriously, but we are used to enduring, and then break everything at once.”

Photo: Kristina Kormilitsyna/Kommersant, Sergei Bobylev/Tass