Chelyabinsk "Pentagon" and forgotten children: 5 funny stories from the life of taxi drivers from different cities

1. Ulyanovsk

Vlad

Taxi driver from Ulyanovsk, author of the BombilaGram Telegram channel.

Our city is divided into two parts by a river, and the people on both sides are completely different. It was hard for me to work in the Zavolzhsky region - the residents there are guided by the old names of places that have long been gone. This area was built during the Soviet period, and many locations are named by numbers: 32nd store, 44th market. The area is small, many taxi drivers are local, so people are used to saying something like "Drive up to the right of the rusty fence where that red mongrel's kennel used to be." No navigator will help here!

The right bank is much larger, taxi drivers do not know it so well, so passengers speak in a more uniform way. We also have a mysterious place called "Charka". Many passengers asked to stop there, but I still did not understand what it was. Perhaps also some kind of store that no longer exists. But I was able to roughly determine where to slow down when asked: "Stop at Charka."

While working, I learned that there is an urban legend about the Sviyaga and Volga rivers. Allegedly, people living between them are more likely to experience negative emotions. I myself did not notice this - between these rivers there are just the most prosperous areas of the city.

I worked as a taxi driver in other cities and noticed that the inhabitants of Ulyanovsk have their own dialect: we pronounce words a little stretched out, we especially like to draw the letter "o" at the end of words.

2. St. Petersburg

Evgeniy

Taxi driver from St. Petersburg.

I started my adventures on the second day of work. Toward nightfall, they called a car to a village on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. I arrive at a point on the map and find myself... in the middle of the field. In front of me is a man with a shovel and a heavy bag in his hands. My first thought is: "We must bring down!" But the wheels skidded in the ground, and at this time the man came up and began to tell that he just urgently needed black soil! It turned out that his wife went on a business trip and asked to transplant flowers. And he drank all week and forgot to do it. His wife arrives tomorrow at 6 am, the shops are already closed - so he decided to dig up land in the field.

How many passengers I had in St. Petersburg! Party deputies, priests, even a deer shepherd from Yakutia, who has traveled all over the world. In St. Petersburg, the most difficult time for taxi drivers is the lunch rush hour in the Admiralty district. They like to order two or three cars, drive the first one that breaks through traffic jams and cancel the rest. Therefore, many drivers disconnect at lunchtime or go to work in other parts of the city.

The most controversial place in the center is Dumskaya. It's a party street full of underground bars. At night you can see people in all states there. Almost all passengers fall asleep during the trip home. In general, the difference in the contingent in different areas becomes visible in the evening: somewhere they fall asleep early, somewhere they do not go to bed, Kupchino lives its own life, and the Nevsky district - its own.

But the Soviet St. Petersburg intelligentsia really exists. I like to drive people over the age of 50. They are usually open and friendly, they tell a lot of interesting things. I often drove one woman from the city to the region where her husband lived and worked, it took two hours to get there. So, her husband did not let me go back until I had a snack: he made me tea and sandwiches, thanked him for bringing his wife safe and sound.

In general, I have many good stories connected with trips to the Leningrad Region. For example, I once drove a woman to a dacha, and she gave me a bunch of vegetables from the garden as a gift. I was so moved by this that I brought her back to the city for free. Although once I was summoned to a remote village in LO, where a man needed a taxi to get to... a shop in the same village. It turned out that he didn't want to get his rubber boots dirty. Designed for walking through puddles and mud. Moreover, he also paid me with a can of change. It was funny, but I took it out of principle.

3. Chelyabinsk

Evgeniy

Taxi driver from Chelyabinsk.

In our city there is a place that all taxi drivers do not like - this is the Chelyabinsk Pentagon. This is the name of a huge apartment building on Tchaikovsky Street. It has about 1,000 apartments and 28 entrances, some of which are in the courtyard. If the entrance number is not marked in the order, there is no chance to quickly find a passenger.

Cities in the Chelyabinsk region are often downright hinterland. I noticed that those who come from small towns are often frightened: “Why are you driving so fast? Can you rebuild less often? " For them, the movement in the center looks too wild and chaotic, although we are used to it that way.

There are names that all Chelyabinsk residents know, but those who came from other places will not understand. For example, "Oblique courtyards", "Eaglet", "Candles", "Aurora", "Ports" - and this is only in the Leninsky district. Five-story buildings in our city are often called "pyataks of the seven-building" - this is from the track of one Chelyabinsk group. We also have our own "Geneva" - an elite neighborhood in the suburbs.

Our people are pleasant in many ways. I have had cases when an order was canceled after a long wait, a person left, apologized and paid for the downtime, adding a tip on top. It's always very cool, although, of course, the coolest thing is the adequacy of people and cool stories. What happens in a taxi!

If you often use taxis, install the Citymobil app. It is one of the leading transport ordering services that operates in many cities of Russia and is constantly expanding its geography. By the way, Citymobil gives new customers a 10% discount on the first 10 trips. To get it, install the application, register and enter the promo code CITYHAKER.

DownloadQR-Code

Citymobil - order a taxi

Developer: City-Mobil

Price: Free

DownloadQR-Code

Citymobil - order a taxi

Developer: Citymobil

Price: Free

4. Moscow

Maxim

Taxi driver from Moscow.

By some coincidence, the strangest orders have always happened to me on the Arbat. For example, I once drove a family with a three-year-old child from a restaurant. On the way, everyone fell asleep. When we arrived, I woke up the passengers, they got out, and I drove 10 meters away and stopped for a smoke. Suddenly I saw with peripheral vision that they forgot something in the back seat. I turn around - it's a sleeping child! I called my parents, but they didn’t even realize right away that they had forgotten their son in the taxi. Another order from the Arbat was accompanied by a huge commentary, where passengers warned that they were "drunk, but very funny" and apologized in advance. In the end, it really was the funnest trip of my life. They joked a lot and sang well, I even turned off the radio and listened to them all the way.

For a period I worked in a Rolls-Royce Phantom. During this time, I had many orders from celebrities: famous singers, even the same "golden voice of Russia", TV presenters and comedians. Once I was driving the CEO of a large grocery chain, and all the way he asked for my opinion on the products in their stores. I honestly answered that there was a delay and substandard, and he wrote it down in a notebook. It was nice!

It's very cool to work in the Moscow City area. There is a nice and pleasant contingent. I noticed that passengers from there were the most polite and most often left reviews in the application.

5. Voronezh

Andrei

Taxi driver from Voronezh.

I worked very intensively in a taxi - for example, in two years I could drive 300 thousand kilometers. He often traveled to different cities, just a long-distance taxi driver. I always tried to find out what interesting things to meet on the way, stop and see. I often saw funny names. What is, for example, the Ublya river or the Vydropuzhsk settlement!

In Voronezh itself, being a taxi driver is quite comfortable. I do not have any preferences, work in all areas is about the same. Passengers, like all people, are very different - they are pleasant and well-mannered, they are rude. Personally, I noticed that the degree of education usually does not depend on financial well-being.

There were also funny situations. For example, one day I had to drive a woman who was moving. She had a lot of bags and bags that filled the entire trunk and back seat. She could not close the trunk herself, I went out to help her and told her to get into the car. On the way I get a call from the dispatcher: "Where are you?" I answer that on the order, I'm taking a passenger. The dispatcher says: "Is the passenger exactly with you?" I turn around and no one is there. The woman seems to have gone off to get new bags, and I thought she was already in the car. When I returned for her, she was furious and screamed that I had stolen things from her. But in the end we sorted it out and together laughed at this ridiculous situation.