Personal experience: the nightmare bridge at the Skhodnya station near Moscow collects new victims

Angelica Zaozerskaya

Skhodnya station is a part of the Oktyabrskaya railway network of Russian Railways.

The iron or cast iron of the passage through the paths is covered with a large layer of ice, and even if you grab onto the slippery railings with both hands, which I did, going down the stairs in the afternoon on January 14, you need to have special equipment.

Mothers with baby carriages cannot cross the bridge, and in case of emergency, they call men for help. Grandmother walked with three sticks, like the blind. Children descend from the bridge like from a mountain. My back, open head were not ready for this pleasure of sliding, and suffered.

An ambulance arrived an hour later and recorded severe bruises to the soft tissues and head. While waiting for the doctors, I tried to find ways to free the bridge from ice and snow. At the Skhodnya railway station, according to the controllers, the main person is the senior ticket teller. He or she refused to listen and respond. The officer on duty of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of Khimki said that "this issue is not within their competence" and gave the telephone number to the transport police of the Oktyabrskaya Railway, to which the ill-fated bridge belongs.

The duty officer of the police station of the Leningradsky railway station, where my high-speed train was supposed to arrive, if I could get on it, Volkov suggested that I come to the police station in my free time and write a statement. Thank you. But at the Skhodnya station, the inspector of the DPO Vasily Badryagin, who kindly gave me 20 minutes of his precious time (his words), pasted ads about the electronic application, and explained the reason for the ugly state of the railway bridge:

"Until the beginning of 2021, the Oktyabrskaya Railway had an agreement on cleaning this bridge with the Petroklin contractor, and from this year they signed it with a new contractor, who, apparently, has not yet fully started his duties. Yes, the bridge is hardly suitable for the movement of pedestrians", - said the inspector of the DPO Vasily Badryagin.

New contractor LLC "STR-remont service" represented by the chief manager of the station section Pavel Chekulayev's meeting on my phone call with the question: “Why didn't they remove the snow on the bridge on January 14 Skhodnya station?”, answered: “I'm very busy”.

I had to knock for a long time on all the windows of the poor Skhodnya station, where there are no lamps, no heating at the waiting area for trains, with urgent requests to clean the bridge. An hour later, a young man came with a mobile phone and sand, who literally did not understand Russian and did not speak it. In the evening, after rendering ambulance, I got through to Pavel Chekulaev and heard that "allegedly as many as four people clean the bridge twice a day, and even take photographs". On my question: "Did you yourself see the ice layer and the condition of the bridge?" Pavel Chekulaeva replied that "Skhodnya station is the most terrible object, and that there is no light or heat, and it is impossible to work on the bridge in such conditions".

Indeed, at night there is not a single speck at the station. A passer-by, Sergey Dubkov, told how "on New Year's Eve at night, he fell down from the bridge and broke his arm".

But the Gathering - far from a poor area of the Moscow region (with very high rent and high taxes). Skhodnya is called "Switzerland near Moscow" (beautiful nature reserve).

The public organization ONF responded to my post in the FB about the monstrous state of the bridge. Popular Front activists monitor the condition of roads and sidewalks in the Moscow region. After my post, the activists arrived at the place of emergency - the bridge at Skhodnya station and made sure that people could not lower on foot in an upright position.

What else to say? The classic is right: “Russia has two troubles are fools and roads. " Fools are ordinary people who endlessly endure all bullying and all hardships. As for roads, tracks and transport, Russian Railways has increased tariffs for commuter transport since the new year. Earlier, a ticket for the high-speed train "Moscow - Skhodnya" cost 150 rubles, and since New Year - 170. Behind each ticket clerk on the train are three guards. What for? And there is no one to remove snow and ice from bridges.

What to do? If in Germany a man fell due to a slippery road and was injured, he would have sued the city authorities for a lot of money. In Russia, litigation with the authorities is a waste of time and money. The culprit still cannot be found.