Underground nomads

“Bactericidal adhesive plaster, flesh-colored, heals wounds — only one hryvnia.” Everyday you can hear these kinds of sales pitches on the subways trains. The range of merchandise sold there is huge. Subway users are offered moist towelettes, cough drops, Kyiv city guides, and newspapers and magazines filled with sensational confessions of celebrities and advice for farmers.

The halls of Kyiv’s underground stations have recently gotten rid of the pastry and patty sellers, but newspapers and magazines are still sold there. The situation in the underground passages is completely different: practically every domestic necessity can be found at this bazaar: pans, cups, shoes, fruits and vegetables, batteries, toys from China, stationery, CDs and DVDs, and books.

While merchants from the underground station halls — “the higher caste” — do not encounter problems with the police, the sellers in the underground passages have a more difficult time with law- enforcement people. Granny Vira (who asked not to be identified) told me that she is one of the “less privileged.” She confessed: “They chase us away sometimes. But my bosses put me here, so I deal with the police with their help.”

I asked her if business is brisk. “It depends. Sometimes there are a lot of buyers in the morning and then nobody in the afternoon. Sometimes it is so-so in the morning, but in the evening there is a crowd. There are generally many buyers. Some of them order in advance, so you have to bring a lot of merchandise.”

The residents of Kyiv have different attitudes to the trade in the subway stations. Larysa Oleksandrivna, who bought shoes in an underground passage, told me that she’s not a frequent user of these services. “On the one hand,” she says, “when you’re in a hurry, you can buy something here. But it is not very good from the standpoint of safety. It’s difficult to make your way through all the swarms of people. And if it rains or there is some other kind of bad weather outside, it is terrifying because there is such a crowd here.”

Kyivite Oleksii Mykhailovych is dead set against the trade in the subway stations and underground passages. “First, it is unhygienic, second, you don’t know about the quality of the goods, third, this is a breeding ground for petty Mafiosi, and fourth, the sellers are evading income tax. But we all understand that this is because of the poverty of those who sell and those who buy. We will have to put up with this until we become a civilized and wealthy country.”

A sign with the inscription “Spontaneous trade is forbidden” hangs in the underground passage between the Khreshchatyk and Maidan Nezalezhnosti subway stations. (Kyivites call their subway the “tube.”) But in the morning there are always a lot of merchants here selling clothing and wooden items.

An elderly woman who comes here every morning says that the sign worries her. “I am bothered by my bad teeth, my illnesses, and my children who are not able to study properly. And I am very concerned about our government.” Her neighbor says that local policemen do not provide them with protection. “How do we deal with the police? We run — that’s all. Stay here five minutes more and you will see us running.”

Business is much worse here than in the place where Granny Vira works. “I have been here since early morning,” a merchant said, “and I have only sold a vest for 20 hryvnias, but see how much clothing I brought? People don’t buy a lot. They are in a hurry to get to work. My neighbor and I are going to Lukianivska Street; people are richer there.”

The merchants start packing up their wares at 10 a.m. They answer my questions eagerly, but they are trying to pack their things as quickly as possible before the police come. “Why do you bother about other people’s troubles?” they ask me. The underground merchants end the conversation and leave, moving to a more favorable selling spot.

The policemen who were on duty at the Maidan nezalezhnosti subway station that day refused to comment on the spontaneous trade in this underground passage. The policeman on duty at Kontraktova Ploshcha was more talkative. He explained that there is no trade on his beat. “My duties include controlling the entrance to the station, platform, and part of the underground passage marked off by the yellow lines. The rest is the responsibility of the Podil Raion Department. If a trader appears, I ask him politely to leave, and if he refuses, I write up a report.”

Although the law-enforcement people are doing their jobs, and state officials regularly issue edicts banning spontaneous trade, the subway trade is not disappearing. No one knows how many sellers work in the subway, what their daily income is, and how much they give to their protectors.

What happens in other European capitals? London doesn’t have this kind of activity in its underground system. You will not see women selling blood-puddings or strawberries in the underground passages between stations. You can only sing in the London subway.

A different situation exists in New Delhi. Merchants struggle for every customer: they are constantly hawking their wares, grabbing potential customers by the hand — they practically pull them to their tables by force. You’re in real trouble if you stop. You will be instantly surrounded and the seller will beg you until you buy something.

Compared to this, the trade in Kyiv’s subway and underground passages is not so bad. Nobody gets in your way or makes you jump over baskets. But these illegal merchants do not pay taxes and are feeding the world of corruption. Should the government make war on all the Granny Viras? Is there any program in the city that would involve them in civilized, legal trade? After all, they too are residents of the capital and members of the Kyiv community, and they deserve some attention from city officials.