Talk continues about a possible sale of Chelsea by Roman Abramovich. Such rumors have been circulating since the summer against the backdrop of aggravated relations between the UK and Russia. This time we are talking about the fact that, according to the Czech weekly magazine Tyden, the London club wants to be bought by businessman Petr Kellner, the richest man in the Czech Republic.

Kellner is a financier, founder and main shareholder of PPF Group N.V. This is an international investment and financial group, registered in Amsterdam back in 1991. She is involved in banking, insurance, energy, agriculture, mining, retail and real estate. In particular, PPF owns the Home Credit bank.

Kellner was closely connected with Russian business. In the early 1990s, he participated in the privatization processes in Czechoslovakia and Russia. It was he who created the Peter the Great check fund, which in the mid-1990s owned shares in various companies, including Gazprom. Kellner also made direct investments in Russian cement plants.

In addition, the Czech owned the Eldorado chain of household appliances stores, as well as a huge number of real estate objects. For example, the South Gate industrial complex and the Trilogy logistics park. However, in 2016, the businessman began to abruptly get rid of all assets associated with Russia. According to Forbes , this year Kellner returned to the top 100 dollar billionaires in the world. In a year, his fortune increased from 12.2 to 15.5 billion US dollars.

Abramovich has problems with the British authorities

Tyden wrote about Kellner's close relationship with Roman Abramovich. Cech watching football at Stamford Bridge next to Russian billionaire - he bought out the neighboring VIP - I lay down. According to the publication, the entrepreneur intends to enter the football business and is interested in the possibility of acquiring the London club. The first round of negotiations on the purchase of Chelsea should take place in the coming days.

Back in the spring, after the scandal with the former GRU officer and British spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, news began to appear that sanctions could be applied against Abramovich, up to the confiscation of Chelsea. And since August, British colleagues have been increasingly writing about the possible sale of the club. The Sunday Times was one of the first to report this. According to journalists, Abramovich hired the investment bank Raine Group to sell the London club, which in 2015 helped sell a 13% stake in Manchester City to China's China Media Capital.

At the end of May, Abramovich received Israeli citizenship, becoming the richest man in this country. Israeli newspapers reported on the posh house that the Chelsea owner built in 2015 in Tel Aviv. Abramovich did all this involuntarily: his British visa expired in April, and problems arose with obtaining a new one. As a result, in the summer, the billionaire, having an Israeli passport in his hands, withdrew his visa application.

The current system imposes certain restrictions on Abramovich's stay in the UK. In particular, he cannot stay in the country for more than six months. In addition, the businessman is prohibited from working, which creates problems for attending Chelsea matches. Roughly speaking, British politicians did everything to make Abramovich think about selling the football club.

In September, Bloomberg, citing its own source, reported that Abramovich agreed to sell the team for 3 billion pounds. At the same time, the Russian businessman rejected the proposal of the richest man in the UK, Jim Ratcliffe, who was ready to pay 2.3 billion.

Recall that Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003 for 140 million. According to SE estimates, over 15 years the businessman spent more than 4 billion on the club. During this time, the team won five FA Championships, five Cups and two FA Super Cups, three League Cups, as well as the Champions League and the Europa League once.

In the 4th grade of middle school (high school), in the first half of the year, in mathematics at home, they set the score to 20. After the new year, the score to 40. Almost no one really knows the multiplication table there. But in the third grade, all students are given a calculator right at school. This is another reason not to study it. The division system looks like this: 15:3. I'm not saying that this is again a multiplication table that you need to know by heart. The number 15 is written on the piece of paper. It is circled, and three legs are added to the circle. This is 3. And then dots are sequentially placed in front of each leg until you count to 15. All that remains is to count the dots in front of one leg. This is the correct answer. At first I thought that the child was doing nonsense. I even asked what she was up to? To which I received an answer:

It was explained to us at school how to divide numbers.

I was shocked. After a couple of seconds, I asked:

Can you divide 200 by 10?

Oooh, this is a difficult task, - the eight-year-old daughter of my friend answered me, - But I will try.

She wrote the number two hundred, circled it, added 10 legs, and began to dot and count.

For God's sake stop - I asked - I can not look at it.

One of the Poles, who had a 14-year-old daughter, thought that he might return to Poland. And he sent his wife and daughter for reconnaissance, to see what and how, because they had lived in England for more than 6 years. When they arrived in Poland, the first thing they did was go to school. After a few lessons, the daughter ran out in tears and told her mother that she would never stay here. Still, it had to be assigned to the class for a couple of years back. And the worst thing is that all her classmates laughed at her. Brother of a Pole, moved to England and brought his 12-year-old daughter. She was assigned to a class by age, but she began to complain that she had nothing to do there. Mathematical tasks that her peers solved for 20 minutes, she did in a minute and a half. The girl was transferred to a higher class. But even there she sat and looked at the ceiling, because the situation almost repeated itself. Since it was no longer possible to transfer even higher, it was left as it is. My daughter has completely lost interest in learning. There was also a Pole whose son graduated from an English school. The boy has studied there for the last 8 years. I asked him:

So how is it?

Fool fool - he replied.

I don't know how in high school, in junior they do everything except study. They sing, dance, draw, swim, go on excursions, they bring some dogs, chickens, bunnies to them. But in fact, children do not know elementary things. For example, filling out a diary for tomorrow, every day they ask what date tomorrow is. Nothing surprising. Indeed, in the third grade, at school, they read a fairy tale about three pigs. Another interesting option is notes for the teacher. If you can't do your homework, or don't want to, write a note saying you can't do it. Moreover, the child himself writes a note. And when he comes to school with this note, there are no penalties for not completing homework. In my opinion, it's like writing "I'm dumb" and taking it to the teacher.

Author Aleksey Lukyanenko is a recently successful Latvian businessman who, like many others, collapsed in the 2008 crisis, was forced to leave for the UK and start from the bottom.
full material http://www.freecity.lv/bestseller/55/

“As a rule, no one teaches anyone anything.

The refrigerator is usually +2, sometimes there is a minus, but warm clothes are your personal concern. Over time, if you get a contract, and if you ask, they can give you a synthetic winter hat and thermal boots with thick soles. This is all.

If you get sick or injured, that's your problem.

They try not to give you a contract as long as possible. Without a contract, you are nobody. You work at a reduced rate, and you can be told any day that you are not needed. Plus, you don't have guaranteed pay for 30 hours a week if there's no fish. Only contractors have it. Some of ours have been working without a contract for years.

any fault of a local worker is hushed up and no one pays attention to it. No accusations. No comments or reprimands.

Several tons of fish were rotten, the blood flowed out of it on the floor, and it stank so much that I wanted to vomit. But it was necessary to work. And the office was feverishly thinking what to do. As a result, all this fish was put into the smokehouse. There are many recipes with various spices and spices that saved the product.

He was a little out of his mind. Apparently from birth. There are a lot of sick people out there. Apparently it's a DNA problem. They said that the effect was that for many years they had marriages between relatives. Fathers slept with daughters, brothers with sisters. And as a result of the process, they gave birth to children. In fact, even now, there you can see people who look like fabulous forest gnomes. Small in stature, with huge noses, close-set small eyes and small, rolled up ears. A huge number of people in wheelchairs, making some kind of animal sounds. Sick children. It's some sort of genetic shift. And I have heard more than once that the kingdom allowed a stream of emigrants into the country to dilute the blood.

Several workers took their contents out of the boxes and glued a sticker with a date for several days in advance. At first I did not understand what was happening, but then, when we went to the freezer, taking out another icy box, I saw a date sticker on it. September 2009 was there. And in the yard was the second half of 2011. The fish was stored in the freezer for 2 years. And now it was packaged for a share, in a store where it costs 25 pounds per kilogram. I asked the Lithuanian what will happen to the one that is being smoked now. He replied that he would go to the freezer.

When cutting salmon, red caviar is thrown out along with the intestines. The locals say you shouldn't eat fish eggs.

Face masks and head nets are put on only when the check arrives.

And yet, a local comrade, you can come stoned or overeaten with hallucinogenic mushrooms, which grow in huge quantities on the island.

In the event of equipment failure, engineers try not to repair anything for as long as possible. And come to the call as late as possible. And then, they stand and watch as we either start working by hand, or climb to repair ourselves.

Former builders, doctors, musicians from Poland worked there. Who wasn't there! Although, of course, there were those who had worked in this specialty all their lives.

How much material and tools were thrown into the trash, it's just hard to describe. If we talk about technology, then it was a maximum of the 80s of the last century.

The hotel was several times cheaper than my hotel, and I moved to a room where the toilet and shower were shared and located on the floor. The room had an electric kettle, a washbasin, a plywood built-in wardrobe with a crossbar painted white, and a small TV set with 4 programs: BBC 1, BBC2, BBC3, and BBC4. The very first time I switched on, I got on a channel where political scientists in the studio discussed how emigrants from Poland and the Baltic states were taking away jobs from the English population.

All my food at that moment consisted of products that did not need to be cooked. Tea, biscuits, milk. I did not drink the coffee that lay on the table in the hotel. But on the other hand, I realized that instant Nescafe is drunk not only in Russia. Sometimes, I made sandwiches with sausage and cheese. The same thing I ate at work. I really wanted hot food, but it was expensive for me in pubs, there was nothing to cook in the hotel, and I sometimes went to Burger King and ate a burger with potatoes, All my life I hated fast food, but the food was warm and it pleased .

Many of us say that the British do not eat what we eat. It is not true. They eat, and how, but only when you give them it all hot and on a plate.

The most exotic dish for her was fried mushrooms. She did not understand how it was possible to go to the forest, collect wild mushrooms and cook them so yummy. If you are talking about mushrooms in the UK, you always need to add the word normal to the word mushrooms (mushrooms), otherwise your interlocutor will think that we are talking about hallucinogenic mushrooms that drug addicts constantly eat,

the last straw was the moment when they were sitting with a girl in a cafe. Some ragamuffin entered it, who, having heard the Lithuanian speech, went up to their table and asked:
- Tell me, are you from Lithuania?
After receiving an affirmative answer, he fell on his knees, and kissing my friend's hands, began to lament how glad he was to see fellow countrymen, and began to ask for food. The Lithuanian returned in shock. He didn't expect to see anything like this. According to him, he had never seen such a density of homeless people per square kilometer even in Lithuania.

Interesting fact. If you have done a difficult job well, then in the future it will automatically be dumped only on you. For example, it is very difficult, before painting the form, to evenly stick four strips of paper tape on it along the entire length of the sides of a twenty-meter yacht. This is done when in order, the body of several colors. Many people glue the tapes crooked on purpose so that they are no longer forced to do this. I foolishly pasted well. The brigadier patted me on the shoulder and said:
- Well done. Now you will always do this.
It turns out that it is easier to pretend to be a fool, and then you will only do simple and easy work.

In general, the British, in general, work only 40 hours. They rarely stay in overtime. It is unprofitable to work a lot. The threshold of family well-being established by the state is a little more than 30 thousand. If you earn less than 17 thousand a year, the state pays you the difference. If you exceed the income threshold of 17 thousand a year, you are no longer paid benefits and benefits. That is, it is not profitable to work. With the condition that the locals, as a rule, live in their homes, this money is enough for them. Plus, the state pays them extra as the poor, they have free medicine and much more. And we pay crazy rents for housing, high insurance, and therefore we are forced to work a lot.

By the way, there are many hard workers walking around the streets in paint-stained clothes and shoes. They do not change from clean to work in the morning when they arrive at work, and from work to clean at the end of the working day. And in the morning and in the evening in dirty work clothes, they go out and sit in the city bus, car or bike

What absolutely kills on the spot is the quality of mobile communications and the Internet. It is very difficult to get through on a mobile phone, it is also difficult to get through to you, the Internet works with constant interruptions. If you are talking on Skype with video, during a half-hour conversation, the router has to be rebooted three or four times. With all this, we paid 24 pounds a month for the Internet, and mobile communications, despite the fact that we didn’t talk so much locally, and sometimes called Riga, we never got less than 40-50 pounds for one number.

It was the moment of truth. I realized that the majority of the local population can't do anything. Not to build a quality ship, not to pack the fish, not to fix the fence. Sometimes they even call an electrician to change a light bulb in a light fixture.

And then, in the morning it snowed. It was about 5 or 7 centimeters. And it melted in two hours. But he paralyzed the entire city. Schools were closed, half of the British did not come to work, and the courier mail did not deliver parcels all day. The supervisor allowed those who have a long way to go home to take half a day off. All the locals were very happy because it was another reason not to work

and he decided to make an appointment with a doctor. It's like our family doctor. He signed up and left. Having received no clear answer, he made an appointment with another doctor. Also family. He sent him for an x-ray. The waiting list for x-rays was about two weeks. After the X-ray, he again went to this doctor. He looked at the X-ray and said that he needed to see an orthopedist.
- Go home, we will call you back and tell you when you can come to the orthopedist.
Two weeks passed. The Pole could not stand it and went again.
- Well, stay at home. - They told him, - We said that we would call.

In truth, normal doctors are either our emigrants or Indians. Local specialists treat any disease with paracetamol.

In the 4th grade of middle school (high school), in the first half of the year, in mathematics at home, they set the score to 20. After the new year, the score to 40. Almost no one really knows the multiplication table there. But in the third grade, all students are given a calculator right at school. This is another reason not to study it.

I don't know how in high school, in junior they do everything except study. They sing, dance, draw, swim, go on excursions, they bring some dogs, chickens, bunnies to them. But in fact, children do not know elementary things. For example, filling out a diary for tomorrow, every day they ask what date tomorrow is. Nothing surprising. Indeed, in the third grade, at school, they read a fairy tale about three pigs. Another interesting option is notes for the teacher. If you can't do your homework, or don't want to, write a note saying you can't do it. Moreover, the child himself writes a note. And when he comes to school with this note, there are no penalties for not completing homework.

I have repeatedly encountered at work when they literally poke your nose at the fact that you are a visitor

From time to time, Latvian news channels report that another Englishman has been caught pissing on the historic buildings of the Old Town, and sometimes even on the Freedom Monument. And every time, they are looking for some kind of catch. From desecration of national symbols to covert operations to discredit the country. And when I got to England, I understood what was the matter. And after all, no one guessed that the answer could not be easier. They do the exact same thing at home. They leave the pub and piss on the nearest corner. For them, this is more a natural state than malicious intent. This is their normal environment, and when drunk in Latvia, they behave just like at home."

You rarely meet a person on earth who has not heard anything about England. Every self-respecting tourist should visit this state in order to fall in love with its rich history and feel its traditions. Today you have the opportunity to learn about rare facts in England.

1. In Britain, pigs are not castrated, so it's better not to buy pork or order it in restaurants, but if the smell and taste of boar urine in meat is normal for you, then you can. The British are very fond of bacon for breakfast and in the mornings a specific stench spreads from the food. I once tried to talk to the supermarket managers, I thought maybe there was some kind of identification system on the packages, but they didn’t even understand what I was talking about and why to castrate the pigs. But there is a lot of halal meat, it surprises me that none of the green and other eco animal lovers almost protests against, because the slaughter of animals according to Muslim traditions is very cruel.

2. In England, there is almost no national cuisine, or rather, it seems to be, but it is quite primitive and, frankly, tasteless. Probably the worst in Europe. I will write more about English cuisine

3. England has the highest obesity rate in Europe

4. The British really drink a lot of tea, a cup of tea is such a ritual in the culture of communication, and a panacea for all ills. It's a paradox, but good loose tea is rare in large supermarkets, you have to order it in special stores. Everyone drinks packaged.

5. School uniform is compulsory for all students. In most state schools, it is the same, but private schools adhere to different

6. Public school is actually a private school, and free school is a state school. Students refers to all students, both schoolchildren and university students. The word pupil in the meaning of "student" is practically not used. The word school can also mean a university, such as law school or medical school

7. Parents may be subject to criminal liability for absenteeism of schoolchildren

8. Children go to school from the age of five and compulsory education lasts until 16. To enter the university, you still need to study an additional year or two

9. Corporal punishment in public schools was only abolished in 1987. In private schools - in 1999. In Scotland and Ireland and even later.

10. A private elite school is actually a bursa boarding school. A very tough establishment.

11. London has no more rainfall than Moscow, if not less. And fogs are rare here. However, rain can come suddenly, but usually does not last long. Rain for the whole day is a rarity. If, according to the weather forecast, rain is promised, then it will always go from one to two in the afternoon or from 5 to 7 in the evening, exactly at the time when the lunch break is, or you have to go home from work. The law of meanness works constantly

12. It rarely snows in England in winter. If one centimeter of snow fell, then this is a whole event. Cities rise, transport does not work, planes do not fly, everyone runs to sculpt shabby snowmen and ride slides on air mattresses. Public utilities almost do not keep snowplows, apparently it’s cheaper to suffer multimillion-dollar losses every year than to maintain equipment .... what will they do if the Germans attack

13. The British are hardened from childhood. It is not customary to wrap children from head to toe and it is generally not customary to dress according to the season. The climate is quite mild, but because of the humidity, the zero temperature in winter seems like everything is minus 10 in Russia. In winter, you can see people in the same T-shirts or ballet flats on their bare feet. Everyone saves on heating, so whether you like it or not, they will temper it like steel from childhood.

14. The British love animals very much. You will not meet homeless cats and dogs on the streets. This issue has long been resolved.

15. The Society for the Protection of Animals from Cruelty was established in England in 1824 and has the status of a royal. Tellingly, the Society for the Protection of Children was founded only 60 years later and has the status of a national one, which is no longer so prestigious.

16. But at the same time, traditional fox hunting is still taking place in England. The British love their traditions more than animals.

17. Although you may encounter stray animals, especially at night, they will be ill-fated foxes. Even in the center of London they can be seen very often. Glitter with a green eye and snoop into the bushes. Sometimes they jump right out from under the wheels of a bicycle in the late dark evening; They live in parks, of which there are a huge number in London. Often climb into houses and can be quite dangerous. At night, foxes make very specific cries, as if they are cutting a baby.

18. From domestic pests, bugs and mice are found here. There are no cockroaches, just as there are no mosquitoes. You can also easily run into a false black widow. This is such a spider, it can be dangerous and poisonous if it bites.

19. In the parks there are squirrels in huge quantities, they are all almost tame. Squirrels are all gray and quite plump, I would even say muscular. Once there were also red squirrels, but the gray ones killed them, now red squirrels are protected by the state. There are swans, many different interesting birds. By the way, all the Thames swans are legally the property of the Queen.

20. In parks, you can often see benches with name plates installed in memory of a deceased relative or friend. Sometimes the signatures are an example of purely English irony, as is the case in the photo. "In memory of the husband whom I dreamed about, thought about, but he was never found"

25. Britain has a huge number of regional accents, dialects and dialects. Accents can differ within the boundaries of one city, and even more so county. English in the former colonies is sometimes very different from British English, and not only in pronunciation.

26. The British feel a little guilty that almost everyone knows English, and the English themselves are not strong in foreign languages. Therefore, they will always praise an English foreigner. Many Russian speakers immediately begin to swagger, saying that the British themselves noticed that I speak almost without an accent. It has little to do with reality. It's just a polite compliment to a foreigner's ability to link words into sentences. In fact, I almost never met Russian speakers who moved as adults who have excellent pronunciation ... although no, Berezovsky's first wife has excellent pronunciation

27. The Scots, Welsh and Irish are very proud of their roots and nationality. Do not try to call an Irishman or a Scot an Englishman or even a Briton - they will be terribly offended.

28. In Britain there is no concept of provinciality in the Russian sense of the word. It is not considered cool to be a native Londoner or a native Edinburghian here. Historically, all the nobility lived on estates. Those who had to work lived in large cities, the need to work was always despised by the English nobility. But if you grew up in your house with a lot of land, then yes - this is a class. Certain regions are considered provincial here, for example, the north of England, historically the Irish are considered rednecks, because the British essentially staged a mass genocide of the Irish, so the elite created a certain snobbish attitude towards them, which is still alive. New Zealanders who came in large numbers are considered provincials

29. Britain has no constitution

30. Big Ben is actually the name of a bell, not a clock.

31. The concept of a yard is not here, because in urban development there is no city yard in the Russian sense, urban planning is planned differently. There is the concept of estate or neighborhood, i.e. area.

32. In English cities, everything is very compact, the streets and sidewalks are narrow, houses and apartments are quite small. There are for example standard houses with 4 rooms of only 56 square meters. I call such apartments and houses mittens.

33. All land is private. There is no concept of "giving up on kebabs on nature", because all nature is divided into private plots, except for protected areas and parks. There are certain camping sites that you have to pay for, and places for barbecues and picnics.

34. There is no registration in Britain, but without a bank account and a card, almost nothing can be done here, much less live legally. The place of residence is determined by bills that are paid through a bank account. All bills are proof that you have lived here and may be needed for various bureaucratic needs. Therefore, a resident of Britain has a lot of waste paper at home from paper utility bills, pay slips and the like, I already have two weighty folders.

35. If Moscow never sleeps, then London sleeps and how, I would say that it’s just sleeping. Pubs are open until 11, on weekends up to 2. There are no 24-hour restaurants, just as there are no 24-hour coffee shops. There are only fast food eateries that are open at night on weekends, the so-called take-aways, where people flock to refuel after energy-intensive club parties. In the city center on weekends, just mountains of garbage

36. By the way, chips in English are french fries, not chips, but crisps are just chips in bags

37. In broad daylight in various places in London, you can see people smoking weed, and if you don’t see it, then feel it keenly. Few people care or care. In fact, there are a huge number of quiet herbal addicts.

38. Some believe that the British are all music lovers and certainly do not listen to any cheap pop music. The percentage of music lovers here is the same as in Russia, and there is a sea of ​​pop music lovers

39. The working class in Russia loves to vacation in Turkey and Egypt, and the working class in England is very fond of Spain and Eastern Europe. The British "Tagil" rests there sometimes cooler than ours in Egypt.

40. The British constantly say sorry-sorry-thank-please, even if they are not at fault. The Englishman will apologize if you accidentally step on his foot. Do not flatter yourself and think that this is sincere. In fact, the Englishman will say sorry to the table if he accidentally touches him, these words are already more of an interjection than a sincere apology.

On weekends, the end of the world came in the city - everyone lived like on the last day.

Author Aleksey Lukyanenko is a recently successful Latvian businessman who, like many others, collapsed in the 2008 crisis, was forced to leave for the UK and start from the bottom.

I never thought I'd be in this situation. I often heard that many people were leaving, and I knew many who left. But I never thought that I would go by myself.

For most of my life, I had my own, quite successful business, I worked hard, and did a lot of things, and always found a way out of the most difficult situations. But life decreed otherwise. No matter how hard I tried, I could not resist the situation that has developed in my country. It took shape... Or it was put together... During the year and a half spent in England, I came to the conclusion that it did not take shape on its own. And I am writing about it now. And at that moment I went to an amazing country about which a huge number of books have been written and a huge number of films have been shot. Where amazing people live, about whom legends are composed and hymns are written. Where everything is good and where everyone is happy. Where the best goods are produced, and where tolerance and democracy are at the forefront. It is clear that creating your own business there, from the first day, without initial capital is a utopia. Therefore, you will have to start as a simple worker at some factory. And then we'll figure it out. They say that everything is easier for them than for us. So go ahead!!!

1. I had to start from the very bottom. From a fish factory on a remote Scottish island in the North Sea. According to the internet and the number of prizes on their website, this is one of the best salmon hatcheries in Europe. I wonder what happens to others then?

Houses on the island where guest workers live. Photo of the author.

2. I was lucky that there was a Lithuanian in the workshop who had been finalizing the last two weeks. He told me everything and brought me up to date. As a rule, no one teaches anything to anyone. You look and enter. At first, even if accidents and stops occur as a result of your ignorance, everyone silently fixes everything, but no one says a word. The same goes for the locals. Nobody teaches them either, but we, on our own, learn faster. And so we are more valuable workers. Plus, there are many of us who really work hard. Although some of ours, if possible, quickly rebuild and begin to work on the principle of local ones. That is, diligently avoid working under any pretext. Sitting in the toilets with an iPhone, hiding on the street, in short, being where there are no cameras, and it is impossible to prove that you are not doing anything. If an idler is caught, the head supervisor gives him a lecture, and he answers “sorry” (sorry). This is all.

3. There is a category of local people at the factory who are just there. These are either someone's children who have nowhere to settle because they just finished school and can't do anything, someone's brothers, sisters or relatives who do not want to go to hard work and instead sit their pants here, or people pre-retirement age. The latter are supported until retirement. They usually walk around the plant all day long with their hands folded behind their backs, or they carry an object back and forth, such as a coil of rope. They have positions like a day cleaner (cleaner), and on thirty-minute breaks (breaks), they wash the already clean walls with a hose. Sophisticated equipment, which is all in fat and guts, wash ours. Our cleaners, on the other hand, also worked the night shift, when they had to clean the entire plant. The local was a supervisor there, although we must pay tribute, he also washed the workshops along with all the nightlights. Four people, plus a supervisor, washed all the lines and all the shops overnight. When we came in the morning, these people were scary to look at. During the day, while working, local youth took ice from bins (large plastic containers), made snowballs and played with them. The assistant supervisor, an older woman, absolutely unable to organize anything, and very strict with us, just looked at them and smiled. Sometimes they hid behind her during the "battle", and sometimes they even hit her with a snowball. All this was visible on the cameras in the supervisor's office, but he did not say a word to them. The real situation at the plant is one non-working person for one employee. But everyone gets paid the same way.

4. We had a young Lithuanian assistant supervisor. She did not understand anything about work, but she was very beautiful, constantly spinning around the manager and his assistants, opening all doors and gates in front of them, and knocking on everyone and everything. That's probably why they made her an assistant.

5. When you come to work in the refrigerator, you are given only gloves, a cap, ordinary rubber boots and oilskin (rubberized overalls with straps, by the way, made in Latvia). The refrigerator is usually +2, sometimes there is a minus, but warm clothes are your personal concern. Over time, if you get a contract, and if you ask, they can give you a synthetic winter hat and thermal boots with thick soles. This is all.

6. If you get sick or injured, this is your problem. A Lithuanian once tore his back, and the doctor told him that he had to lie at home for two weeks. When he said this at work, he was fired so as not to pay sick leave, and after he recovered, they took him back. Due to the interrupted seniority, he lost all annual bonuses. I hit the forearm of my right hand with a box two weeks after starting work. When I lifted heavy boxes, the pain was wild. But at that time, I did not have a contract, and I understood that if I could not work, then I would be fired. I bandaged my hand, and when the pain was completely unbearable, I rolled up my sleeve, unwound the bandage and put my hand on ice. After a couple of minutes it became easier, I bandaged my hand again, and continued to work. All the colds that came later, for all the time I worked, I endured on my feet, eating medicines right in the shop. Locals in such situations immediately go on sick leave, and may not appear for weeks. They just bring a piece of paper from the doctor and go home again. Nobody will fire them. They try not to give you a contract as long as possible. Without a contract, you are nobody. You work at a reduced rate, and you can be told any day that you are not needed. Plus, you don't have guaranteed pay for 30 hours a week if there's no fish. Only contractors have it. Some of ours have been working without a contract for years. Simply because there is nowhere to go. I was given a contract quickly, at the end of the verification period. But I think it’s only because it’s very difficult to find people in the refrigerator, and they just tried to tie me up. Locals from other workshops openly said that if they were transferred to chill (freezer), they would not even change clothes. They just go home. Because it is hard and inhuman work. And you can't bully people like that. I had a record. The local worked in our workshop for 2.5 hours, went to drink some water, and did not return. Before that, they usually kept for about two days.

7. Refrigerator. Rate without contract £6.05 per hour, before tax. With a contract of 6.55. This is the hardest job in the factory. Loading and shipping finished product. Our people go there, who have nowhere to go. There should be 6 people in the workshop. In reality, they were never there. Or rather, there were more when there were no robots. Then, from the conveyor, along which the boxes are constantly moving, all the products were removed by hand and loaded onto pallets. That is, a fully automated plant, in 2011, at the exit to the warehouse, had no equipment other than movers. A team of 6-7 people passed from 40 to 120 tons of fish daily, depending on the season. As a rule, ours worked on loading, the locals only took the finished pallets with rokles and took them out to the ramp under the fork of the loader. I'm lucky. A few months before my arrival, robots were installed. And the bulk of the boxes went to them. Our hands got only boxes for the smokehouse. But the number of people has also doubled. For the smokehouse, everything was loaded manually in any case, because the boxes were without lids. On bad days, two or three of us loaded up to 100 pallets of 21 or 24 boxes each. One box of fish and ice weighed an average of 25 kg. At the same time, it was still necessary to have time to correct the boxes that went to the robots, re-paste crooked labels with bar codes, pull out the boxes if they got stuck on the line, and collect from the floor and repack those boxes that the robot dropped. If the robots stopped, we started to load everything with our hands. The plant could not stand, so the general manager did not care how we coped. In addition to us, there was a supervisor (manager) and two weisers (assistant managers) in the shop. They were local. The supervisor was paid £10 an hour, the Weisers £8. They helped us very rarely. Basically, they took out finished pallets from manual loading, and from robots. The rest of the time they chatted and stuck on their phones. One local worked on loading with us. Ego's name was David. But he was on hand. Only a sick local could go here. A normal person wouldn't go here. It was a unique worker. First, we never knew whether he would be in the morning or not. Being late is normal practice. There were days when the Lithuanian and I were the only ones in the workshop who came on time. We arrived at 7:50 and prepared the workshop for work. By 8 the supervisor pulled up and turned on the robots. Later, he taught me how to do it, and began to come even later. David crawled at five minutes past nine, sometimes at half past ten, or he might not come at all. Weisers could be 10-15 minutes late. But they couldn't be kicked out. The Weisers knew how to control robots. And that was the main argument. In fact, the whole system looks like that any offense of a local worker is hushed up and no one pays attention to it. No accusations. No comments or reprimands. I think because they all understand that they themselves can be in the place of the guilty at any moment. And then no one will say anything to them either. They are all equally irresponsible. And there is no point in saying anything to anyone. Today I will redo it for him, and tomorrow he will redo it for me. Unlike them, we were reprimanded for everything.

8. There were days when only David and I were on the assembly line. When many boxes for manual loading began to go, he turned around and went to the toilet. And when he returned, he took a rokla (a trolley for transporting pallets) and rode around the workshop. Or sitting in the office. One day, my patience snapped, and I told the Weisers what it is, in my country they break the face. They immediately drove him to the workplace. But the next day it all happened again. When David got tired of working at such a pace, he took several boxes of fish and threw them in a big way. One into the wall, one into the electrical panel, one into the finished pallet. And after that, he turned around and left with the words that he would not clean it up. I had to collect fish, twist the wires cut off from the sensors, remove the ice. If only because it was necessary to somehow walk. And the whole floor was strewn with salmon and ice. There were days when he had fun. He put his hands on the moving conveyor belt where it was lubricated, and when the gloves turned black, he walked around the finished pallets and put his palm prints on the snow-white foam boxes. I wonder what customers thought when they received such a cargo in the USA, Germany or Dubai? In moments of lyrical mood, he made a hole in a foam box and fucked her with his index finger. After some time, he got a second job in a taxi. He told me that he went there not because of the money, but because a lot of girls had to be brought there. And they often pay with sex. When he had to choose between overtime (overtime) at the factory, and working in a taxi, he dropped everything, turned around and went to work in a taxi. The supervisor, swearing loudly, rushed after him, but he only added speed and disappeared through the door. He didn't care. It is said that David had several dozen warnings. We were fired after the third.

9. By the way, the tendency to destroy boxes was observed not only in David. From time to time our supervisor went berserk. He started throwing empty pallets and boxes, breaking them and kicking them. Nobody touched him, just because there is simply no one to find in this place. And once you get there, you stay there forever. Unless, of course, you don't leave. And he had absolutely nowhere to go. At 40, he couldn’t do anything else, and the island was quite small, and there weren’t many job offers there. Locals, as a rule, do not want to go to such a job as his, and they will not put an emigrant as a supervisor.

10.Process, this is a workshop where salmon is cut into fillets using a special machine. And then the bones are taken out of it. By the way, it is impossible to tear out bones from a fresh, freshly killed fish. Therefore, it should stand in the refrigerator for about two days. Then the bones peel off from the meat, and they can be pulled out of the fillet. Then the fish begin to cut. This is at best another day. Then another day she goes to the mainland. And then to the store. Therefore, the word "fresh" and "excellent" is not really about him. Among other things, people from the process did not really strain themselves with taking out the bones. And when there was not enough ice, the supervisor took it with a shovel from the floor and put it in boxes. I just took it from the pile that formed under the ice machine. When a box of fillets fell off the line in our shop, no one carried it back to the process either. It was much easier to turn the box on its side and push the ice and fish back with your boot. Fortunately, everything was wrapped in blue plastic wrap, and the resulting mess could be covered with it.

11.Organic. Wildly expensive products. There were several special farms that raised organic salmon. I don’t know what they did with him there, but one day the ship brought a fish that was literally torn with its hands and stank terribly. We assumed that she died a natural death, and her main advantage was that she died without stress, and therefore wildly healthy. The rest of the time, she was alive and very beautiful. Nevertheless, there were a couple of days when the ship brought ordinary fish, but after a while boxes with the “organic” sticker began to come out, and then the usual one came again, although it was all from the same ship.

12. Sometimes the engineers forgot to close the street gates to the refrigerator. They remained open to the street from Friday, and on Monday, it was almost impossible to enter the shop. Several tons of fish were rotten, the blood flowed out of it on the floor, and it stank so much that I wanted to vomit. But it was necessary to work. And the office was feverishly thinking what to do. As a result, all this fish was put into the smokehouse. There are many recipes with various spices and spices that saved the product. Then the girls began to wrinkle their noses at the process, which butchered her into fillets. The most interesting thing is that they did not even know why there is such a stench. But we, at breaks, brought clarity to them, and from this they wrinkled their noses even more. And the engineers, as if nothing had happened, continued to work on.

13. In general, the system of working by the hour is very good for experienced workers who use it to pass off their own idleness as full-time work. Our supervisor, a single man who didn't have to rush home, sat in the office until 9 pm. Even if we finished work at 5. Sometimes he left someone with him to walk around the shop, wipe the robots, transfer pallets from place to place, but this was very rare, and he left only very close ones. In addition, there were cameras in the workshop, and it was not possible to fool around for a long time. But in the office, there was no camera. The supervisor covered the office windows with lids from empty boxes and watched porn. In fact, he always watched it. And he brought the most interesting moments to show to employees on his IPhone. He never showed me porn. Apparently he understood that something else was on the list of my hobbies. By the way, sometimes, if David bent down to pick up something, the supervisor instantly attached himself from behind and pretended that he was fucking him. All the locals laughed a lot at this moment.

14. At the trial, the clock was stolen differently. The cut and packed fillets were dumped into a large bin (container), all Lithuanians were dismissed from the line ahead of time, and then there was a supervisor and several locals close to him who laid out the fish in boxes and sent them to our workshop. We, of course, felt good, because the boxes were small, light and it was an easy extra watch. I had a case when I made a clock out (an electronic mark for the end of working hours), and followed my girlfriend to the second floor to go home. She lined up empty boxes for tomorrow. Usually 3-4 people do it. But none of ours stayed for overtime (extra time), and the British, as usual, left. I was told not to stay without the supervisor's permission, and I went to ask permission to help her. Finding no one, I returned and began to help. I couldn't sit and watch her alone unload a whole truck. In the morning I was told that in such a situation, the supervisor should look at the recordings on the camera and manually write down extra time for me. After all, I worked! Sveta went to him, explained the situation and asked me to add time. Instead of an hour worked, I told her that let him write at least 30 minutes. But I didn't get anything. It wasn't even offensive, just disgusting. Against the general background of the scale on which the clock was stolen at the factory, 30 minutes of confirmed time got in his throat. I just wasn't local. A local would get everything up to the minute. After all, there is a clock on the camera.

15. Svetka's daughter had to undergo eye surgery. She had congenital strabismus. On the island, such operations were not performed, so it was necessary to fly to the mainland. The state paid for everything. The plane back and forth, a taxi to the hospital and the operation itself. The child was in a ward with an adjustable bed, a huge TV, a computer, the Internet, toys, books, fruits and yogurts. The daughter was fed simply to satiety, and her mother lived in a special hotel for parents at the hospital, and everything was free there too. When they returned, they were also paid money for gasoline, because she was driving her car to the airport on the island. The same thing happened the second time, when it was necessary to go for a postoperative examination. Only this time, instead of a plane, there was a paid ferry.

16. After some time, they began to give us overtime and, after the main time in the refrigerator, I began to go to the smokehouse. It was the same dispatch (sending finished products), only packs of fish weighed 150 grams, and they had to be packed in boxes of 10 pieces. And for the same 6.55 pounds per hour. There was also a refrigerator, but the work in it was not to hit the recumbent. It was especially good on weekends, when on Saturday it goes one and a half and on Sunday even two rates per hour. I was called there by a Lithuanian who had been working there for 7 years and did all the work of a supervisor, who usually checked in in the morning, and left for the whole day on his own business. For the fact that he actually performed all his duties instead of the supervisor, the Lithuanian could stay at the plant as long as he wanted. Therefore, he always had a good salary. That's where I first saw Kevin. It was such a local attraction. He was a little out of his mind. Apparently from birth. There are a lot of sick people out there. Apparently it's a DNA problem. They said that the effect was that for many years they had marriages between relatives. Fathers slept with daughters, brothers with sisters. And as a result of the process, they gave birth to children. In fact, even now, there you can see people who look like fabulous forest gnomes. Small in stature, with huge noses, close-set small eyes and small, rolled up ears. A huge number of people in wheelchairs, making some kind of animal sounds. Sick children. It's some sort of genetic shift. And I have heard more than once that the kingdom allowed a stream of emigrants into the country to dilute the blood. Kevin, apparently, was not the most difficult stage. He went to work at the age of 15, got a forklift license and a car. By the age of 21, he had already worked for five years in fish factories, he had a red tuned Ford Focus with two white stripes on the body, and his favorite pastime was to pick up schoolgirls on the road. He was caught and tried for sex with underage girls more than once, but each time he was released. Because he was sick. He left the courtroom, and continued to do what he loved. And everyone just waited for the next time. I could hardly bear his bestial gaze. He was always talking some nonsense, although, to be honest, sometimes it seemed that he was not a fool at all. And they just pretend to be. Once a Lithuanian asked me:

Do you want to spit? - Kevin come here. - He took a 150 gram pack of smoked salmon, showed it to him, and said:

350 grams. - We kept our smiles, and the Lithuanian continued:

And how many fish are in ten such packs?

About a kilo. came the confident answer.

What is the value of multiplying 3 by 7?

17. Once in a smokehouse they told me that we would pack fish for a promotion in a trading network. There were very often promotions "pay for one - take two." In the dispatch shop there was a pallet with cardboard boxes covered with snow. Usually bags of fish flew out of the window of the smokehouse, but today, they were in cardboard boxes on a pallet. Several workers took their contents out of the boxes and glued a sticker with a date for several days in advance. At first I did not understand what was happening, but then, when we went to the freezer, taking out another icy box, I saw a date sticker on it. September 2009 was there. And in the yard was the second half of 2011. The fish was stored in the freezer for 2 years. And now it was packaged for a share, in a store where it costs 25 pounds per kilogram. I asked the Lithuanian what will happen to the one that is being smoked now. He replied that he would go to the freezer.

18. Sometimes our workers from other shops went to the smoking shop for overtime. Eat salmon. If it was still possible to take raw sometimes legally, then they were immediately fired for smoked. Therefore, if you stand with your back to the camera, you can quietly eat it. Especially in packaging. But that was not the point. There was one recipe where smoked salmon was sprinkled with brandy before being vacuum-packed. From such a bottle, as they puff on flowers. Usually ours stood in this place, and puffed once on the fish, once in their mouths. The ending was pretty good. And the locals did not go there, because they have no idea how you can drink pure whiskey, brandy or vodka. For them, it's unrealistic. Although three - four pints (pint - 0.568 liters) of beer per evening, and a couple of glasses of wine upstairs - this is the norm.

19. When it was necessary to pack the fish in a smoker, the supervisor tried to take ours. Because there had to be four different recipes, put in different boxes, before that, putting them in four different cardboard envelopes. But the most difficult thing is to put the vacuum pack with fish into a paper envelope all the time with your face in the window. In addition, packs with broken vacuum had to be discarded. The locals did it with great difficulty. They were constantly wrong. And the stores filed complaints because instead of the fish in the packaging window, the reverse side of the foil from the lining was visible, and in some packs the vacuum packaging was completely broken.

20. When cutting salmon, red caviar is thrown out along with the intestines. The locals say you shouldn't eat fish eggs.

21. Face masks and head nets are put on only when a check arrives.

22. Hard work and uncomfortable living conditions greatly affect relationships between people. At home, we began constant quarrels and scandals. And this did not add optimism at all.

23. The sister of my friend, with whom we lived, once, during another swearing with her boyfriend, said: - I would have known how it would end, I would never have got into your new BMW in Riga. The bastard "drove" me to the fish factory on the island. I think they are still paying off the loan for this car. Although the bank took it a long time ago.

24. The robot sorts the boxes by barcodes, which are pre-glued to them on the scales in the packaging shop (packing). If they are not glued to the center of the box, crooked, or upside down (this also happens), the robot drops the box back. The local who stands on the scale sticks stickers at random, and then we paste them all day on moving boxes. There is no force that can force him to start doing it like a human being. He says "Ok, Sorry" ("Okay, I'm sorry"), and continues in the same spirit. I guess it's just an impossible task for him. He just CAN'T. But worse than that, only a local who comes to overtime on Saturday or Sunday. Because he comes in drunk after a night in the pub. And then, the robots just stop because they can't read the nonsense that is pasted on the boxes. And yet, a local comrade, you can come stoned or overeaten with hallucinogenic mushrooms, which grow in huge quantities on the island.

25. In case of equipment breakdown, engineers try not to repair anything for as long as possible. And come to the call as late as possible. And then, they stand and watch as we either start working by hand, or climb to repair ourselves. Above each window where the conveyor belt comes out, there are electrical panels. At one, the switch was stuck all the time. All 6 months of work we beat him with a fist, and the line turned on again. When the supervisor saw this, he scolded us for our attitude to the equipment. But, when he got tired of waiting for engineers for 40 minutes, he began to do the same. On the second electrical panel, in a thick stream, water flowed from the cooler (cooler), which stood under the ceiling. It flowed from time to time when the condensate tank overflowed there. All that had to be done was to clean the drain pipe that hung on the wall. I asked to do this for a week. It was wildly scary to stand near the shield, because everything around was wet. And in the event of a short circuit, the entire workshop would probably light up, and together with us. When the conveyor chain flew off the cogwheel, we used to stop the line, throw the chain over two teeth, like on a bicycle as a child, and turn it on again. Troubleshooting took less than a minute. Engineers used to unscrew all the tensioners, remove the cogwheel from the axle, insert it into the chain, put the wheel back on the axle, screw it into place, and tension the chain with a tensioner. It took about 20-25 minutes. Unless, of course, they forgot to bring some tool. The most interesting thing I saw was that once, when the line stopped, an engineer came, opened the shield, looked at it for a long time, and then said that it was impossible to fix this malfunction. Then he closed the closet and left. We found the broken wire on our own, twisted it, and the line started working again.

26. Kevin from the smokehouse worked for us for one week. He was assigned to take out finished pallets from robots. To do this, you need to stop the robot, go into the area of ​​​​its work, take out the pallet with a rokla and turn on the robot again. But Kevin always confused the sequence of buttons, even though they were all different colors. And the first thing that happened after he pressed the buttons, instead of stopping, the robot took an empty pallet, and in a big way put it on top of a full one with fish. There was a bang, fish, ice and Styrofoam flew in all directions, and then we all raked up the consequences for 30 minutes, because it was necessary to collect broken boards from pallets, pieces of Styrofoam, fish and repack everything again in 24 boxes. The plant was idle at the time. When this happened several times, Kevin was banned from approaching the robots. But that's all he got away with. If I did it, at least it would be dismissal on the same day.

27. There was a very interesting guy from St. Petersburg. Or rather, he was born there, but his parents took him to France. He said that they were very rich, that they had a huge hotel on the Cote d'Azur, that he was tired of the sweet life and he decided to taste hardships and hardships. And that he needs hard work. However, he refused to go to us, and went to light work for the process. Most likely, his parents sent him to try what a different life is. He was too sad all the time.

29. One evening, a local young guy who worked as a cook in our cantina (dining room) was caught by the police when he masturbated under the window of a house where a girl was changing clothes, forgetting to draw the curtains. All local newspapers wrote about it. However, after that, he calmly continued his work in our factory in the kitchen, and during breaks, when he put food on plates, meeting someone's gaze, he simply smiled in embarrassment.

30. There was a secret Jen at the factory. She looked very good, despite the fact that she was already well over 40. She walked around the shop, and grabbed all the young men by the penis with her hands. And the girls stroked the pope. During breaks, she would show her naked pictures on her phone to everyone who wanted to watch and complain that she did not have a boyfriend. One Pole decided to help her. She agreed and invited him to her home. When he arrived, she called the police and he was taken away on charges of attempted rape. One day she pissed off one of our guys and he threw a fish at her. Jen ran to the office, and he immediately received a warning.

31. Many locals ate on credit all week. Because on Monday they have no money. Friday's wages, over the weekend, to the last penny settled in the pubs. Therefore, they ate on credit all week, on Friday, after the salary, they gave what they owed, and the difference, over the weekend, was again left in the pub. They always feel absolutely calm, because next Friday there will be a salary again. And if not, then the state will still not let them die and will pay benefits.

32. If a little snow falls, everything is paralyzed. Schools are closed. Half of the locals don't come to work. And if they come, they leave in the middle of the day, because they have to get home by car while it's light.

33.Our people sometimes "forget" to pay in the store. They take a full stroller with food and alcohol, and take it past the cash register. Even if they are stopped, they say they forgot their wallet in the car and will be right back. There is no crime on the island. Cars are parked with open windows, keys in the ignition, expensive phones and bags on the seats. Houses are not locked. On weekend mornings, while you are sleeping, the postman comes into the hallway and leaves letters and parcels. Once in the store there was the wrong promotional price tag for mayonnaise. When at the checkout we were knocked out an amount twice as much, we asked why this was so, because there was a smaller figure on the price tag. The senior shift came, checked the price, they returned the full amount that was knocked out at the checkout, and gave us mayonnaise for free. Because it was their fault.

34. There was such a Gunnar. And he had a girlfriend, Iveta. They lived together and drank just black. Having drunk, they constantly fought and sorted out the relationship. When she came home and saw him sitting on the couch with a can of beer, she just kicked him in the face. And he regularly kicked her out of the house. Once a friend came to them, and they began to drink together. Having drunk, Iveta began to perform, and they tied her up and put her on the sofa. Having managed, the guys went to smoke. In T-shirts and slippers. And Iveta untied herself, locked the door from the inside, and called the police. Later, Delphi will write that a Latvian citizen was arrested in England for the forcible imprisonment of his girlfriend. They have a serious article, by the way.

35. It is constantly raining on the island and a strong wind is blowing. There are times when you see your car in the morning, but you can't approach it. Such a force oncoming air flow. There is almost no sun. Over time, a completely depressive state sets in. When there is a strong storm, and the ferry does not go to the mainland, there are no products in the shops. Even bread. Therefore, at home you always need to keep a supply of cereals and pasta. And in the freezer are buns, like French buns, that can be baked in the oven instead of bread. Sometimes such fog descended on the island that planes from the mainland could not fly in and land. Accordingly, no one could fly away from the island. My friends, a couple from Riga, bought plane tickets from the island to Glasgow, and there they had a plane via Amsterdam to Riga. Fog covered the island, and the guys realized that tomorrow they might not fly away. They decided to take the ferry into the night. But before that, they went to the airport and tried to return the money for the plane tickets, because they were told by phone that there would be no flights in the next day. At the airport, they explained that they had two more planes after, to which they were told that the money would not be returned to them, and that the company would provide them with a flight, but .... when the weather improved.

36. On the island it is much easier to get a house from the government than on the mainland. It is enough to come to the municipality with suitcases and say that you have nowhere to live. It is also desirable that you be kicked out. If you have a job, everything is solved very quickly. Svetka's sister and her boyfriend got their house just like that.

37. Interesting and unusual for us, the system of re-registration of cars upon purchase. You look at the car, hand over the money, write your address in the required section of the registration certificate and sign, then tear off the spine and leave. The previous owner sends the registration certificate to the department by mail, and you receive a new registration certificate by mail. It doesn't cost anything.

38. Local fish ship takes 5-6 hours. When only we work on weekends, everything is done for 2.5. The general manager always said on Saturdays and Sundays that if he had the opportunity, he would recruit everyone from the Baltics. And at those moments I thought that all these guys would be happy to live and work at home if we were given such an opportunity. But in our country, fishing quotas have been cut and almost all fish enterprises and the entire fishing fleet have been destroyed. They just need workers in England. After all, their factories are more important for Europe.

39. When I found a new job and told about it at the factory, everyone was shocked. It turned out that the county of Dorset is the place where a huge number of the local population dreams of living. Well, the salary promised to be twice as much, which of course could not but rejoice. In addition, I went to the factory for the production of premium superyachts with a worldwide reputation. So I packed a suitcase, a computer and bought a plane ticket.

40. The flight was delayed by 3 hours. I was sent through another city, so I missed the plane to Southampton, and as a result, the bus from Southampton and the train from Bormouth. I got on another plane to Southampton, the bus driver took me on an expired ticket, and at the station the machine printed out a ticket for me for another time. So I ended up in Poole.

41. The next day I went to the employment agency. It was half Polish. But only Poles spoke Polish there, and I had to communicate in English. Unfortunately, my English was still very far from perfect. At the fish factory, we did not communicate much, and the courses were once a week, and even then not always. All negotiations with the agency were conducted by my girlfriend, and the Englishman was shocked at how I got to them at all. On top of that, it was a completely different dialect. And if on the island I already understood the language quite well, then here I understood absolutely nothing. My CV remained the only trump card. I had a very good experience in fiberglass production, and the yachts that the factory produced were just the same from it. The agent said that with my knowledge of the language, most likely I would not be able to work at this plant. He said that he was going to call and if they agreed, then I would go to work. In principle, I was mentally ready to go back. But the agent returned and said that he was told that there were many Poles in the workshops, and if I understand Polish, then they would help me at first. I understood Polish. And the next day I had to go to a new job. The tattooed guy across from me helped me fill out the forms. It turned out that we were going to the same job. It was Thomas. He was from Scotland.

42. In the workshop we were supposed to go to, there was no work for us that day. And we were taken to another shipyard. She was huge. After a short safety briefing, we were taken to the workshop. There was nowhere to put my things, I was wearing jeans and shoes. I put paper overalls on top of my clothes and paper slips on my shoes. I was allowed to put my jacket and bag in the supervisor's office. There were no lockers here, like at a fish factory, in which personal belongings were stored and the locker was locked. Rather, they were. But only for those who worked under the contract. The one who worked through the agency during the probationary period was not supposed to do anything. Now I was ready to get to work. I immediately found two Poles, said that I was from the Baltics, and asked for help to get comfortable. They told me to watch what they were doing and repeat after them. Then I did not know that according to this scheme they arranged all of their own, even those who had no idea about this production. Former builders, doctors, musicians from Poland worked there. Who wasn't there! Although, of course, there were those who had worked in this specialty all their lives. By the end of the day, Thomas and I were told that tomorrow we should go to our factory. He offered to meet near the bridge in the morning and go to work together.

43. It is very good that we went together. There were only English people there. There was only one Pole, and when I asked him to help, he looked at me not very happy. Then, of course, we became friends, but at first he helped me with obvious discontent.

44. But none of the locals helped here. It was a survival school. They just told you: "Go and do it." No one said what materials to use, in what quantity and in what ratio. Plus there was a Dorset accent. And when the British saw that you did not understand them, they were terribly annoyed. They made faces, stuck out their tongues and made all sorts of obscene sounds. All this had to be endured. Because I needed this job and didn't want to go back to the island. What impressed me the most was the attitude towards work. The shape of the yacht's hull was all chipped, which no one paid attention to, and inside the yacht there was a lot of debris and traces of dirty boots, in which everyone climbed right inside. How much material and tools were thrown into the trash, it's just hard to describe. If we talk about technology, then it was a maximum of the 80s of the last century. Thomas was treated even worse than me. He was constantly teased because he was a Scot. Well, I got the same thing, because I came with him, and they thought that I was his friend. By the end of the week, Thomas offered to move me to the hotel where he lived. The hotel was several times cheaper than my hotel, and I moved to a room where the toilet and shower were shared and located on the floor. The room had an electric kettle, a washbasin, a plywood built-in wardrobe with a crossbar painted white, and a small TV set with 4 programs: BBC 1, BBC2, BBC3, and BBC4. The very first time I switched on, I got on a channel where political scientists in the studio discussed how emigrants from Poland and the Baltic states were taking away jobs from the English population. Then they showed a story from the London employment center. A young clerk in a suit and tie was giving an interview. Behind him was a huge hall, in which there were a lot of tables, at which a lot of people were sitting. Coffee and tea vending machines lined the walls. People played chess, read newspapers, drank coffee and talked among themselves. Almost all tables were occupied. The BBC correspondent asked the clerk:

Who are these people?

These are the unemployed. he reported.

So you don't have any vacancies? - sounded the next question.

What do you mean - said the clerk - we are inundated with vacancies.

So why don't you give them to them?

The answer killed on the spot: - So they do not know how! They don't have any qualifications!