Alcoholism
Roads are the circulatory system of any country, and many Russian truckers do not hesitate to drive counterfeit and other illegal cargo through it, including counterfeit alcohol and drugs.
The Union of Alcohol Producers believes that the share of surrogate alcohol on store shelves reaches 50%. A significant part of this alcohol is transported by truckers using forged documents, which they are well aware of.
The reason for the popularity of heavy trucks in smuggling schemes is clear. On federal highways oh, there is no such enhanced control as at Russian Railways loading stations, but because of large quantity trucks law enforcement agencies there simply aren’t enough people and resources to check everyone (we’ll tell you later how exactly they check the trucks). Truck drivers transport goods with counterfeit excise taxes worth billions of rubles, without much reflection due to the massive deaths of their own compatriots from low-quality alcoholic beverages.
Truckers with hectolitres of scorched whiskey, vodka and other strong alcohol are caught so often that regional news feeds are simply full of relevant headlines. Hard drugs are transported in equally impressive volumes.
In New Moscow, 10 trucks with counterfeit alcohol were detained. Police discovered and seized over 200 thousand bottles of surrogate alcohol, with a capacity of 0.5 and 0.7 liters. >>>
A truck carrying 22 thousand bottles of counterfeit vodka was detained on the Don. Inspectors stopped a DAF truck at the 856th kilometer of the M-4 Don federal highway. >>>
Kamyshin police found 20 tons of counterfeit vodka in a truck with baby food. As experts established, the excise stamps on the bottles turned out to be fake. >>>
A truck driver brought 60 kg of heroin from Kyrgyzstan into Russia through the Chelyabinsk region. The truck driver was found guilty of drug smuggling and sentenced to 19 years in prison. The defendant partially admitted his guilt, saying that he allegedly did not know about the caches of heroin. >>>
Two truck drivers were detained in Novosibirsk - they were transporting about 80 kg of heroin and 27.5 kg of hashish in hidden cavities under the body of a KamAZ truck. According to documents, drug couriers and truck drivers came to the Novosibirsk region to sell grapes. >>>
Car killers
Drivers of large trucks cannot boast of discipline and observance of rules on the road. Any Russian motorist from Kamchatka to Kaliningrad can talk about dozens of emergency situations involving truck drivers, which could have ended sadly or led to a tragic outcome for other road users.
According to the traffic police, over the past three years the number of accidents involving heavy trucks has increased by 17.7%. In 2014, 10,256 accidents occurred due to traffic violations committed by truck drivers. As a result, we are dealing with figures that are more like news from Syria - more than two thousand dead and 12 thousand injured drivers and passengers.
Due to the superior number of passenger cars on the highways, the statistics of accidents with trucks are lost in the general mass and do not attract due attention. But due to the disparate dimensions, road accidents involving heavy trucks almost always end in the death of passengers in passenger vehicles.
In addition to reckless recklessness, heavy truck drivers often fall asleep at the wheel, ram passenger cars with their trucks, and run over people on roadsides and pedestrian crossings. Chronic problems of truckers include poor health, uncontrolled use of stimulants, excessive fatigue due to long flights, disregard for the safety and lives of others. But for some reason, unbearable working conditions that threaten their own lives and the health of surrounding road users do not force heavy truck drivers to organize a protest.
An attempt was made to radically solve all of the above problems in 2013 by obliging all heavy truck drivers to install tachographs (devices that record drivers’ work and rest time). According to the State Traffic Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, in 2014 more than 170 thousand reports were drawn up for the absence or incorrect use of tachographs.
According to Daimler, 90% of truck accidents are caused by drivers, and in 12% of accidents, trucker fatigue plays some role. In 2014, truck drivers violated traffic rules 2,910,077 times, of which 19,368 did not have the right to drive vehicles of this type at all.
The video recorder filmed how a truck crushed a pensioner in Kazan. >>>
A truck driver caused a terrible accident on the M-51 highway near Novosibirsk, killing three workers. >>>
In the Krasnodar Territory, a driver who fell asleep at the wheel of a MAN rammed two cars, resulting in the death of three people. >>>
A drunk truck driver dragged along the road and damaged five parked cars in Krasnoyarsk. The driver was unable to explain his actions - having opened the cab door, he fell to the ground and long time I couldn’t come to my senses. >>>
A terrible accident in Tatarstan - on the M-7 highway, a truck driving across a bridge fell from a 30-meter height into the Vyatka River. As a result of the accident, the man died on the spot. >>>
On the M-10 highway near Tver, a truck drove into a crowd of striking truckers, killing one. >>>
The video recorder filmed how a truck crushed a pensioner in Kazan. >>>
A truck driver caused a terrible accident on the M-51 highway near Novosibirsk, killing three workers. >>>
In the Krasnodar Territory, a driver who fell asleep at the wheel of a MAN rammed two cars, resulting in the death of three people. >>>
A drunk truck driver dragged along the road and damaged five parked cars in Krasnoyarsk. The driver was unable to explain his actions - having opened the cab door, he fell to the ground and was unable to come to his senses for a long time. >>>
A terrible accident in Tatarstan - on the M-7 highway, a truck driving across a bridge fell from a 30-meter height into the Vyatka River. As a result of the accident, the man died on the spot. >>>
On the M-10 highway near Tver, a truck drove into a crowd of striking truckers, killing one. >>>
In the “brotherhood of truck drivers” there is a kind of code of honor. As the survey results show, support and mutual assistance are far from empty words for truck drivers.
More cargo - more bribe
A trucker on a road trip is an easy prey for unscrupulous traffic control officers. Since the technical condition of many heavy-duty vehicles leaves much to be desired, the inspector always has something to complain about. The situation is aggravated by constant axial overloads and violations of speed limits, which truck drivers often commit.
Truck drivers do not hide the fact that they solve their problems on the highway exclusively “on the spot,” preferring to bribe an official rather than draw up a report and do everything according to the law. This is how the system worked and continues to work, which apparently suits everyone, in contrast to the new fees from truckers. Truck drivers are very humble about regular tolls on the roads.
In accordance with federal legislation, the fine for a driver for overload reaches 10 thousand rubles (if overload is more than 50%), and for legal entities - from 350 to 400 thousand. Weight control points today are considered the main nightmare of truckers. It is almost impossible to get past such a point without a bribe. According to the new law, which came into force in 2015, the protocol and resolution are issued at the place where the violation was detected - at the weight control point by the road inspection inspector. Previously, protocols were drawn up by traffic police officers, and road supervision only identified facts of overload.
The trucker-traffic cop bribe remains a sad symbol of the trucking industry, despite the growing number of criminal cases on corruption charges.
Someone else's rut
The specifics of a truck driver's work involve constant search bypass routes to bypass weight control points, since most trucks allow you to pass the route with a known overload (up to 20-25 tons per vehicle).
This leads to premature wear and tear of the road surface, emergency situations on the roads and illegal enrichment of law enforcement officers who receive bribes for their tacit agreement with what is happening.
More than 40% of freight transport (almost every second truck) moves on Russian roads in violation of weight and dimensional parameters. According to Rosavtodor, this is eight times higher than the average European level.
As practice shows, the main causes of accidents involving heavy-duty vehicles are overload (especially if the weight of the trailer is greater than the mass of the main heavy-duty vehicle). Technically faulty vehicles with a large mass pose a much greater threat on the road than other types of transport.
A truck driver makes money from overloads and high speeds. They willingly share with their colleagues the practice of violating cargo transportation rules to ensure profit.
“700, 1000 kilometers, when I travel for 30 hours without sleep. To be honest, I would travel 8 hours a day and carry 20 tons, not 40, and so that my work would be valued fairly, but this is possible somewhere in another world, not here. So we will continue to carry overloads and not follow the sleep and rest schedule. Accordingly, corruption will flourish because of this.” >>>
“If you work “purely”, you won’t earn money. Sometimes you spend 15 hours behind the wheel. As long as your health allows, you sleep for 4 hours and off you go. I take into account the standard rate of 12 euro cents per kilometer and draw up a work schedule for myself. Downtime at the border, loading , unloading is not paid. Therefore, you have to make up for lost earnings by walking 1,200 - 1,400 kilometers per day." >>>
To reduce the fine for overloading, truckers often falsify invoices. There are companies operating at heavy truck parking lots that print documents, licenses, and permits for the goods being transported for a reasonable fee.
Shoulder epidemic
Many truck drivers are not home for months, which leads to a reassessment of life values and, as a consequence, problems with men's health. Instead of the courageous image of a workaholic “breadwinner” for his relatives (or a serial joker), in recent years, people have developed a fundamentally different image of a truck driver who systematically destroys the ideals of the family, takes a mistress (preferably several along the entire route), increasing prostitution and the number of venereal diseases in the vicinity of federal highways (there are worthy exceptions, but they are few).
Chronicles of the family life of truckers from one of the women's forums are terrifying.
The degree of moral degradation of heavy truck drivers can be gauged from the news headlines.
A two-year-old girl was kept as a prostitute in a den for truck drivers. Little Rita, kidnapped in Novorossiysk, ended up in a brothel for truck drivers, where the girl was repeatedly raped. >>>
“Live goods” were detained at the border with Lithuania. In the truck, border guards found a young prostitute from the Kaliningrad region, whom the driver hid in the luggage compartment. >>>
The driver died while having sex with a prostitute in one of the roadside motels for truckers. >>>
Truckers themselves joyfully joke on forums that “shoulders” (prostitutes working on the highways) are the most faithful colleagues and fellow travelers on the road. Most truck drivers are not bothered by the fact that among the “roadside” priestesses of love, about 30-40% are infected with deadly diseases - hepatitis or HIV.
After the next flight, these people return to their wives, who have been waiting for them for months, and in addition to the money they talk about so often lately, they bring home deadly infections. But when truckers talk about profit and earnings, the argument about family (a happy wife, well-fed children) comes in handy.
It has been standing on the Grodno-Baranovichi highway (in the Zelva area) for so long that local residents mistake it for a road sign. Of course, Tatyana wants to become something more than a street prostitute, but, she says, feelings of fatigue and hopelessness get in the way. Weak character. And a society that likes to hide from people like her.
Worker in the “service sector” on the Zelva-Slonim highway Tatyana
Now Tatyana* 39. Twenty of them she is in the service sector. A doll for a truck driver, if you will. Although it is difficult to call road prostitutes “dolls”. As a rule, they do not shine with beauty. Most often these are unwashed, drunken women. Their faces are sad and their bodies have more scars than an SAS combat officer. Every morning she leaves her house in the agricultural town of Zelva district, catches a ride and gets to Zelva. Her work site is the P99 highway.
— It's simple. I stop the car. Please give me a lift to Slonim. I'm assessing the driver. I ask the question: “Would you like to rest?” An hour of traditional sex costs 300 thousand rubles. Additional services - 400-500 thousand, but I rarely provide these services. A working day brings in approximately 10−15 USD. This is the minimum.
I remember I somehow earned 780 euros in half an hour. But it happens that you can barely scrape together 50 thousand rubles. Income(laughs) I don’t cry: there is no one. If they would give me a bank account, I would be happy to do so. There are discounts, but only for regular customers. Clients are mainly Belarusians. In passenger cars. Polish and Russian truck drivers also stop, but less often. The most depraved are the inhabitants of Poland, sometimes their sexual fantasies go beyond the bounds of reason. Although among Belarusians there are often individuals. From the innocent: “Take off your clothes and dance while I’m driving”, says Tatiana.
Now she works only for herself. And only in the direction of Slonim. In the direction of Volkovysk - 6-8 prostitutes per kilometer, competition. And the local police don’t really bother me anymore. Is it possible that sometimes a civilian will drive up in a car and ask: “Are you working?” He'll poke his ID in the face and draw up a protocol. For the lack of flicker on the sleeve.
How to survive?
Since childhood, everything has gone wrong for Tatyana. Born in the village of Kovalevshchina (Logoisky district, Minsk region). She studied well at school and was even the chairman of the pioneer squad. But things didn’t work out in the family: my own father drank and abandoned his family. Mom died when Tatyana was 9 years old. My stepfather raped me. Next is a boarding school. She worked on collective farms from the age of 14. At 15, she got a job at a match factory in Borisov. Lived in a hostel. Vasily, a citizen, served nearby Russian Federation from the city of Karachev, Bryansk region. A chance acquaintance, pregnancy, moving to Russia - the traditional path of a child from dysfunctional family, independently seeking well-being.
In 1992, in Karachev, Tatyana received a passport (at that time, residents of Russia were still issued Soviet-style documents) and registered with Vasily. A son was born, which became the “reason” for marriage. There was no more love because my husband cheated. And like any forced marriage, Tatyana’s marriage turned out to be short-lived. The family existed for only a year.
— Divorce forced me to return to Belarus. I checked out of my husband's house. She left him her son. You could say I abandoned the child, but in Russia my husband had a roof over his head and a job. I just wished my son at least some kind of stability. Because she herself was returning to the unknown, albeit to her homeland. I decided to go to my sister, who lives near Molodechno. But I didn’t know how she would accept me and whether she would accept me at all... I traveled from Russia to Belarus alone, in winter, hitchhiking.
Best offer
On the Moscow-Brest highway, Tatyana is picked up by a truck. There are two drivers and a teenage girl in the cabin. Her name is Natalya, two years younger than Tatyana, but she feels quite comfortable in the company of adult men. She is from Slonim. Having learned about the problems of our heroine, Natalya invites her to work with her on the track. The incentive is her apartment in Slonim. A warm corner was at that time the most important desire in Tatyana’s life, and she agreed. But I quickly regretted it...
— My new friend gave me a place to live, but demanded too much in return. I looked for clients on the highway on my own, and she took the proceeds. My friend drank heavily. There was nothing left to do but leave her...
For a long time, Tatyana lived wherever she could, earning odd jobs, including street prostitution. And a street prostitute, as you know, is always accompanied by a swarm of serious diseases. Tatiana was no exception. Pleurisy of the lungs, tuberculosis, multiple hematomas on the head and body, deafness... Only on one arm from wrist to elbow there are 38 stitches: the hallmarks of a lost person whose thought “I can’t change my world, so I’m changing it to another” is already becoming motto. The peak of moral decay is addiction to alcohol, physical decay is cirrhosis of the liver. Legs are taken away. Also, during my travels, my USSR passport was lost.
During this minor period, at a bus stop, Tatyana meets Alexander, who lives in one of the agricultural towns of the Zelvensky district. The girl goes to him. Because there is nowhere else to go.
I would like to become a human...
— Now I live with Sasha on a bird's license. He makes do with occasional and infrequent earnings, and my track is a constant source of income. In fact, I have been trying to quit prostitution for a long time. Now more than ever I need independence, I want to get a normal job on the same collective farm, get my own corner and become a full-fledged member of society. But they won't take me anywhere. I do not have a passport as a citizen of Belarus, which I am, and my Soviet passport is lost. Of all the documents on hand - a birth certificate, a marriage certificate and a certificate of employment at a match factory in Borisov.
For a long time I have been trying to get myself a passport, but local services do not want to deal with my problem, since they generally consider me a citizen of Russia. Because in 1992 I was married to a citizen of the Russian Federation and was registered in the Bryansk region. In Russia, where they send me, I am nobody. I lived there for only a year, I was discharged and I have no grounds for obtaining a Russian passport. But I don't need him. I'm Belarusian. But the Belarusian services are of little interest in this: from Slonim they are sent to their place of residence, to Zelva. From Zelva back to Slonim. And so on in a circle. They would have given me at least some kind of temporary identity card with which to get a job.
In a confidential conversation, police officers told us:
— The woman has problems not only with her passport, but also with alcohol. Both the authorities and ordinary residents of the agricultural town in which she now lives tried to help her. They got me a job at a local production facility. But she didn’t last long there precisely for this reason. The police no longer touch her only out of pity; she is very sick. Otherwise, they would have been hidden in the LTP for a long time and for a long time. Now she needs to first stop drinking, get treatment and restore her passport. She has the money for this; she earns money not only through prostitution. According to the decision of the court, which at one time recognized her as a victim of the actions of pimps, the Red Cross pays her benefits. Do you want to become a full-fledged member of society? Much, if not everything, depends on her.
Head of the Migration and Citizenship Department of the Logoisk District Department of Internal Affairs of the Minsk Region Alexander Germanov:
— She was born and raised in the Logoisk region. Let him collect all the documents he has on hand: a birth certificate, a certificate of education, a divorce, certificates from his place of work - and go to our department. We will try to help her.
*The main character's name has been changed for ethical reasons.
For most of us, the idea of truckers was formed by the series of the same name. And someone knows about the profession from the inside thanks to the stories of hitchhikers, who are often picked up by truck drivers. How do truck drivers live in Russia and why did they go on strike because of Plato? We tried to figure it out.
1. Choosing a profession
Truck drivers are either romantics or pragmatists. The former like to be on the road, and the latter hope to earn money. Most often, truck drivers are people from the regions who want to earn money and “travel.”
2. Mastering the profession of “truck driver”
To become a truck driver, you need to obtain a license category C (truck) and CE (truck with trailer). Then get a job at a transportation company. Or buy your own company and start a private cab service. The cost of a mainline tractor varies around three million rubles, and a trailer will cost another one and a half million.
A self-employed driver is either respectfully or ironically called “master” among his colleagues. But in fact, working without a boss is even worse in some ways: usually such truck drivers have less rest and take on any job in order to quickly “recoup” the cost of the car. And finding clients on your own is also not easy.
By the way, there are almost no women in the profession. This is due not only to the lifestyle, but also to the fact that in the event of an accident, sometimes you have to change the wheels yourself or repair a huge car. Not all women can do this.
3. Salaries of truck drivers
You can earn from 40 to 70 thousand rubles per month, but it all depends on the company. According to drivers, the situation is worst for Magnit drivers. They have the lowest wages, and products must be delivered exactly on time.
By working for yourself and not sitting still, you can earn 70-80 thousand a month. But every 50 thousand kilometers you need to undergo maintenance, which costs from 50 to 100 thousand rubles. And also gasoline. Force majeure also happens, when, for example, a wheel breaks. The driver, working as an individual entrepreneur, bears all these expenses.
4. Forced rest
By law, the driver must have a tachograph installed in the cab. This is a device for recording speed, work and rest modes. Depending on the time spent behind the wheel, a truck driver must rest a certain amount of time. This is by law. But in reality, on the territory of the Russian Federation, many people neglect these rules in order to get to their destination faster.
5. Sleep and food
Drivers most often sleep right in the car. In modern trucks, behind the driver’s seat there is a full bed with a mattress - a “sleeping bag”. Sometimes the truck is even equipped with two such sleeping bags, if truckers travel together in the truck. Drivers most often spend the night in special parking lots, rather than on the roadside. There, another driver may drive into the truck, or the trucker may become a victim of robbers. The driver will be responsible for lost or damaged cargo.
Sometimes the company pays for an overnight stay at a roadside hotel. But here drivers are ready to use a trick: you can sleep in the cab and provide a false receipt for an overnight stay at a hotel, and take the money for yourself. False receipts and checks are sold by special people working near the highways.
You can also safely spend the night in areas where truckers stop in a “huddle.” There can be 10-20 trucks parked there at a time. True, there is a risk that while the driver is sleeping, his diesel fuel will be drained. It will be impossible to prove anything.
As for food, most eat at roadside cafes. Information about good ones is passed on between colleagues. Some take food with them (canned food, tea, pasta), especially if the car has a stove and a mini-fridge.
6. Do drivers sleep with prostitutes?
It depends on the trucker himself. By the way, truck drivers call girls of easy virtue “shoulders” or “shoulders.” A shoulder is several tens of kilometers of the route - the distance from gas station to gas station.
7. Communication with colleagues
All trucks are tuned to a special 15th communication channel. There, drivers warn each other about traffic jams, traffic police officers and accidents. Here you can find out the route, find out where to buy diesel fuel and other useful information. They chat on other frequencies. By the way, the passenger of the truck is unlikely to understand what the truckers are talking about - the sound of the walkie-talkie is too specific.
8. Why do truckers not like cars?
Any truck has a so-called blind spot - a part of the road that is inaccessible to the driver’s vision. Truckers are very annoyed that drivers of “small” cars do not understand this and create the risk of an accident.
9. "Plato"
“Platon” is a Russian system for collecting tolls on trucks weighing over 12 tons. It is believed that trucks cause damage to federal roads, destroying them. The additional tax should help support transportation infrastructure. The introduction of Plato caused discontent among carriers and marked the beginning of mass protests. Strikes by disgruntled drivers and demands to cancel the tax only led to a reduction in tariffs.
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