An Important Difference

An angry woman threw me off a bus a week ago. She was just trying to be helpful, but still it was very violent and there was a lot of yelling.

Moral of the story: Learn the difference between a trolley bus and a normal bus. And then make sure you always check exactly what type of transportation you are stepping onto.

I thought I knew the difference between the two. A normal bus is...well, a normal bus. It has wheels, seats, those funny little straps that dangle down for you to hold onto when all the seats are taken, a driver, etc. You know –a bus.
A trolleybus on the other hand, while looking very much like the aforementioned normal bus, has a key difference; two big pole/wire thingies that stick out of the top of it, and are connected to wires (not unlike telephone lines, or power lines) which run along the street. Sometimes these wire-poles come off or fall down, causing the trolleybus to stop, and so the driver has to climb up on top of the roof and reconnect them.

I knew the difference between these two modes of transportation before I even came to Russia, as we went over them in class with Dr Denner. But one night when I was finished at the museum the metro station was closed for cleaning (WHY they choose to do this at 6 at night is beyond me), so I thought I would instead catch the bus back.

Now, it took me a little while to figure out the bus system here in St Petersburg. Every time I think I've got it down pat or get cocky, Mother Russia throws me a curveball. For example, although I thought I knew what I was doing after a weekend of exploring the city, I missed my first day of classes because I got off at the wrong stop. Being a girl, I use landmarks to gauge my location (it's been proven that we tend to do this) instead of distances and mathematics like boys do. I had been counting on passing the pretty pink church (shown below in my photos) in order to know when to get off the bus. But on that particular Monday morning, the street right in front of the pink church had been shut down for maintenance (adding tar/gravel, etc), and so the bus took a small detour. Nothing major, just went around the block, but it was enough to get me completely lost. Maybe I would have fared better if it wasn’t still extremely dark outside, and the windows weren’t completely frosted over. By the time I figured out where I was, (i.e. at the end of the line, very close to where I had started) I was 40minutes late for class. Heather had told me that some professors get really pissy if you show up late, so rather than stumble through a terrible and stupid explanation, I just skipped class altogether. I was a little ashamed, but this misfortune was probably meant to be, as it resulted in me meeting Alex, the only other Australian in St Petersburg.
Later that same week, I took my morning bus 5 minutes later than I usually do, and encountered morning rush-hour. (It's very important to time things just right -if I leave just a few minutes too late, the morning bus will be FULL) The bus was literally so packed with people that I could not see out the windows or move, and so I wound up having to walk 20minutes to get to class.

**Sidenote: Being on a bus or on the metro at rush-hour is very much like being squashed in the front of a very angry mosh-pit at a death metal concert, where you're pushed up against the railing so hard you think your ribs will break and you'll be cut in half by the crowd behind you. Only instead of being surrounded by huge hairy guys with tattoos and spikes and piercings and BO, you're surrounded by bad-tempered little old ladies. And trust me, the little old ladies are WORSE.

Anyway, I digress. On the ill-fated night the metro was closed, I knew that I needed bus no.7 to get back to the dormitory. It was freezing cold, and I dunno, maybe the poster for a new Russian film coming out distracted me, but I stepped onto the first number 7 bus that came by.
It took me about 15minutes to realize that the bus I was on seemed to have less seats than usual, and was moving quite slow. Also, we passed over a bridge I didn’t recognize, and the PA chimed an almost happy little tune everytime the doors opened. Soon, I was the only person left on the damn bus, when I finally decided I should ask the ticket-lady. I began by explaining that I didn’t speak much Russian, and that I was from Australia (sorry to say it, but saying I’m a foreigner from Australia has worked out far better than admitting connection with the US) and was this a trolleybus or an avtobus? She told me it was a trolleybus, to which I pantomimed despair, but in a good-humoured “oh isn’t this funny, how silly of me!” laughing-at-my-own-misfortune kind of way (Russians don’t seem to mind if you laugh at YOURSELF, just as long as you in no way appear to be laughing at THEM). I smiled in a “well I’m a fool” manner, and asked her what I should do now. She was very friendly, and explained that I could wait until we got to a station on Vasilievsky Island, and then gave me directions that I couldn’t quite understand. I asked if it was ok if I waited on the trolleybus until we did a full circuit, and then I would just get off on Nevsky Prospekt and start over again. She was ok with it, and so I sat down to wait, and wound up taking the metro home.

Now, this story should end there. I should have chalked this up as a somewhat comical anecdote, and important learning experience. But of course, being the stupid DURAK (fool) that I am, two nights later I did it again. Somehow I failed to notice the two giant wires sticking up out of the bus, and once again I found myself on trolleybus no.7, instead of avtobus no.7.
This time, instead of realizing my mistake and shutting up until we did our circuit, I thought it would be polite to tell the conductor why I wasn’t getting off at any stations. She proceeded to tell me in a really fast stream of jabbered Russian a whole set of instructions that involved getting off the bus right now, walking several blocks, getting on the other side of the street and taking another number of trolleybus back across the bridge and more, NONE of which I could follow. I was trying to tell her that I didn’t understand any of it, and if it was ok could I please just stay on until we got back to Nevsky Prospekt? She wouldn’t have any of it, and started yelling at me when I didn’t immediately get off at the next stop. I told her “excuse me, I want to wait” but she had marched up to the front of the bus and was hammering on the driver’s window, yelling at him to stop so the stupid foreigner could get off. I was yelling “EXCUSE ME” at her, (not to be rude, but because there was no way she could hear me over her own screeching) and thumbing through my dictionary to see if I’d screwed up the verb “to wait” (like if it could only be used for “to wait for someone”, not “to wait for something” or some stupid rule like that), and tried laughing self-depreciatively to indicate that I realized I was a fool, and maybe lighten the mood. Apparently she thought I was smiling at her (unforgivable!), which led to more screaming at me, especially the word “DEVYSHKA!” (“girl!”). Her face was very red, and I realized that I had probably just insulted her when all she was trying to do was help me. What a rude and insolent foreigner I was being! The bus was now stopped awkwardly on the side of the road where it wasn’t meant to be, and the conductor was pointing wildly out the doors, still yelling and now advancing on me. Rather than continue the drama or be manhandled, I jumped through the door offering a weak “cpacibo!” and found myself on a dark street I’d never seen before.

Charley picked that moment to call me, and –poor thing –got a freaked out and blubbering girlfriend on the other end, talking about being in a dark part of town and horrible women yelling. I felt reeeeally stupid for crying and letting it get to me, because in the grand scheme of 'scary things that can happen in a foreign country', being told a better route home hardly even ranks a 2, no matter how much yelling may have been involved. But I really hate causing that kind of fuss, and had probably somehow insulted the woman, and it had been a really long day.

After walking around a little bit, collecting myself and reminding myself that I had more than 5 hours to find my way home so I didn’t have to worry about the bridges going up for awhile, and that it wasn’t as though I had been mugged or caught in terrorist fire, I found a metro station (metro is easier than bus –if all else fails there are pictures and maps!, Plus I hadn’t wanted to risk the bus system incase I found myself in Peterhof) and eventually wound up back at the dormitory. I nursed a little bitterness against Russia for about half an hour; “Why would they have buses and trolleybuses with the same numbers come to the same bus-stop?!”, and “Stupid women don’t need to YELL! Who does that help?!” but soon let it all go, because I am enjoying myself here after all, and it was my own stupid fault.

Now, finally, I think I have a better grasp of the public transportation system. And I’ve certainly learned to check the roof of any bus I step onto. But I know that I’ll be yelled at plenty more times before I leave.