City's Census Takers Hit Streets

 
It's census time in Russia and, while the first statistical investigation of the country's population will provide valuable answers for governments at all levels, it presents thousands of workers - most of them students - sent out to gather the information, with several particular difficulties.

The taking of the census, which began on Wednesday and will run for a week, faces the workers with a job that can be, by turns, difficult, risky, and sometimes humorous.

After ringing the bell at a door in an apartment building, Masha Zarubina and Olga Guseva, both 20-year-old students, wait.

A moment later, an elderly voice replies from inside the apartment.

"No, I'm not going to open the door for you," the voice says. "Do you see that slit above the door? You should see my fingers there. Push your papers through that slit ... ."

Zarubina and Guseva say that the exchange is a common occurence in their work, as many people, especially if they are elderly or alone, are afraid to open their doors to strangers, for fear of being robbed or attacked.

"It's pretty common for people not to want to open their doors," Guseva says. "We just ask them to call or to drop by our census centers."

At the next door, another elderly voice answers but, this time, more confidently, and the door to the apartment opens.

Waiting inside is a four-year-old boy with a toy gun - already loaded with a rubber projectile. The boy points the pistol at the two young women, says "Boom," and then breaks into laughter.

"To be honest, we are human too, and are sometimes a little afraid ringing strangers' door bells," Zarubina says. "But that's the job."

In the next apartment, on the next floor up in the building, the residents, while answering the census questions, have a few questions of their own ready.

"Why do you spend your time like this?" asks Olga Luktysheva, 48, as she invites Guseva and Zarubina in. "You should be studying, or out on dates."

Zarubina and Guseva are, in fact, studying, but their fourth-year course at the St. Petersburg Food Technology University has been freed from classes for a week for them to work as census takers.

St. Petersburg has 11,000 census workers, mostly students, pensioners and workers from the social sector. Each of them is to interview an average of 420 people per week, with a weekly wage of $50, said Tatyana Bogdanova, head of the census department at the St. Petersburg State Statistics Committee.

"My heart aches for them, especially for the girls," said Lyudmila Antonova, head of the census center at 14 Ulitsa Marata. "Who knows what kind of people they'll have to come across," she said.

The safety instructions for census takers stipulate that they should work in pairs, ring the bells of several apartments at once, not work after 8 p.m. and try not to enter apartments. If an entrance stairway looks suspicious, they are instructed simply to leave it.

Despite the precautions, Maksim Belov, another student working as a census taker, said that, despite the precautions and risks, the work has a lighter side.

He recounted how, leaving a darkened entranceway, he and his partner met a 22-year-old woman returning home. In order not to let another client slip, they stopped her in the darkness, flicking on their flash-lights.

"Are you bandits?" asked the girl. They explained their work and she answered their questions, but after a while she asked again: "Are you sure you're not bandits?"

Many people interviewed expressed their doubts about the confidentiality of the census. Belov said that one woman became afraid, having told him that she lives in a five-room apartment.

"Oh, people will think that I'm rich and come and rob me," she said.

Belov had to allay her fears and convince her of the census's confidentiality.

Denis Singayevsky, a trainer for the census takers, told of a client that he had nicknamed the "James Bond Woman."

"She told me to put 'X' instead of her name, and 'X' for her address. The only information she dared give me was that she has electricity and running water," Syngayevsky said.

The inhabitants of one communal apartment that Zarubina and Guseva visited, quickly crowded into the corridor.

One woman in her 50s, the clear leader in the cramped kommunalka, wouldn't let the other residents get a word in edgeways as she answered their questions for them. She also insisted that an elderly babushka, born in 1917, go back to her room.

"She always wants to know my secrets," the woman said, looking at the babushka, her eyes full of suspicion.

The census contains a broad variety of questions covering identity, age, citizenship, nationality, education, knowledge of foreign languages, work sphere and income sources. It also covers living space, presence of electricity, gas and other conveniences.

Another cause of laughter is the fact that all the questions have to be asked, however inappropriate the question. 80-year olds, for example, are asked where they work.

There are over five different forms, with foreigners having to answer questions from form "B," which includes questions about the purpose of their trip to Russia. "K" is for everyone, while "D" is a longer version, being filled out by every fourth interviewee. "P" covers questions relating to housing conditions.

The census takers are quick to point out that there are many who take the responsibility of answering the questions very seriously.

"Especially pensioners, lonely people," said Tatyana Maisashvili, another census taker. "They come to census points as if dressed for a party, telling us about their problems, their pets and their illnesses," she said.

Maisashvili said that, when she conducted a census at the Moskovsky Station on Wednesday, interviewing transit passengers, homeless people came in order to tell their life stories, rather than to specifically answer the census questionnaires.

Maisashvili, a manager at a tourist firm, and her partner, Oleg Pekhovsky, a post-graduate student, said that they really enjoy their work.

"It's so interesting to talk to different people, to hear how they live," Pekhovsky said. "The census only happens once every 10 years, and it's part of our history - I want to see what that history looks like," he said.

The census is meant to register the population of the country at midnight on October 9. This means that children born after that date will not be registered, but people who die during the following week, during which the census is carried out, will be on the list.

Of the 14 doors at which Zarubina and Guseva knocked, all on just one stairway, only three opened. The inhabitants of the other apartments were either too afraid to answer or simply not at home.

"In fact, about 50 percent of the people prefer to come to the census points themselves," Singayevsky said.

The final results of the census will only be complete by the fall of next year. First indications, however, are intriguing - most of the women questioned by Zarubina and Guseva on Thursday are divorced, while a significant number said they speak English.