On muggy summer nights, when most of the city's cars have long since been driven home, Ivan Savushkin rides around in the elevated cab of his street-washing truck, scanning the sidewalks for targets like people throwing trash or prostitutes.
"I've devoted my life to cleaning up the city's streets, and so when I see that dirt and disrespect, I spray it," said 45-year-old Savushkin, waving his hand triumphantly at the city sidewalk littered with quick-paced men carrying leather purses and women shimmying along on three-inch heels.
Savushkin, tanned and scruffy in his dusty and motor-oiled municipal frocks, is one of the city workers charged with keeping the city's 4,600 kilometers of roadway clean of muck and mire. There are about 70 ZiL trucks, each carrying six tons of water, which drive around the city looking for street gunk. Most of the time they're seen circling the streets with just a bit of water dribbling from the three water spouts on the truck bed's belly.
But when the water pressure is on full blast, the stream spans three car lanes, blowing wrinkled napkins and blinding mist toward parked cars and unlucky passersby. Sweaty kids on summer's hotter days wave for the trucks to come their way and refresh them with a spurt.
Savushkin recalled how, in 1975, one Soviet documentary maker filmed Savushkin as he drove his squirting truck over the Krymsky Bridge as a symbol of rebirth and baptism.
"In the old days people treated us with respect," said Savushkin, who has been driving a street-washing truck for 25 years. "We were workers like everyone else. Even more than that, we were doing a necessary job, a job that millions of lives depended on." Today's street washers are unappreciated, he added, "The most insulting thing about it is that we get paid kopeks." Savushkin earns just over 2 million rubles ($346) a month, which he said is barely enough to support his wife and two children living at home.
In the summer months, Moscow is a notoriously dirty city. With thousands of square meters of exposed earth, a few dry days and light breeze are all it takes to get the dust moving. Fighting that dust is a tough job, the drivers said, one that demands patience. For hours every day they bounce around in the truck's cab where the loud, rattling noise reverberates inside their heads like kidney beans in a jar. Add to that the masses of cursing and speeding motorists with little respect for the drivers' task, the mechanical miracles necessary to keep the aging ZiLs running and washing Moscow's streets doesn't look like a cozy little twirl around town.
After the trucks blast the dirt to the side of the street and sidewalks, city workers on foot come round with brooms and sweep the dirt into piles, later to be collected by trucks. No soap is used, but the pressure the squirters use can scour the streets to toilet-bowl shine.
"To tell the truth, I think little about the trucks. They clean the streets and that's great," said teacher Lyuda Simonova, 32. "But there are complaints to be had. When talking about the charity of their work, it cuts both ways. When it's really dirty and the trucks need to work, they clean the streets but spray passers-by with water and mud. So it's dirty streets or dirty suits."
Street cleaning is getting harder these days, street cleaners say. The city's huge construction boom is sending vast quantities of dust into the air. In general, though, the dirtiest times are during the spring and fall, when dirt and rain and snow mix to make a mess. During the winter months, the trucks shed their spouts and acquire giant shovels and hind sweepers to muscle the snow into piles along the sides of the street.
But no matter how much they shovel and sweep and spurt at the dirt, street cleaners like Savushkin say the Moscow on the other side of their windshields is getting progressively uglier.
"They build these beautiful buildings, and then like heathens leave wooden planks and piles of dirt by the front door," Savushkin said. "Why spend this money building fortresses if people can't even sweep the floors and pick up their candy bar wrappers?"
"I've devoted my life to cleaning up the city's streets, and so when I see that dirt and disrespect, I spray it," said 45-year-old Savushkin, waving his hand triumphantly at the city sidewalk littered with quick-paced men carrying leather purses and women shimmying along on three-inch heels.
Savushkin, tanned and scruffy in his dusty and motor-oiled municipal frocks, is one of the city workers charged with keeping the city's 4,600 kilometers of roadway clean of muck and mire. There are about 70 ZiL trucks, each carrying six tons of water, which drive around the city looking for street gunk. Most of the time they're seen circling the streets with just a bit of water dribbling from the three water spouts on the truck bed's belly.
But when the water pressure is on full blast, the stream spans three car lanes, blowing wrinkled napkins and blinding mist toward parked cars and unlucky passersby. Sweaty kids on summer's hotter days wave for the trucks to come their way and refresh them with a spurt.
Savushkin recalled how, in 1975, one Soviet documentary maker filmed Savushkin as he drove his squirting truck over the Krymsky Bridge as a symbol of rebirth and baptism.
"In the old days people treated us with respect," said Savushkin, who has been driving a street-washing truck for 25 years. "We were workers like everyone else. Even more than that, we were doing a necessary job, a job that millions of lives depended on." Today's street washers are unappreciated, he added, "The most insulting thing about it is that we get paid kopeks." Savushkin earns just over 2 million rubles ($346) a month, which he said is barely enough to support his wife and two children living at home.
In the summer months, Moscow is a notoriously dirty city. With thousands of square meters of exposed earth, a few dry days and light breeze are all it takes to get the dust moving. Fighting that dust is a tough job, the drivers said, one that demands patience. For hours every day they bounce around in the truck's cab where the loud, rattling noise reverberates inside their heads like kidney beans in a jar. Add to that the masses of cursing and speeding motorists with little respect for the drivers' task, the mechanical miracles necessary to keep the aging ZiLs running and washing Moscow's streets doesn't look like a cozy little twirl around town.
After the trucks blast the dirt to the side of the street and sidewalks, city workers on foot come round with brooms and sweep the dirt into piles, later to be collected by trucks. No soap is used, but the pressure the squirters use can scour the streets to toilet-bowl shine.
"To tell the truth, I think little about the trucks. They clean the streets and that's great," said teacher Lyuda Simonova, 32. "But there are complaints to be had. When talking about the charity of their work, it cuts both ways. When it's really dirty and the trucks need to work, they clean the streets but spray passers-by with water and mud. So it's dirty streets or dirty suits."
Street cleaning is getting harder these days, street cleaners say. The city's huge construction boom is sending vast quantities of dust into the air. In general, though, the dirtiest times are during the spring and fall, when dirt and rain and snow mix to make a mess. During the winter months, the trucks shed their spouts and acquire giant shovels and hind sweepers to muscle the snow into piles along the sides of the street.
But no matter how much they shovel and sweep and spurt at the dirt, street cleaners like Savushkin say the Moscow on the other side of their windshields is getting progressively uglier.
"They build these beautiful buildings, and then like heathens leave wooden planks and piles of dirt by the front door," Savushkin said. "Why spend this money building fortresses if people can't even sweep the floors and pick up their candy bar wrappers?"