WE AND THE CAR
/WOMEN'S CLUB
BE ON THE HEAD ABOVE …
LEGEND OF THE PETERSKAYA DPS
TEXT, PHOTO / LEONID FOOTWEAR
All drivers of the city know her. Many, passing along the busy section of Moskovsky Prospekt, raise their hands with a smile. The only female traffic inspector in St. Petersburg for nearly a quarter of a century is already an occasion for a legend. And Kurochkina also forced herself to be respected - and right away, back in the late 70s, she was punished with a “composter” of a Moscow police general, who rode freely along the axle. If she were a man, she would probably have flown out with a bang from the traffic police. But the offended general did not dare to tear off shoulder straps from a small woman looking like a teenager …
- Raisa Sergeevna, how did you get into the traffic police?
- I came from Odessa to Leningrad, to my uncle. And once she saw a traffic controller at a crossroads. How beautifully she worked with a rod! I could not take my eyes off. I persuaded a girlfriend, wrote a statement in frames. She didn’t go through health, but they told me, it’s possible even into space.
- Once upon a time at the Leningrad intersections there were many inspectors in skirts. Where are they all now?
- Let's go weddings. Then - the children, care certificates. And I was lucky, I have a good mother-in-law: you, says, a rod under your arm, a whistle in your pen - and calmly go work!
- What was the most difficult for you at first?
- To study all this: traffic rules, the city, brands and models of cars. Because the intruder leaves, and it is necessary to transmit about him by walkie-talkie …
- For example, “Toyota Corolla” from “Karina” can you distinguish?
- (Laughs) I can!.. There were still problems with uniforms. What am I slouching about? All my life in a sheepskin coat went 54th size, and I have 46th! The first felt boots were given to me generally dimensionless: they say nothing, pour boiling water to sit down … My mother-in-law handed them over to the commission room and brought me the village ones - that was good!
“Where did you meet your husband, with whom you acquired such a wonderful mother-in-law?”
- At the crossroads. He overtook someone, and I punished him three rubles. I take "rights": in the photo he looks like a person, he has a neatly cut hair, and in life he is shaggy, scary! “What do you work with?” - “The driver” … After that he returned and waited three hours to take me to the hostel. A year later they got married, and soon a silver wedding.
“Do you yourself have a driver’s license?”
- Neither “right” nor car.
- Even the official?
“Why do I need her?” It is necessary to look after the car, to be engaged in it. Where is the time to take?
- A lot of boors?
- Enough. The only remedy against them is correctness and patience. Stopped - and he, for example, on the "cell phone" speaks to me and zero attention. I'm calmly waiting. And now, I say, it’s your turn to wait and listen to me: you violated this and that … You know, some later drive up: “Sorry, I was wrong!”
- Does rudeness depend on the make and price of the car?
- Not.
- That is, a boor may be on the "Zaporozhets"?
- Even on foot!
- And what is your relationship with female drivers?
- Women are also different. There are screamers, there are, on the contrary, crybabies - immediately in tears. “What are you? - I say this. “I will punish you by loving or scolding you a little bit and letting go.”
- How do they most often justify themselves?
- Like, I’m upset or late because of my husband, because of children … Usually I limit myself to verbal warning, because I know what women are.
“Do you agree that they are, generally speaking, more cultured drivers?”
“We should be a cut above men.”
“By the way, wouldn’t you tell me with your husband which men you like?”
- With hoarse voices. Vysotsky, Rosenbaum, Shevchuk … The other day, Rosenbaum passed me on a black Lincoln - oh, what a handsome man!
“Lincoln?”
- (Laughs) Rosenbaum.
