Grappling with electricity on a Tajik trolley bus

DUSHANBE, Aug 23 (Reuters) It can be risky working on a trolley bus in Tajikistan.

As the driver's assistant you climb out of the bus at full speed to adjust electric poles with your bare hands, and get paid about a dollar a day.

''Sometimes we fall, getting bruises and scratches, but nothing serious really,'' said Anvar Rakhimov, 16, his face and clothes covered with soot and dust.

''Most conductors I know are my age. This job is too much for older people.'' Crossroads in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe, which still bears the scars of a 1990s civil war, are sometimes missing overhead wires. That's a problem if you are driving an electricity-powered bus.

In the old days, trolley buses used to get stuck in the middle of Dushanbe's streets, lined with huge Soviet-era buildings.

Passengers would then have to get out and push the bus until it picked up power again.

Nowadays, driver's assistants like Rakhimov clamber out of the moving bus and pull down the poles on top of the vehicle connected to the wires, allowing it to cruise through the unwired spot.

They are perched on a metal ladder at the back of the bus and, once back in a wired zone, which can be as far as 100 metres (yards) away, they have to quickly re-attach the poles.

''How much do I get paid for this? It's a commercial secret,'' said Rakhimov, smiling and wiping sweat from his forehead.

On bad days he can earn less than a dollar. On good days, it's more than 3 dollars.

''It depends on how many passengers we get. If a wire gets disconnected somewhere or if there is a power cut I sometimes get just one somoni a day (0.3 dollars).'' ''TOO MUCH'' Ex-Soviet Tajikistan was pitched into a five-year civil war in 1992 which killed 100,000 people, devastated the economy and ruined Soviet-era infrastructure.

Dushanbe, a city of one million that was called Stalinabad under Communist rule, has frequent power shortages. Blackouts sometimes last several hours.

City authorities say there is no money to modernise the city's 104 trolley buses.

''Trolley buses are not very profitable,'' Firdavs Saidov, head of the Dushanbe Trolley Bus Authority, told Reuters.

''The mayor's office gives us money only to maintain the existing overhead wires and the buses themselves.'' Passengers continue to use trolley buses despite the heart-clutching moments when they are coasting through crossroads with no power and not much braking potential.

''It's scary but we take it anyway,'' said Mekhrinisso Kurbonova, a pensioner. ''Normal buses are so packed in the morning you can't get in.'' Another passenger, Manuchehr Sharipov, said: ''It's fun, especially when it speeds up. I feel like I am in a motor rally.'' Reuters JT RS0821