Poet Kozel told how she combines creativity with driving a bus

So, “MK” talked about the poet Tikhon Sinitsyn from the Crimea, who in ordinary life became an ornithologist. But if birds are a hobby for the hero of our last publication, then for Olga Kozel, a poet and prose writer, a member of the Moscow Writers’ Union, driving a capital bus is not a hobby, but an entry in the work book. How to become a driver if you have a diploma of a graduate of the Literary Institute. Gorky? Is a creative person able to draw inspiration from everything that surrounds him? And what can happen if your route goes past the cemetery? All this was told by our interlocutor.

– Olga, a literary institute and a bus driver – an unexpected combination. Where did you retrain? At the place of your new job, were you surprised by your previous occupation?

– I got the profession of a bus driver at the Mosgortrans training center, where I came as a lady not at all young: in addition to LIT, I already managed to graduate from graduate school, defend a dissertation on the prose of Fazil Iskander, work as an editor-in-chief of a magazine, head of the press service. Yes, I even managed to be a drunken theater! Were they surprised at such a strange cadet at the plant (we were called cadets)? Our teacher Evgeny Nikolaevich once asked: “Olya, why did you need to drive a bus, you write books?” But, in principle, nothing special: we have a lot of drivers with higher education in the park. Masha from our convoy is a graduate of Moscow State University, Kovalenko Seryozha is a graduate of the University of Chisinau. There is even a colleague who was an obstetrician-gynecologist in the past.

– In general, is driving a bus a woman’s profession? How often do you have to fix something in the car yourself? Do you have a selfie with a wrench?

– There are different opinions here, and each of them has the right to exist, let’s say so. Women began to drive buses relatively recently, but their number is increasing every year. When I came to the park five years ago, there were only 13 girls out of 180 drivers. Now there are many more.

Therefore, it is unlikely that today someone will be very surprised to see a woman driving a bus. As for maintenance, a lot depends on the machine itself. I started working on LiAZ-5292. Of course, I had a wrench, but not a wrench, but a balloon wrench ₋ I tightened the wheels with it. I checked the oil every day, I poured antifreeze myself. Now we are working at NEFAZAKH, and locksmiths do all of the above during daily technical inspection.

– In Russia, unlike the USSR, there is no profession of a writer. Is this good or bad? If you could only be a writer and nothing else, would you give up your current job? Or drive a bus for the soul?

– I cannot answer unequivocally whether it is good or bad that today there is no such profession. In Soviet times, it was in demand not only by society, but also by the top of this society: there was a need to support the ideology. As soon as this need disappeared, the situation changed. Well, how could it be otherwise? As for me, I think I would still work as a driver if I lived at that time. Why couldn’t I do what I want? After all, I dreamed about it since childhood.

– “The Lost Tram” by Gumilyov, children’s poems about the tram by Mandelstam, Bulgakov’s terrible image of the tram – there are many examples of transport themes in literature. Did you dedicate poetic or prose lines to your LiAZ?

– Yes, I did. She wrote and published just at the time when she worked on it, a book called: “Sixteenth Park. Driver’s stories. And just recently, less than a month ago, I published a children’s book: “Bus is looking for a friend.” Its main character is a small bus Pazik, he has a very real prototype.

– Interesting, and maybe scary stories happened? Share your personal experience.

– Terrible things have not happened to me yet at work, fortunately. I remember here is a story connected with the same PAZ. He works for us on the route that runs inside the Domodedovo cemetery. The territory of the cemetery is large, and in order to make it more convenient for people to get to the burial places, the route “D” was created. Once, already in October, it seems, I replaced Yura, the driver who constantly works on this Dashka. The cemetery then switched to winter time unexpectedly early, so we traveled for the last few flights after closing, and besides, in pitch darkness: there are no lamps in the depths of the necropolis. And somewhere around the 94th precinct, it clearly seemed to me that there was someone in the cabin. This feeling was not terrible at all: I got used to the fact that at least one or two passengers were there during the day. I even, I remember, got a little angry: are we going to go out or are we just skating? And then it dawned on me: who should go out? The cemetery is closed, I didn’t even open the door on boarding. I looked in the mirror in the cockpit. And, of course, I didn’t see anything. I drove for some more time, turned on the “neutral”, tightened the handbrake, went out into the salon. She opened the front door. Darkness and silence. Only somewhere beyond the forest a dog barks. The motor in the distance hummed and stopped. There was a buzzing over the pines – it was nearby, at the airport, a plane went to land. And everything was quiet again. I shrugged my shoulders, returned to the cab and drove on. I decided that I just imagined from fatigue.

– What do you think about when you go on the route? Where does it pass? Is it more interesting to turn the steering wheel in colorful and vibrant Moscow than somewhere in a small town?

– I don’t know, I didn’t work in a small town. But everywhere has its pros and cons.

Now I am constantly working on route 810-C. It runs from the Domodedovskaya metro station to the aforementioned cemetery. We, drivers of the 810th, are called “truckers”: we cover more than three hundred kilometers per shift. This is a very beautiful road, I have been driving it since childhood, although I have only been driving ₋ for five years. Forest, fields, smoke from chimneys, dancing birch trees, clods of clay by the road… Everything is so ours, so Russian and dear to our hearts.

– Teachers say we won’t be paid for looking out the window. But if you look out the window and at the same time drive a public transport car, this is quite real.

Well, the teachers probably meant something else.

– Do you know writers-drivers? Or can you describe yourself as the first person who combines two such different activities?

I don’t think I’m the one and only. By the way, there was a film about a writer who drives a bus, maybe there was a prototype. By the way, many guys write poetry and prose in our park. Some show me what they have written and consult. We have a very talented and extraordinary people. Not so long ago, on social networks, I met Sergey Erokhovets, a Chisinau trolleybus driver. Serezha writes prose. And at one time, with my friend Tanya Dmitrenko, we published the Literary Newspaper of the 16th Bus Depot, where our colleagues were published. It seems to me that if a person is drawn to creativity ₋ it is in any case wonderful and worthy of respect. Especially these days.