By Roland Oliphant
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| A client talking with a gypsy taxi driver near the Mayakovskaya metro on Thursday. Some 40,000 gypsy drivers form the bulk of the city’s taxi fleet. |
Ivan Belko has driven to the sun and back. He says he’s covered 300 million kilometers, presumably in the battered silver Volga that is the only car in the fleet of his one-man taxi company.
Because has no taxi license, only takes cash and does not declare his earnings, Belko is counted as an illegal — one of about 40,000 gypsy cab drivers the city government estimates are working in the capital.