My experience with Belarusian public transportation (riding buses/ taxis in Mogilev)

-by Khashyar

I felt like writing a bit about what it was like to take public transportation in Mogilev (Belarus), and perhaps a bit about how it compares with taking public transportation in the West...

First of all, for anyone who has not traveled in the former Soviet Union, the perception that Russians rely more highly on public transportation is quite accurate from my experience. Most people in Belarus (which is also true in Russia) ride the bus or walk everywhere they need to go within their city, and take the train if they have to go somewhere over a long distance or to travel between cities or countries. (Russian people ride the trains over long distances in the same way that Americans ride airplanes between different cities and states. This works for Russians because the Russian train system, from my experience, is one of the most developed in the world in terms of being able to take you where you need to go.)

There were few cars in Mogilev. My wife Lena's parents do not own a car, and I can remember only ONE friend of Lena's family who I met during my 2 months in Russia who owned a car. Six of us crammed into a compact-sized Ford car and drove to Lena’s family country house (or Dacha) when I had the flu and didn't feel up to riding the train there)...

But, there really is not need to own a car, since the bus system and train systems are substantially more developed in Russia than are the public transportation in the U.S. I think that Europe has more in common with Russia regarding the highly developed public transportation systems than does the U.S. and Russia or Europe.

Riding a bus in Mogilev (Belarus) was interesting:

One thing that is true about riding a bus in Mogilev is that you can smell all of the exhaust fumes and air pollution that are in the air from the factories and also other buses and cars. I didn't notice when I first arrived in Mogilev after spending a week or so in Moscow, but, I definitely noticed and felt this after I went to the clean-aired beaches of northern Poland for a couple of weeks, and then returned to Mogilev. In Mogilev, you can't really see the air pollution and there is no smog visible, but... my sinuses became a bit inflamed after riding the bus daily.

Because Lena and I had to walk everywhere (a few miles every day to and from the bus station as well as walking to our destination- like the market- after getting off of the bus), I lost 20 pounds in 2 months without even trying much :) I jokingly told my friends that we should start a weight loss program where we send people to the former Soviet Union for a few weeks, and they will be guaranteed to lose weight :)

On the Mogilev bus, I was amazed that almost everyone had green, blue or grey eyes :)  People were basically either light-brown haired or blond, but not often had black hair. In comparison, if you ride the bus in Los Angeles, there are many many Hispanic people who are traveling, and you notice an ethnic population here. But in Mogilev, I think that I was the ONLY tan-skinned person and brown-eyed person riding the bus. (In Moscow and rarely in Minsk, Belarus, I did see a small number of dark-hired and dark-skinned "Gypsies".) Especially in Mogilev, people were curious (with their eyes) about Lena and I, and perhaps where I was from. I am sure that the fact that Lena and I were speaking English to one another also intrigued people. Later, after I had left, people who had not met me told Lena that they thought I was from Bulgaria or Italy, but that they did not think or infer that I was American.

Something that was interesting for me was that there is a partial honor system regarding buying tickets when riding the bus in Mogilev. On some of the buses that are NOT manned by a ticket seller (who is usually a woman), once every few weeks you can expect a ticket control person to greet you as you leave the bus and ask you to see your ticket. This ticket control person will strictly check everyone's ticket as they exit the bus, and if you do not have a valid ticket, then you will receive what is a substantial fine for a Belarusian (about $5-- the average monthly salary is about $40). A regular one way bus ticket in Mogilev cost 5 cents in the summer of 2002, and students pay half of that (about 2.5 cents).

On buses that are NOT on the "honor" system, there is usually a women who walks around the bus and sells tickets, or, you are supposed to buy a ticket from the bus driver. The on-board ticket seller has a roll of tickets wrapped on a circular spool, and walks around and approaches anyone who has newly stepped on the bus and asks them for the necessary fee and sells them a ticket.

I also was surprised at how much day-old and "fresh" vodka was on the clothes of and seeping from the pours of men who were riding the bus. (I was expecting most of these men to need to work, but perhaps many of them were unemployed or retired). For me, this was clear indication and confirmation that Russian men (at least in Mogilev) drank significantly more than American men do, since I almost never smell alcohol on men in American buses and trains. But, the Belarusian police are very strict about public drunkenness, and a couple of times, I saw the Mogilev police arrest a man for being too drunk in the streets (even when he was not doing anything provocative or offensive.) One of them drunken persons that I saw arrested a teenage boy (about 16 or 17 years old) who was probably too young to be drinking.

Another thing that I noticed in Belarusia and Russia that is also true for some Northern European cities that I had visited (I noticed this when I visited Sweden): people were very quiet, reserved and almost solemn-looking on the buses and metros. Whether this can be attributed to a Russian trait of not "smiling" at strangers (as Americans are known to smile and be friendly at strangers) or whether it is just from being tired, I am not sure. But, I observed that strangers walking in public just did not smile at each other. One explanation that I had read concerning this is that during Soviet times, a person felt that they could only trust their family and close friends, but were cautious towards strangers since people had turned each other in during the Stalin-era purges, and these experiences may have created self-protective mechanism of not trusting strangers. (Of course, once you are welcomed into a Russian person's family, then you are treated warmly and with very open generosity).

Back to our topic of buses: buses were very fairly convenient in Mogilev (and Minsk and Moscow).

One inconvenient thing about buses in Mogilev was that they stopped running about 12:30 at night, so if you were staying later than 12:00 or 12:30 a.m. at someone's house, then you needed to either stay the night at their house, or call a taxi. this would not be a problem in an American city because you could just be driven home by your friend in their car (or you probably would have driven to your friend's house in the first place). But, when you rely heavily on buses and public transportation, then you have to pay attention to when buses are available, or you took the much more expensive taxi.

Taking a taxi in Mogilev was interesting, but I was used to taxis in foreign countries (and in Third World countries), so I felt that I knew how to deal with Belarusian taxi drivers.

Something that was a surprise for me: unlike Lena's grandmother, Lena was not used to bargaining about a sellers or service providers price AT ALL :) She just accepted whatever price was given to her at markets as well as by taxi drivers. But, having been to India and South America (and coming across the bargaining characteristic in Persian culture from my Persian relatives), I did not want to accept the first price that was given to me. Having been raised in America, I know that Americans generally do NOT bargain about a merchant's price, but in some parts of the world bargaining is common place and even expected, and is part of the enjoyable social interaction of shopping or in paying money for something. So, I almost always offered less than what someone quoted me for something (which bothered Lena a bit, because she was uncomfortable with bargaining :)  and with me bargaining.)

Taxis charged between $3 and $5 to go almost anywhere you want to go in Mogilev (you can also bargain with them on the price.) During the night time, however, since the trolleybuses do NOT run, taxis tend to charge more, and the drivers know that they have an upper hand and that they can charge almost any "reasonable" price that they want (even though I even successfully bargained with taxi drivers at night :)

Most of the Mogilev taxis did NOT run meters while Lena and I were in it, so... it is necessary to negotiate prices before you accept their service.

In contrast to the prices in Mogilev, a taxi from Moscow near the outskirts of the city to the Moscow airport and back was supposed to cost me $80 (Lena's aunt and Lena called the taxi company and pre-arranged to take them to the airport to meet me when my flight arrived), but then I was so excited and engrossed in meeting Lena for the first time that I forgot to pick up my check-in luggage and so we had to turn the taxi around and go back to the airport half way back to Lena's aunt's house, and the total price of the taxi ride ended up being an alarming $120. This was more than what I wanted to pay for one taxi ride even before I set foot in Moscow :)

I may write more about this topic later, but I wanted to write about my experience about public transportation in Mogilev (and to write about a non-Russian relationship topic).

I think that one of the BEST ways to really experience a culture is to take its public transportation so that you do what ordinary people in that country do. You come face-to-face with the country's people this way, and get much more of a "real" experience of that country. It is also interesting, while riding a country's public transportation, to look at the architecture, landscapes and other vehicles as you are sitting on the bus and looking out the window.

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