Здесь я пишу немного об одном ситуации который я посмотрел в москве. Несколко молодых людах пил пиву в парке. Один встретились милиция, которая сказал что нелзя пить пиву в государственные паркы, надо платит страф. Но они разговоривали вместе с ними, и успели легко бегать из ситуации когда они платили милиции личные несколко сот рублей. После того, я пишу немного о русских милиции и страфи в обще, и разлици между Норвегии и России в этой теме.
Sunday I went to a nice park in Moscow. It is a big green area by the moscow river, close to metro station kosomolskaya. It was very nice and relaxing. While being there, I witnessed something that is said to be very common in Russia. A group of 4-5 people was sitting close to me, but at the same time drinking some beers. They were quiet, I think they only had a bottle each. Then a couple of policemen, came walking by. They seemed almost happy, to have found someone that they could adress. "Are you aware of the russian laws that prohibts drinking in public parks?" they asked one of them. A discussion followed. Excusing themselves, the people emptied the bottles. "You have to come with us", the policemen said. "We will throw away the cans, and we must also give you a fine."' The group stood up, and walked together with the policement too a nearby trash dump, upon which the bottles where thrown. The policemen then wanted to lead them to their offices, to do the neccessary paperwork for the fines to be issued. On the way to there, one of the others in the group, stopped the policemen. She asked very carefully and humble, that this situation was difficult for them. Maybe she could have a talk with one of the officers, in private, maybe they could come up with an alternative solution. She and one of the policemen, walked a little bit a way from the others, talking together, for a small while. The other policeman, stood on the side, a little away from the others, looking to the side, not hearing anything what was said. I later spoke to the girl, and she told me more closely what had happened. They had discussed back and fourth a little. She had first suggested, if not 500 rubles directly could be sufficient, and then they could go, without any registration neccessary. "This is a serious offence", the policeman had said. "I could give you a 2000 rubles fine! And we have to do the paperwork..." the policeman had answered. The girl had then offered 700 rubles. "Okay!", the policeman had said. Going back to her friends, she collected the money, went back to the policeman and gave it too him. The policeman went back to his collegue. "You must remember this to next time, please, do not drink here!" he said as they part. "Alright, Mr Officer, we promise, we will remember it from now on."
There are several things I think was interesting about this situation.
First, the extreme importance that was put on both parties on maintaining the face of each other during the process. Any corruption was never excplicitly suggested, only that it would be easier for both to conduct bussiness under the table. The police are never suggested to be bad servicemen not bothering about the law, they only uphold the law in a slightly easier way. The "clients" are never insinuated to be able to pay themselves out of everything, they are performing an honest regret, excusing themselves. The purpose of the police and the laws are upheld, it is only enforced in a different manner.
Second, the fear of the paperwork may be just as real for the police as for the purpetrators. For me, as a westerner, it is difficult to describe the extent of beurocratization in Russia - it is something you have to witness. I will write more about this later sometime. The point here is that this beurocratization is ofcourse also fully present in everything the police do. I girl I knew was stopped once and got a fine for breaking a traffic rule. Being hugely delayed for the time it took to fill out the the neccessary forms, when she met me, she tried to see on the copy where the actual fine was written. The paper had a large amount of text boxes with information numbers, but she did not manage to understand which referred to the actual fine. I remember her frustration, how she was waving her hands, when her accompanying friend also had problem to interpret the paper.
Third, was the way that paying the police unofficially seems to be a very well known and established genre among russians. Both the police and ordinary people knows the right way to conduct it - how to offer and reject and bargain, the appropriate amounts, and so on. I later spoke with someone about other customary ways of doing this. When being stopped by in the traffic, for example, asked for the passport you could lay money in the passport. Opening the passport, the policeman had two alternatives. He could point to the money and say "What is this??", whereupon the stopped person could excuse himself and say they had dropped in their by a mistake. On the other hand, he could take the money, put it in this pocket - "accepting" the offer. By custom, this would require the policeman to give the stopped person back his passport, and let him go. To a Norwegian, these are completely unknown practices.
Fourth, while the practice of bribing the police seems far away from Norway, it shares similarities with how the Norwegian police operates too. It is a stereotype I sometimes hear by foreigners, that "Norwegians are all very law abiding citizens". This is not really true - but maybe it can sometimes seem so. A good example is drinking in parks. This is forbidden by law, and the penalties decided by the city council. In Oslo - everybody knows that drinking in parks are forbidden, and that any purpetrators may be given a large fine by the police. However, it may seem that most of the people who visits parks does not care, because they drink anyway. In enforcing the law, the police has a choice of "talking to someone" about it (Norwegian "tilsnakk"), where you must comply quickly and humbly with what the police tell you to do. But they also have the alternative of giving a fine straight away. In practice, this latter right is rarely exerciced - it is used in cases were the drinkers are loudly and aggressive, or if they do not respond to police orders. Hence whether the law is enforced formally, rests very much in the interaction situation - in the polite exchanges of excuses and deference - much like the situation with their Russian counterparts.
Fifth, unlike Russia, however, the police in Norway has no extra incentive to enforce laws for their own profit. For example, you can easily think that Russian police enforce more aggressively more insignificant laws (such as park drinking) in order to make profit for themselves. I do not know whether and the extent to which this is the case. I did not really get an impression that this was the motive for the park police that I saw, they seemed to be honestly concerned with the law.
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