Chapter 39 - The Marshrutka
Hello Dnipro – My Life in Ukraine Before the 2022 War
The marshrutka is basically what we would call a minibus which carries fare-paying passengers over a pre-defined route much like any normal bus would do although traditionally it would stop anywhere on route to collect or drop off passengers; this tradition has largely stopped as drivers now usually stop only at recognised bus-stops. A Soviet invention, today marshrutkas still operate almost exclusively in former Soviet Union countries although on many routes these have been replaced by larger vehicles or longer, western-style buses.
In Ukraine, marshrutkas are almost a national icon but people who travel on them regularly, who rely on them to get to work and home again afterwards, hate them with a passion, and the reason is simple - they are over-crowded at almost any time of day or night but at rush hours they are hell on wheels. The driver is not concerned about health and safety, let alone the comfort of his passengers so he takes as many fares as he possibly can - stopping anytime a passenger flags him down, whether near a bus-stop or not, and packing as many people as possible inside his sardine can on wheels.
Only on very rare occasions have I spotted a sign inside a marshrutka giving the maximum number of passengers allowed. For the small minibus size it's 19 passengers seated with 6 standing, but in reality, this will be closer to the minimum number of passengers the driver usually aims for. I suspect that if the passenger-limit signs are ever there in the first place, they are immediately removed by the cash-hungry driver. I have regularly travelled on such marshrutkas when at least 15 non-seated people have been wedged against each other. When someone who is not pressed against the front windscreen or flattened against the passenger door wants to get off, often 3 or 4 people who are at the front have to step down onto the pavement to allow the log-jam inside to ease enough for the disembarking passenger(s) to disentangle themselves from the mass of bodies inside and alight, before they climb back into the vehicle again.
I have never seen a driver refuse anyone entry to his vehicle on the grounds of overcrowding. I have however seen half-empty marshrutkas inexplicably sail past a queue of would-be passengers. The drivers make their own rules, they are the Gods of the Road.
On one occasion I crossed the road and there was a marshrutka waiting near the bus stop in a queue of traffic waiting for the lights to change. I stuck out my hand and he opened the door for me. The bus was packed. I hesitated. If I had known it was so packed I would have waited for the next one but the driver had opened the door for me so I pressed myself against the bodies inside. At the next stop a man wanted to get out. The bus stopped. I moved back, a little too close to the driver's windscreen and I must have caught his rear-view mirror with my rucksack, which was still on my back. Bad mistake. The next moment the driver was holding the rear-view mirror (the one normally attached to the windscreen) in his hand shouting furiously at me. I couldn't actually understand the words he was screaming at me but I think I caught the general gist of it. I was not in an apologetic mood myself and looked around in vain for a “maximum passengers sign” to point to, to demonstrate who was really to blame for his dislodged mirror; needless to say there wasn't one.
Yes, marshrutka drivers are an angry lot. Impatient and perpetually angry with other drivers, passengers and potentially anyone else who crosses their path. Just about everyone seems to piss them off. While driving, they count the wads of notes they have collected from their passengers, they count change and pass it back, they have a phone clamped to their ear and they curse other drivers. It's an impressive lesson in multitasking.
I have witnessed numerous occasions where they have loudly abused other drivers and argued with passengers. In one instance, our driver felt that a trolleybus driver had cut him up. He drew level with the trolleybus at the next set of traffic lights, angled his bus just in front of the trolleybus so his victim couldn't move forward and opened the doors so that he could shout at the other driver. He harangued him for a couple of minutes while the traffic behind built up and honked loudly at the blockage while the lights turned green and then red again. The trolleybus driver stared impassively into the middle-distance - a sign of guilt if ever there was one, or maybe he felt he wouldn't waste his breath responding. Similar incidents happen whenever someone parks their car at a bus stop. If there is one thing that is guaranteed to cause a marshrutka driver to go red in the face with anger and start shouting, this is it.
Sometimes drivers will argue with their passengers. In one incident, a woman got on the marshrutka with her schoolgirl daughter. However, the mother apparently didn't have the right pass to prove her daughter was eligible for a free or reduced fare. One would have thought that the driver would make a decision to allow them on or not and accept it. But no, not this driver. He wanted argue and continue complaining. The marshrutka continued its journey and so did the driver’s mouth, the mother would sporadically respond with a volley of invective herself and the driver would shout more loudly, twisting round in his seat to gesticulate with the woman and spit out his angry words. The bus would stop, more people would get on, the bus would pull away and his tirade continued.
Occasionally there are lighter moments on public transport. A guy carrying a large number of poles and fittings boarded the marshrutka. Fortunately, the bus was still quite empty and he was able to lay his DIY equipment on the floor without disturbing anyone too much. But by the time he wanted to get off, the bus was crowded and his awkward load, nearly half the length of the bus, provided us passengers with a little slapstick entertainment, at least for those of us who weren't actually smacked on the head by his heavy load of poles swinging around about head height as he tried to angle them out of the narrow front door of the bus. It was a rare moment, unique in my experience, when I actually saw a marshrutka driver laugh. He was clearly enjoying himself, probably not least from seeing some of his passengers get whacked over head in a scene reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy.
In their driving cab, Marshrutka drivers have limited space and have to arrange things as best as they can. One driver I observed had surrounded his driving space with paper money: two small cardboard boxes brown-taped to the driver's door on his left, one containing five-hryvna notes, the other containing the remaining 10 to 500-hryvna notes. A third box, formerly for packs of chewing gum, was also stuffed with notes. Wedged between the steering wheel spokes were several pairs of one-hryvna notes ready to be given as change for a 10-hryvna note (the fare at the time was 8 hryvna) or part change for a higher denomination note. There was also another box for coins. This layout was typical of other marshrutkas that I saw. It's a cash business, there are no tickets and no receipts.
The routine of paying your fare in most parts of Ukraine is thus: you get on board, you give the driver your fare or if you board near the back you pass your money to the person in front of you and they pass it on until it reaches the driver. Any change is passed back the same way. That’s how it works in Dnipro and other cities I had visited.
On my first marshrutka journey in Rivne, western Ukraine, I climbed on board near the back of a crowded bus and held out my fare to the woman standing in front of me. She made no move to take my money as would have been customary in Dnipro, instead she looked with distain at my grubby notes, looked at me and adverted her gaze. A young woman in front of her, witnessing my attempt, took my money and passed it forward. I quickly learnt that the custom in Rivne is to pay on exit.
In my city of Dnipro there are approximately 80 different marshrutka routes ferrying people across the city. An average route, end to end, might be around 8 miles (13 kms), and fares in 2022 were just 10 hryvna (30 pence) for a journey of any length on a particular route. These prices are cheap by western standards but in Dnipro, both the trolleybus and the tram were cheaper at just 8 hryvna (24 pence) but coverage was not as comprehensive.
Trams have long been a part of the city’s urban transport system. The first tram line in Ekaterinoslav (the former name of Dnepropetrovsk/Dnipro) opened in 1897, becoming only the third tram system in the Russian Empire.
The trolleybus was a major mode of transport in the Soviet Union and still is in many former Soviet Union countries where the distinctive and untidy looking power lines hang in the air over city centre streets. In Britain, the last trolleybus service ended in 1972 in Bradford.
Dnipro also has another form of transport - the metro. It opened in 1995 and is one of the shortest in the world with just 6 stations and spans just 4.4 miles (7.1 kms.). However, that will soon change as the line is being extended and other stations will be added. Perhaps the most striking feature about the metro is that there are currently no adverts on the trains or at the stations.
Apart from low-cost fares, the other major advantage of marshrutkas is their frequency. You miss one and another will be along in a couple of minutes. This is particularly true if you live near a major road and, for example, need to get to the city centre. Many different numbered marshrutkas will be destined for the centre but each number will take a slightly different route in getting there or take a different route after passing through the centre.
Renting flats in different parts of the city (at different times) gave me two contrasting views of marshrutkas. My first flat was ideally positioned just a five-minute walk away from where several marshrutkas would start their route. This meant that unless it was between 8am and 9am on a weekday morning I was almost certain to get a seat and a strong chance of hanging on to it until my destination. I say that because I would occasionally succumb to the pressure of offering my seat to a more needy person standing near me. But this happened rarely because, where possible, I would always strategically choose a window seat knowing that on a packed marshrutka it was nigh impossible to shuffle people around so that the person sitting next to you would temporarily get up to allow you to move off your seat to allow you to swap places with someone standing. Way too complicated. My other rented flat in another part of the city, was closer to the centre and was also near a marshrutka stop but whenever one stopped there it would usually be packed with passengers and a seat was unlikely.
There is another vehicle which performs the same role as the marshrutka but it's not a minibus, it's a little bigger. It’s usually painted yellow and has two exit doors, unlike the minibus which has one. It's called the Bogdan and is built in Ukraine. The vehicle comes in various sizes from one marginally larger than a minibus to vehicles the size of regular buses and coaches.
The Bogdan Corporation was formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 through a merger of various enterprises. Initially the main business was as a distributor of vehicles but the organisation has continued to change and grow through mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures and is now a major manufacturer of a range of vehicles with two manufacturing bases in Ukraine, in Cherkassy and in Lutsk near the Polish/Belarussian border. These days the company manufactures cars, buses, trolleybuses, trucks, military and other vehicles.
In Dnipro, the Bogdans are slowly replacing the old style marshrutkas but the two types will probably co-exist for a few years yet. And on the major urban routes, modern extended buses have been introduced. In Kharkov, a larger, more cosmopolitan city, the marshrutkas have already gone, replaced by larger, more modern buses. Here, on many of the major bus routes in the city, the buses now even have a facility for a cash-free payments using a card. Progress is slow on this side of Europe, but change is happening.