[PRCo] Moscow, Odessa and Kiev

[Fred Schneider]

Unlike Peter, if Fred does a travelogue, I would try to include something of the city itself in addition to the railways... 
Let's look at Moscow.   This might be as good as it gets for a free on-line video of the city.   Not as grim and forbidding as it was two or more decades ago when they feared us and we feared them.   By the way, remember that Germany invaded the Soviet Union in World War II.   They lost almost 24 million people in that war or 14.2% of their population ... perhaps the second largest share of any nation.   They came out of it fearing a lot of people.  (We lost about one tenth of one percent.) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTWDY7zwTbw

Running transit in Moscow is like trying to deal with it in a place like Phoenix with extreme population growth except that the automobiles didn't arrive in 1925; it was about 1990 before they flooded in.   The Moscow population was only about 2.5 million in 1930 when they built the first subway.  It was around 4 million in 1940.   Today?   Closing in on 11 million.  

The Moscow Subways haul seven million riders a day!   The tramways in Moscow are not the primary way of getting around ... they are in the suburbs connecting to the subway.   So let's first look at the Metro or subway.   Under the Soviets, the subway stations were some of the most artistic in the world and still are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gTUKjTIeSg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i2JnwvUJQo&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgiFJysMx4c

Trams of Moscow, Russia 2009 (Tрамваи Москвы 2009)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcxSURCPUng


More Trams in Moscow, Russia 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwV9GFb_owo&feature=related


New russian tram KTM-30 in Moscow. Новый трамвай КТМ-30.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1N4FCKnaWo&feature=related


Ghost Trams of Russia - Around minute 6 - I would swear I've been there.   It looks not like 
Russia but rather downtown Warsaw, Poland.   Those are Konstal built PCCs.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLrytOZOh8o

How about Odessa in the Ukraine on the Black Sea

This is cute ... kid hitching ride on the back of tram until he realizes he is being photographed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQV9uiRju0Q&feature=related

You've seen kids run up and wash your windshield at a traffic light .... check out these kids running up and washing the tram in Odessa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oa5N-W7BFU&NR=1

Or Kiev in the Ukraine ... just a tiny city of about 2.5 million people.  In population it falls between Houston and Chicago.   Little place.

First three subway / metro videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBJqWWvZEHc&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuTc_VI1mcM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my-2eLihTwY&feature=related

Then three tram videos in Kiev, starting with a nice long view of a cracked windshield on a PCC    Must have hit a high speed bird!   <:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKDazrDj9mI

We can title the next one, "Be a little late for dinner, Dear."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdGuSdOmmv8&feature=related

Some nice aerials of Kiev trams but turn down the sound

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HOJgLF0qSY