By: Navin Rana
On Madison Avenue
During rush hour on a rainy day, the M3 bus is packed to the brim with people, but oddly the one ray of warmth is the surprisingly jovial bus driver.
This 64-year-old Russian man, Dmitry Poliakov, with nothing but white hair, at first glance looks like the last person who would actually smile on the bus, but is instead, literally, the first person to do so.
He often engages in conversation with the daily passengers of the bus, who see him frequently throughout the week. These conversations frequently involve just jokes back and forth.
Someone might just come onto the bus and ask Dmitry, “How was your day, man?” He would just smile and look at the rider and say “It was great, but I really could ask for better traffic and weather though.” This rider, grinning, would respond “you said the same thing last week.”
As a bus driver, it is completely understandable why Dmitry would ask for better traffic and weather. However, when this traffic during a rainy day can cause many accidents, he remains remarkably calm. Another bus driver in his position would be screaming with his or her head half out of the window, while honking the horn. There is simply a sense of peace that emanates from him.
Dmitry believes his composure comes from his time as a government chemist while in the former USSR. He says the “experiments took a very long time, so I have some patience and I am able to wait for many things. Like my wife, when she is getting ready.”
Dmitry was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, which back then was still called the USSR. He started working as a chemist for the government in the 1970s, but he chose to leave the country, because of the political destabilization that was taking place in the Union during the late 1980s.
When arriving in the United States, he had trouble finding a job as a chemist, partly because of his thick accent—which accompanied his surprisingly impeccable English—and mainly because many people did not value the level of Russian or foreign higher education. When asked about how he became a bus driver, he said “I had a friend who was came from Odessa who recommended the job, and he said it was an easy job.” After a while, he got the hang of driving in Manhattan, but decided to keep the job since it paid the bills and he liked talking to the different riders.
Much like the many riders that come onto Dmitry’s bus, he takes public transportation to get to his own job. He wakes up by 6 a.m. and takes the subway to get to the bus terminal by 8 a.m. and drive the bus, which he completes usually at 6 p.m. After the work day, he goes home, eats dinner, spends time with his children, and goes to sleep. In his words, “it’s a simple, but fairly rewarding life.”
It is a rewarding job, but Dmitry says he will retire within the next ten years, after his two daughters graduate college and eventually get married. Until then, average bus riders will keep seeing his smile while they walk onto his bus. Or, as one bus rider says “I like talking to him, because he is such a nice person. I don’t really know what it is exactly, but there’s just something about him that attracts you.”
