One of my employees is a pleasant, reliable, and sober young man in his 20s, who works for us as a minibus driver.\u00a0 Finding a pleasant, reliable, and sober young man to work as a driver in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is akin to finding a pleasant, reliable, and sober\u00a0builder in West Wales.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, it looks as though we’re going to have to get\u00a0rid of him.\u00a0 His driving license expires next month, and in order to renew it he needs a permanent local address, where he is registered with the Russian authorities.\u00a0 In any normal country, a permanent address means anywhere which you are living, including a place you\u00a0are legitimately renting.\u00a0 But in Russia, you can only get registration\u00a0at an address if you own the property, or you were born into that address, i.e. your parents owned it.\u00a0 Our driver is from\u00a0Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and was registered at his parents’ apartment for most of his life, but they sold the place and moved away, leaving him renting a place here.\u00a0 When they sold the place, they lost their registration at that address, and the new owners were entitled to register themselves there instead.\u00a0 My driver then found himself without a registered address in his home town, or indeed anywhere else.<\/p>\n
In Russia, those who do not have a registered address are classed as homeless, or bums.\u00a0 In short, a tramp.\u00a0 That this chap has a job, a place to eat, and a bed to sleep in matters not to the Russian authorities: if he is not regsitered somewhere, he is homeless.<\/p>\n
And if you are homeless, you cannot renew your driving license.\u00a0 And if he doesn’t have a driving license, he cannot work for me as a driver, and he loses his job.\u00a0 Insanity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of my employees is a pleasant, reliable, and sober young man in his 20s, who works for us as a minibus driver.\u00a0 Finding a pleasant, reliable, and sober young man to work as a driver in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is akin … Continue reading