Service With(out) A Smile

Dotted along the main roads are service stations that mostly cater to long distance lorry drivers. The buildings themselves vary in size and grandeur but they all feature a massive forecourt for the enormous lorries that frequent them. They vary in quality but all serve food and drink and provide toilets. A few also have showers, laundry and accommodation attached. Sometimes the toilets are clean and maintained, other times they are gross! (Toilets could be the subject of a whole blog entry!) You have to pay for showers (about £1.50); laundry is a washing machine (again about £1.50); whilst most people sleep in their vehicle, there are also sometimes bunkbeds in a shared dorm or rooms on the upper floors.

The food can be canteen style – where you take your tray and point at what you want or from an extensive menu. (Unfortunately for us they offer no pictures). It’s the same type of fare – meat, rice, buckwheat, pasta, soups, salads, meat dumplings – but varies from bland to tasty. It is served with the usual nonchalance and surliness! Though to be fair there are, at times, glimmers of hospitality and smiles especially when one turns the charm on. Thinking about it I guess customer service is a result of capitalism – make the customer feel special so they spend more and/or come again. In contrast, the service here is little more then a transaction of goods and services. Indeed these service stations are predominately for truckers who come into them to wash, clean, eat and sleep so they don’t need pandering to. (Unlike over-sensitive Westerners: especially recent Japanese inhabitants!)

They are exclusively run by women – think school dinner ladies and you’ll get a good picture. Inside there’s tables covered in garish plastic table cloths, chairs, food counter, fridge stocked with beer and soft drinks, bright strip lights, maybe a karaoke machine but always a TV blaring out some soap or news reports. The food, carried in on large plastic trays, comes out very quickly after ordering  and there’s usually salt, pepper and sweet chilli sauce on the tables. It is functional food and functional service and, as a result, people don’t linger long after eating.

If it’s wet outside or we can’t find somewhere to camp they are great. Park up, order food, drink beer, eat, wash and then retire to the car. However, people also stay in these service stations for the safety aspect that they provide. There seems to be a fear about wild camping here; we were warned to not camp in the countryside and that these service stations offered a safe ‘camp spot.’ What they don’t mention, and what Captain and I dislike, is that they are incredibly ugly; very noisy with lorries leaving and arriving throughout the night and offer no privacy what so ever.

So we have used them on occasion but mostly we have found a camp spot away from the road where we have felt safe. More to the point the Russian countryside is truly beautiful and we can use the camp fire and barbecue, sit on our chairs, relax in each other’s company, fly Brian, drink wine, pull the awning out, watch the sun set and relish the outdoors. That is, after all, one of the main reasons for this trip – to be outside in this beautiful world of ours.

N.B. Many thanks to Taka-san for providing the first three photos!!