Like the life of a Soviet artist, the life of a Moscow driver is often said to be tough and unglamorous, a sentiment echoed in many conversations about city streets. A storm named “Vanya” approached from the horizon, and it became fashionable to name cyclones just as in the West. Katrina, Irma—names that paint a picture of danger. Yet when people hear “Vanya” on the radio, they wonder what trouble it might bring, and then shrug it off with a casual, Nevermind.
So, despite the looming storm, people still headed into the city. The narrator’s boundary of the city stretched beyond the Butyrsky district, where slush covered the pavement and ice drifted from the sky, forcing the wipers to chase particles across the glass in a never-ending rinse.
There was nowhere to go but a normal routine: take a daughter to music school and then pick her up again. The music school sat on a street where two cars could barely pass each other even in fair weather. In winter, snow piled up and the storm’s effects grew worse. Visibility vanished, and the driver found herself dragging freshly fallen but already compressed snow with the bumper. If another car appeared head-on, it was a threat to be avoided. If a turn could be made, it was a small victory. If not, the tires found themselves stuck in a white sleep.
After the lesson, it turned out the daughter needed a dentist appointment. The dental office did not have its own parking lot and relied on a municipal one. There were no complaints about the parking, but the entrance proved tricky. A four-wheel-drive SUV, built in America, skidded in front for several minutes, blocking the path and prompting a careful rethink of the plan.
Counting began. A car is often bought for about five years, not forever, with a price tag around 2.5 million rubles. Given current prices, a modest Chinese SUV fits this median. Maintenance includes fuel, insurance, upkeep, washing, and even parking in certain places that can cost around 480 rubles. Then there are the unexpected expenses that always find a way to appear. Even with occasional trips to the music school and the dacha, the costs add up as follows:
Fuel amounts to about 5 thousand rubles each month, totaling 60 thousand per year; insurance comes in around 14 thousand per year; washing and parking add roughly 10 thousand; and unexpected repairs can be about 15 thousand per year.
Combine the car’s price with five years of ownership and divide by five, and the annual ownership cost appears. In this scenario, the narrator receives exactly 599 thousand rubles per year. Then the thought turns to alternatives: what if taking a taxi becomes a regular habit? It is assumed that taxi travel occurs on at least 300 days a year, with an average trip costing about 1,200 rubles in the Comfort class. The math suggests annual transportation expenses of roughly 360 thousand rubles, yielding savings on the car by about 239 thousand rubles.
What about the subway or train ride to reach a lodge or other places? The reader is left to imagine the level of financial comfort that could be achieved by choosing cheaper modes of travel.
Yet these considerations feel provisional. One day, perhaps in spring, the cheap cars will carry passengers again, seedlings will be planted in a place that lacks a proper name—the narrow space between the rear window and the back seats—and traffic on the Moscow Ring Road will once again be crowded. Such is the life of a Russian driver, a life that continues without the need for something else.