Holidays for Russians spoiled by conflicts over shelves in trains: “Collectivism is in the past”

Due to the turbulent situation in the south of the country, airports in Anapa, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Gelendzhik, Krasnodar, Kursk, Lipetsk, Rostov-on-Don, Simferopol and Elista have been closed. As of today, they are closed until September 22, 2022. Therefore, those who decided to spend their holidays in the Russian southern resorts – in the Crimea and the Krasnodar Territory – were forced to get to their place of rest by train. The most common complaint is the actual lack of rights of passengers on the upper shelves: passengers on the lower shelves now have the right to decide whether they can eat at a table and just sit downstairs. MK has collected some impressive travel stories.

In recent years, many tourists have lost the habit of traveling by long-distance trains (previously they preferred to fly) and now they have turned their attention to interesting everyday nuances. Most of the complaints and indignant stories of passengers are associated with the inconvenience of traveling on the upper shelves – according to tourists, less and less passengers from the lower seats are ready to meet halfway in order to provide fellow travelers with some semblance of comfort. And sometimes it comes to conflicts.

“The train departed at six o’clock in the evening, for the first two hours on the way I lay quietly on my shelf, minding my own business,” says a Muscovite named Oksana. – The fellow travelers did not pay attention to me, however, as I did to them. At 8-9 pm, the neighbors decided to have dinner, they had their own food. I also took food with me. I go down from my shelf, I ask my neighbors: “Will I eat with you at the table?”. I get a swaggering answer: “No, these are our places, you can eat upstairs.” I even fell into a stupor, then tried to explain: they say, you are not lying now, I will quickly eat and leave. The answer is short: “We paid for this place, so climb back to your place and keep your head down.” After 10 minutes of arguing, I called the conductor. True, Oksana’s story ended happily: the conductor went forward (unlike the neighbors) and found a place for the girl in an empty compartment in another carriage.

However, passengers of long-distance trains have to face such difficulties, alas, more and more often.

“We traveled for 13 hours on the upper shelves in a compartment on the second floor of the train,” says tourist Tatyana. – The passengers of the upper shelves, it turns out, do not have the right to sit on the lower ones, collectivism is in the past. Bought for the top? Lie down there. We drank traditional tea from glasses with glass holders in a corner with a fire extinguisher, and dined there. Neighbors from the lower shelves went to bed early, and one of the girls complained of feeling unwell, so we did not swing the rights and fight for the right to sit at the table. Yes, and I do not like to feel like a hanger-on, to huddle somewhere on the edge, to maintain an artificial conversation. By the way, in addition to us, a lot of passengers from the upper shelves were hanging in the aisle.

“When I arrived at the landing, the elderly spouses were already lying on the lower shelves, they were lying in such a way that not only to sit down, but there was nowhere even to put a foot on the shelf,” 43-year-old Elena shares her experience. – Sadly, I began to make the bed, not yet understanding how I would climb onto this shelf. Climbing the shelf is completely inconvenient, even almost impossible without good preparation. I could still climb from the table, but in this case it was full of passengers’ food from the lower shelves. The train was at night and all the passengers of the lower shelves immediately went to bed. So there’s no way to sit down at the table, and there’s often nowhere to sit even on the corner, and it’s difficult to sit on the top shelf – the height is small.”

Meanwhile, the passengers on the lower shelves have their own truth: if we are talking about a long trip, during which the shelf turns into a full-fledged bed, then few people want to allow strangers to sit on it. Some admit: they get on the train after a busy and eventful day, very tired, with buzzing legs – and they simply do not have enough humanity to get up and wait patiently so that an unfamiliar fellow traveler from the top shelf has a cup of tea (especially when it comes to night trains) . Well, sometimes fellow travelers put themselves in advance in such a way that they don’t want to meet them halfway, simply out of harm.

“I take the bottom seats all the time,” admits a tourist named Svetlana. – And it always annoyed me that passengers from the upper shelves sit below all the way – and sometimes they invite friends if they are traveling in different compartments or compartments. And no one even asks permission. At some point, I could not stand it: what the hell? It turns out that they can safely lie on their top shelf all the way, no one touches them, and my bottom one seems to be not mine, but public? Why would suddenly? In general, now I drive everyone. Especially those with friends. Let them hang out on their upper shelves.” According to her, what is surprising is not the posing of the question, but the fact that for another 15-20 years such a situation could seem normal to someone: they say, this is a train, we must be patient!

“My husband and I rode in a compartment on the two lower shelves, a middle-aged lady with her daughter got into the neighbors. They immediately asked if we were still going to bed, if they would have time to have dinner. We were going. The lady asked with a pretension: they say, why didn’t you buy the top and bottom places, like “normal” people, why did you take both bottom ones with your pair? This quote. To be honest, our eyes popped out of our heads – they didn’t think that there were any rules for traveling in pairs on trains. One way or another, the train left at 23:40, so we denied these impudent people the right to dinner – we were very tired, we really wanted to go to bed, and not wait for them to eat, ”says Ekaterina, a Muscovite.

Meanwhile, in accordance with the Order of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation dated December 19, 2013 No. 473 “On Approval of the Rules for the Transportation of Passengers, Baggage, Cargo Luggage by Rail”, each passenger must take the seat indicated on his ticket, and the travel of other persons in the seats paid by the passenger not allowed. So any negotiations – even requests to give up the bottom shelf at all, even to agree on breakfast or dinner – rest solely on the human factor and the goodwill of each passenger. Therefore, starting a trip with a claim is a bad idea.