Taxi drivers: Going to the movies?

This evening I was, again, a little late for an appointment in the centre of the city. Luckily the taxi fares in Skopje are very reasonable - for 50 MKD (a little less than 1 Euro) you'll be brought to virtually any place in the city which is within reasonable distance. My second luck was that not too far from my home at Universalna Sala (Universal Theatre), there is a taxi stand. I decided to buy some time and take a taxi. I picked the odd looking Lada among the big Audi's, BMW's and some Japanese make which is quite popular in town. I could have picked a taxi with a lot less memories. It was not the car, but the driver that, to put it mildly, is not the ideal chauffeur for the faint hearted. He was apparently in his moods and gave me a few stories that made me curious at least.
After the usual 'where are you from?' and 'what do you do in Macedonia?', he decided it was time to reveal his real self - that in fact I was not being brought to the city centre by a professional taxi driver but by what he called one from the 'cleaning service'. His introduction went more or less like this:
"You know, these people from up there?" He pointed to the north, in the direction of the Vardar river, "the Russian [somethings - I didn't understand him well]?"
"Eeerrr, no I don't know them. But please, tell me"
"Well, these people sometimes need the city to be more cleaner. You know what I mean!"
I didn't want to disappoint him by telling the truth and saying that I had not yet a clue what he was talking about, so I just hummed some nodded agreement and hoped that he would elaborate on his matters. He did.
"When the first cleaning service don't do their job well, I will be the one who will be consulted. I'll just have to finish the job off."
"So, how can you do the job better than your colleagues?" I was getting a faint hint at what he was getting at.
"I work with chemicals. Works much better!"
"Ahaaaa, but isn't that the usual idea of cleaning?"
"No, some people use more old fashioned methods."
"I guess they stick to tradition, don't they?", I said, not yet knowing what his cleaning would look like. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to know. It was, however, too late to draw back. The taxi driver was coming to the essential part of his story.
"Yes. But, do you know that you can kill someone with just one blow?" During asking me that question, he pointed to a spot on his throat. He added "I can."
"..."
"There is also another spot", now he pointed at his nose, "but you have to use much more force for that."
"Is that so?"
"You didn't know?" he asked me.
"Well, no. I never had to try."
"Trust me" he said, "but chemicals are more usefull. Much more usefull!" He then offerede me a sigaret, which in a way, was quite funny.
To my following question if it paid well and why he would still drive a taxi, I got some incomprehensible answer about "only once a month", "not trusting the people" and "better times during the war". I was glad the ride was about to come to an end. After he stopped the car and I got out of the car, he trusted me that Macedonia is not a safe place and that Skopje is not an ideal city. It would be better for me to get back home soon. I lied by saying that I would and wondered what car I would take the next time I am running late.

There are no photos today, but the ones from yesterday (wild domesticized geese at the city park) will be up soon. The Heraklea photos are published - look at the 8 May entry.