Bus 63

Bus 63 is my go-to bus in Almaty. The route takes me up to class everyday, and on the days after work when it is too late to walk, bus 63 takes me home again. It also goes past the Peace Corps office, which I’ve taken advantage of twice so far on this trip.

It’s not a particularly convenient way to travel. For the first couple of days I underestimated how long the trip would take; now I know to plan on a solid 45 minutes on the bus, about an hour door-to-door to class. When I first get on the bus, it is usually packed, standing room only. But after a few stops it empties out and I can snag a seat (though of course I am always ready to give up my seat to more deserving riders). Often we pause for a long while at the Green Bazaar, a major transit hub for the city. Sometimes as we approach this stop, the bus conductor will yell, “Ok, everyone off! There’s another 63 bus up ahead!” And everyone pours out of the bus at a frantic trot to switch vehicles. When this happens, everyone checks to make sure that they have their tickets in hand to avoid having to pay the 30-cent cost per ride again.

The Kazakhstan bus system is a complex universe. City buses, private buses, mini buses… each have their own conventions. Bus 63 is a well-run route. The drivers and the conductors, who wander the bus collecting money and giving out tickets, work together to regulate the bus, sometimes yelling back and forth to coordinate door openings and length of pauses at stops. Monitors stand at specific stops along the route noting the times that buses come and go. They help space out the flow of buses on the route.

I would like to know more about the schedules that the drivers and conductors keep. I’ve had the same conductor almost every morning this week, a blond Russian woman about my age who smokes pink-tipped cigarettes during the long stop at the Green Bazaar. At least once she has been the one to initiate the bus switch, meaning she gets to go on break, but clearly her schedule is irregular, as she doesn’t get that break at the same time everyday… Today I switched on to her bus, and it was the same bus as yesterday (same interior decoration of half-dressed women and football pennants) but I swear it was a different driver…

A couple days ago I ran for bus 63 at after a delightful dinner of shashlyk, plov, and beer. I’d gotten a ride as far as Furmanova and could see the bus trundling along. I dashed down the hill and into the bus just as it began pulling away. We started up and then began barely creeping down the road. One woman, with a bunch of grocery bags on the seat next to her, eventually put her foot down. “Hey,” she yelled, “Are we going to go or not? Some of us are trying to get home here!”

The conductor, a young Kazakh guy who is becoming familiar, was sitting up in front with the driver. “Sorry,” he called back, “There are just some really beautiful girls walking by…”

The whole bus smiled, though we tried to hide it from each other because no one smiles on a bus in Kazakhstan. Even the grumpy woman smiled. The conductor came back and apologized to her in person, and the driver picked up the pace.

It was a nice moment, and as the ride continued I began to suspect that our young conductor had probably had a drink or two on his last break. He was certainly not as diligent in his calling out of stops as he usually is, not to mention he seemed to have a bit of trouble navigating the floor of the bus.

Ready, ready, ready for a long weekend. 4 days off, with two holidays! Working on plans for travel or hiking. In classic KZ style we have not at all planned in advance.