A Bucharest public transport ticket, yesterday
A pointless poll on the website of the Bucharest transport company, RATB, has unscientifically proven what we already knew: the vast majority of people travelling on trams and buses in the capital do not have tickets. And hands up people, we’ve all done it at least once (at least those of us who travel on public transport: many foreigners, and vast numbers of snobbish locals, avoid it like the plague).
And why have we travelled without a ticket? Because it can sometimes be impossible to buy them.
For a start, you can’t buy tickets on board, you have to buy them before you get on. Fair enough: a number of other cities have the same policy. But here’s the rub: whereas in every other city we’ve ever been to, you can purchase transport tickets just about anywhere (kiosks, shops, post offices, newsstands etc.), in Bucharest the only places you can buy tickets from are the corrugated-iron RATB kiosks spread far and wide around the city. You find them only at major stops, often a long walk (or, ahem, a tram or bus ride) from where you actually are. Oh, and they keep very short hours.
So, memo to RATB HQ: get rid of these kiosks (which must cost more to operate than they collect in fares) and start selling tickets everywhere. Blatism would plummet.
The system is built by people. There is no Vlad the Impaler to shove a stick up one’s ass and impose Order. RATB should come with a real solution for selling tickets, agree, but what about any of the following (just some examples):
- Romanians’ throwing garbage off their car window (such as an empty pack of cigarettes, the remains of a sandwich a.o.
- Our not buying train tickets when we have a ticket office and no queue to blame
- Our complaining about the traffic or parking, and doing our best to mess it up.
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@Bucharestian: I agree, but for this to happen (order to be put in aspects of life in Romania) it means a certain system has to be built. For example if you want people to buy bus tickets you first have to sell bus tickets in every station. So as long as the system is not built correctly you can expect people to solve their problems according to their own thinking.
You know why the Americans got to rule the world? Because they had the chance to build a new system from 0 – based on the previous experience that they had – but much more improved because when building something from 0 you are able to avoid repeating previous mistakes.
Romania has the chance to benefit from the experience of the whole Europe. Unfortunately we can not organize ourselfes in order to apply that experience and improve it. Other countries don’t have the chance that we have and still they manage to get by, sometimes better than us. For example I expect Serbia to have a stronger economy than ours in about 15 years’ time.
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Andrei, but have you ever wondered what would happen if you paid the official fine to the RATB guy? Back when I was a student, I went to Fagaras Mountains in winter, I wanted to go camping with a friend. Very heavy snowfall, a blizzard and reaching a hut at midnight, we gave up and stayed there. Money spent there, there was not enough left for the train back (well, we were students), so we decided to bribe the conductor. It worked well until there came the “supra” (some other CFR officials checking the conductor). Got a big fine and have always bought tickets since. Yeah, people told me I shouldn’t have given them the ID, I should have come with a story that would make them cry and try to give the “supra” guy something as well. This is what creates this country’s bad: the more one goes wrong, the harder he / she persists in doing so. And then, we think this is fun. Hell it is.
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Don’t say that, I got myself an ‘Andrew Marc’ jacket and it looks =P~ awesome
The city (as well as the country) runs itself through some sort of an instinct. That means in order to solve a problem people have to start from the place they believe to be the most appropriate and then gradually be sent to another place and to another place until they finally reach the person that can solve their problem.
So in Bucharest you can not solve problems unless you ask someone else. It’s not like in the US where everything has a certain order and even a total stranger can get by simply by following the very clear rules. No, here you have to feel the rules as they’re not clear at all, you have to ask people as nothing is written anywhere, you have to go from place to place like in the pinball games in order to find the place that is of interest to you.
If the RATB controller catches you without a ticket, you give him your ID and ask that you both step down at the following station. Then you take 10 RON from your pocket and place it in his pocket saying a story about how you forgot your bus card home; the controller will pretend he believes you and will ask you to be more careful next time and that’s it.
I was reading Ziarul Financiar today and I came across a stunning figure: if the black economy in Romania would be taxed, the total benefits from the taxation would reach 11.4% of the country’s budget !!! We have a 16% unique tax rate so multiply 11.4% roughly by 6 and you’ll see that except the budget that’s approved by the Government – there’s another budget running loose on the streets and created by the black economy.
Now you realize why BNR holds 10% interest rates, the biggest in Europe, because – even if money flows heavily out of the country nobody cares, the inflation is maintained by the black economy!
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Yeah, I have just realized I did not mention bribes / corruption (important source of income for the public sector, but not only) and, yes, the 4 years of fierce Nazism between the Middle Ages and Communism. 4 years Romanians loved to paroxysm, simply because they had the chance to hurt other people but themselves for their own misfortune. Some other people that were more educated, more hard-working and had a – there is the rub – different background than themselves.
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I would say that yes, Bucharest’s life is partly (but only partly) due to the Communist approach. However we are talking about a community that “jumped” from the Middle Ages straight to Communism. From the local boyar to the comrade thing and to the blue eye neighbour always ready to turn one in for next to nothing. Yes, we are talking things that happened at least 20 years ago, but (unfortunately) this mentality still lasts.
The official wage is irrelevant. Many people here make a lot of money under the counter. Some live off an apartment they rent, a WU transfer they get from – say – Italy or Spain or the same. Others live off phantasmagoric images. The only thing I would say is that there is No rule, no theorem granting the truth. For there is no truth but the honking, barking, chewing and gossiping around the corner. Evolution? Yes, there is, but only based on the before mentioned. Accomplishment? Only if you restrict the world to yours, slam the door closed and ignore the neighbours’ manele.
And then, I fully agree with you, there is hardly another country where people care more about the package (e.g. the body, the dress, the car a.o.) than in Romania. But, ahem, that is only the package. Rotten, but always shiny and expensive.
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Bucharestian,
I always appreciate your insights. I guess I am trying figure out if
Bucharest’s particularities are due to the lasting effects of Communism. and/or the fact that the average wage is still only $452/month yet some have millions, and/or the fact that we are in the Balkans and a certain machismo exists??? Yes, any big city is chaotic! but I stand by my claim that Bucharest is unique! I guess I am coming up cultural differences that’s all, yet I just don’t find the other European countries so hard to figure out! On the other hand, I do love how people here appreciate the finer things in life and good clothes for example. Romanian women put their American counterparts to shame. In America there is another problem–our culture is amorphous and there is a certain complacency that manifests itself in sloppy dressing, obesity and the a lack of hippness–all the exact opposite of Bucharest.
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Well, I might very well be wrong (and cursed for it, of course), but I shall anyway state my point of view.
Many (but, of course, not all) Bucharestians (or Bucharest citizens, put it as you may) come from other regions of the country. When I was a student, I could see this very well: the first day, my colleagues coming from, say, Cluj, Suceava or Baia Mare used to resent it: “what a dreadful city” / “such rude people”. The following day they would all behave just like the retard they had all blamed the day before. They would tell me there was no other way but to honk, break the rules and have no respect at all for the others. I dare say that whatever one does, is a perfect mirror for what he / she actually is. I am not accusing someone else for Bucharest’s fault. I am only saying that this is in the very veins of Romania: take your typical respectful Maramures Village, turn it in a 2 million city and you will have the same chaos.
Just some 7 months ago I was leading a group of U.S. cyclists in Maramures, from Barsana to Calinesti and on to Surdesti. There were cars coming 100 km. / hour against our direction. Even though the whole road was clear, they would still go in our (i.e. opposite to their) lane, just to scare us off. At a certain moment I gave up and, not having any of my clients to the back, I pushed it and stubbornly rode ahead, without leaving the asphalt. The MM plate moron drove on on the opposite lane he should have, over 100 km. / hour, to make me jump off the road. The very last moment I did so. The same situation would have happened some score times the same day if I had done it again. But I gave up. It was all useless. They only trust their horse power. For they have no brains to trust.
I used to believe in people some 10 years ago. I used to (and still do) enjoy going to the mountains for a couple of days, hike in remote places, where only the shepherds and the birds venture. I though the people are human. Well, hell, they are, but only for as long as they stay up there, remote and isolated. Because, once they come down to “civilization”, it is all history and shit. And they will take any opportunity to tell you that the very source of all Romania is Bucharest. A Bucharest they are also part of. Now feel free to curse me.
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I went to renew my RATB bus card at a kiosk near p-Unirii and was told that I would have to go to a main kiosk to do so. I guess what I don’t understand about Bucharest the more I stay here, is who in God’s name is running the place? Why not re-string the wires on the utility poles? What is the city waiting for??? Why not build parking garages? Romania is in the EU but it doesn’t resemble any other EU country I’ve been in. Why not finish the renovation of Lipscani?! I don’t know what they do over in the Palace of Parliament all day, but it almost seems that the Romanian government has an uncanny ability to not accomplish anything. I would like to think that it all has do with lack of money, but when I see more top of the range BMW, Mercedes, Audis and Porsches per city block than I see in Vienna, or Paris or Rome, or Stockholm, I really kind of think that all the money is going to the car companies. I used to blame Romania’s oddities on Ceausescu’s oppression, but the youth generation is just as oddball as the corrupt Communist generation running the country. I am trying to put my finger on what just causes Romania’s particular environment and I guess it’s a combination of typical Balkan machismo combined with the fact that many people have not been abroad and don’t have much of a sense of how more successful countries operate. There’s a sort of roughness here in Bucharest that I can only ascribe to ignorance and lack of culture. For instance, I was just getting out of a taxi and the car behind me was honking. In many other places a car behind me would have acknowledged they have to wait an extra 10 seconds because someone is getting out of a taxi. Do cars honk in other countries? of course they do, but here in Bucharest there’s a certain rudeness, a gruffness I have not encountered anywhere else. I think Parmalat said that Bucharestians are actually all peasants. . . the funny thing is that the peasants I know in Maramures are nothing at all like people in Bucharest. They are quite kind and respectful.
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Another option would be to have one of those automatic ticket dispensers (similar to the mobile phone credit machines throughout the city centre) in every bus or tram stop; the way they do in Frankfurt or Geneva for instance.
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