Fare-dodging in Russia is a national sport

Feb 25, 2010, 6:23 GMT

Moscow - Russians have no fear of fare-dodging. Using public transportation with no ticket has long been a national sport in Russia and sometimes an extreme sport at that. Internet forums are full of tips on how to travel for free from point A to point B on the underground or commuter railway.

An increasing number of Russians vault high fences and bulky turnstiles these days - sometimes risking their lives - to enter or leave a railway area without having paid for the ride. Others hightail it from ticket inspectors.

The chief cause of the proliferation of 'hares,' as Russians call fare dodgers, is high prices.

Anyone who rides a local train in Moscow or St Petersburg can witness a curious phenomenon: dozens of passengers abruptly standing up all at once. More often than not, the reason is not that the train is approaching a main station. Rather, a ticket inspector has been sighted in an adjoining carriage.

The startled 'hares' get out en masse at the next stop, dash hare- like down the platform and then enter the carriage that the inspector has just checked. The inspectors, often women, are not fooled. But they can only blow their whistles and scold the offenders since they lack legal authority to impose penalties.

'During the Soviet era, people caught riding without a ticket were deeply embarrassed. Today it's more or less socially acceptable,' noted Olga, 57, a former engineer who, like many of her countrymen, commutes daily by train to a job in Moscow.

Olga earns 15,000 to 20,000 roubles (about 500 to 660 dollars) a month as a house cleaner. With her transport fares now having climbed to 150 roubles a day, she said that commuting was becoming less and less worth the cost.

In the Moscow region alone, a transport fare hike at the start of the year caught some three million commuters by surprise, according to Mikhail Anshakov of Russia's Society for the Protection of Consumer Rights (OZPP). Costs for many people increased three to fivefold, he said, adding that he hoped the government would reconsider its fare structure to avoid mass protests.

'I see no reason to pay so much to ride our cold, filthy and often vandalized trains,' remarked Andrei, a student. He is hardly alone in calling Russia's commuter trains 'skotovozki' (cattle carriers).

For the continuation of his journey on Moscow's underground railway, Andrei had a free pass for public transportation that the government issued to his grandmother, who he said was too frail to use it.

Fare-dodging is an act of protest for many Russians of all ages, few of whom have a guilty conscience. They also criticize the extremely poor service of the railway system, which operates much as it did during the Soviet era. Simply buying a ticket can take ages because of long lines at ticket counters.

Russian Railways (RZhD) President Vladimir Yakunin recently conceded that fare-dodging could not be stopped and said the government urgently needed to pass laws making the offence punishable, as in the West.

Moscow railway officials put losses due to fare-dodging at the equivalent of more than 27 million dollars for the past half-year alone. Yakunin estimated that at least 30 per cent of the RZhD's passengers are 'hares.'

Russia has shown that it is capable of doing better. Some airport express trains are ultramodern. A 40-minute ride on one of them costs 250 roubles and passengers often must present their ticket before boarding. What is more, a ticket inspector makes a further check during the trip and the ticket is needed to pass through the barriers at the last stop.

As for long-distance trips with RZhD, would-be fare dodgers have faced insurmountable obstacles for years.