Two-week jam on Lena federal road

Authorities are to take measures on 905-1056th km site of Lena federal road (just on the far bank of the Lena river in front of Yakutsk) where two-week jam happened recently because of steady rains.

Hardly having any surface, this site cannot be called even a bad road. Now 905-1056th km is being fixed in order to make it possible for traffic, but everyone knows that this is not enough. The road doesn't need to be just repaired, but rebuilt completely. Otherwise, this year's situation, when the road was washed away and even big lorries KamAZ couldn't get through, will be repeated next year.

The driver who managed to escape from the site recollects: “There was a traffic jam of more than 600 vehicles (16th September data), lack of food and fuel; one woman bore a baby right in the bus. Road workers don't appear anymore – they got attacked by furious drivers. People ate mushrooms before it became too cold, now there's nothing to eat. They break into containers to get food and warm clothes; there's shooting and fighting, such kind of things. Fuel, food and iron cable are the prior values”.

And here is what the reporter of “ Nedelya Yakutyi ” (The Week of Yakutia Newspaper) who witnessed the situation writes: “There isn't any chaos on the road. It could appear before, but carbines and fowling-pieces in the cabins now discourage from trying to get in the head of the line out of turn. Besides, the drivers realize that they all have equal rights, except only one case. At least once, there has been ambulance car to get through the jam. No, not some injury or death. On the contrary… the baby was born!... And there was not a word about it in any official source, including the website of the Republic Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information! Nobody reported on a person to be born in the middle of this jam on THE FEDERAL LINE! The woman gave birth to her baby almost without anybody's help. Those who managed to break through the abyss, informed about the event and after a while, the ambulance car arrived from the city of Aldan and took the woman to the nearest hospital”.

“As for the drivers to drink vodka and use bad language, - that is true. People do “get tight”, because they don't have choice. The temperature falls much below zero at night; they run out of fuel, money, food. But they have at least the container of vodka to warm themselves up. Their snack? Mostly fruits - from the collapsed and broken down container belonging to the brothers from sunny Uzbekistan . But these fruits are coming to end, too. Oh, almost forgot! This site is periodically visited by the cars with “Eating establishment” signboard… These visits could have been cheerful for extremely hungry drivers and their passengers, but the food is far from being free or at least cheap – 1 kg of chicken legs for 200 roubles, 1 kg of pel'mens for 180 roubles, a roll of bread for 30 roubles, 1 can of fish for 50 roubles and more, a pack of cigarettes for 30 roubles. One can but even vodka for 150 roubles, which is the only product to be sold at almost regular price”.

“Once, having announced their prices in the middle of the jam, these dubious food-sellers got real Russian pills. Fortunately, they escaped alive”.

“In fact, there is only one factor to improve the situation. This is a tractor. To be exact, not the tractor, but its driver, Serzh Sarkisyan. The drivers and those who see how hard he works, assume that fact. This man spends days from the early morning till the late at night, pulling out the stuck cars. He works every single day, without days off and almost without dinner. But although the tractor driver realizes all the catastrophe people experience and struggles to help as many of them as he can every day, the "grateful" drivers attacked him up to punish him for … not being able to work the third night without sleep.”

“Sergey Sarkisyan spent 48 hours without sleep pulling out cars with his tractor, which is the only one to keep working. When, completely exhausted, he decided to make a break and have some sleep, driven to despair people assaulted him.”

“For 48 hours he dragged lorries and cars non-stop, without sleep and was completely exhausted in the end. His body refused working without rest anymore. When he told the drivers that he was tired and couldn't help falling asleep, the most angry of them suddenly attacked him and broke his nose: “Do work!” (However, there is another version: Sarkisyan was asking the drivers to pay money for his help, and that was the reason of the assault – the comment of // auto.mail.ru editor).”

“By the way, there used to be two tractors. But one of them was left broken on the roadside and now seems to be the monument to the Russian road building. The vehicle has lost its track and nobody is trying to repair it. By the time we got there, Sarkisyan's tractor was almost out of order, with its coupling broken. How much will the tractor work in such terrible condition? Nobody knows. Probably it is not working already. It means the whole 12-km column is not moving.”

P.S. Unfortunately, the photographer is unknown. But we hope that we will hear from him.

// Sept. 22, 2006.

Translated by Alexandra Markova.
Resource: http//auto.mail.ru

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