Битеф

Is driving a truck a prestigious job? Do young people come to the job? The young seek jobs where you do nothing. And, mind you, it is an interesting job but when you do it all the time it is not always interesting. Driving across a country itself is not difficult; it is hard only at the border. In Serbia during the war, the Serbs were so mad at us that I was held up for three days for 1 would not give them anything. Once, I was also brought to court in Novi Sad. The policemen asked: why don't you take the motorway? And we did not because we did not want to pay - one has to pay up to 80 Euro toll. When I was young I dreamt to see the whole of Europe, in the meantime I have seen a lot, only Portugal I have not seen, and England. The Germans are the strictest - if you have done something wrong you have to be punished. The Germans and French are very civilized - they never ask for money or something... Serbs, Romanians and Hungarians - they always want something from you. In Romania we always sleep in paid parking areas, for otherwise it is dangerous. Now the danger comes from the refugees - they try to sneak into the truck. Once it happened to me, in Belgium, not far from Brussels several of them had hidden in the truck during the night at a gas station and we only noticed that 20 km later. They wanted to go to England in this way. 80 kilometers into England and one can no longer send them back. I have never thought about death.

It was the most dangerous in Russia. And also in Teheran. But in those days were more friendly to each other, we used to work together, wait for each other, give each other signs. I have a small TV set and a cassette recorder, I like Serbian music; my mother is from Tsaribrod (now in Serbia), my wife from Kaiotina, In France one cannot watch TV, the programs are encoded. I have dozed off while driving several times. Once my wife was with me. i don't know how it happens but I always wake up, some force wakes me, something protects me. In the truck I have two beds, a frying pan and all you need for cooking, sometimes we would cook, in a parking place, but the Turks cook much more often, they are friendlier than we are. In Komi in Urals, there live quite different people there, life is different, very poor. In Moscow they tried to rob me - cans, such things; and the Romanians have steal a great deal, if you leave the truck open. In Bielorussia nobody would exchange dollars, I found this very odd, that for-the first time nobody wanted US dollars.