Here, in four Instagram photos, is the best story about who runs Moscow—and how.
This is a man named Sergei Popov. As you can tell from the photo, Sergei drives a locomotive. If you scroll through his Instagram, you’ll find this post: for 6 years now I’ve been a senior electric train operator. He proudly tells us that he is taking part in the test launch of the MKZhD—the Moscow Little Ring Railway. This is a major pet project of Sobyanin and Liksutov; they mentioned it in almost every interview as a cure-all for traffic jams and a breakthrough in public transport.
The project costs 236 billion rubles.
Here is Sergei in the driver’s cab, alongside photos of brand-new locomotives. Sergei sets off from Serebryany Bor station!
Service on the MKZhD has begun. Hooray, Sergei rejoices.
But Sergei’s joy was short-lived. The service that had just begun was immediately halted. THE TRAIN TURNED OUT TO BE TOO WIDE FOR THE PLATFORM. “The entire side of the lead car was scraped up.”
A screenshot, in case Sergei Popov is forced to delete the photos:
You see, billions were poured into the MKZhD project.
Dozens and hundreds of billions of rubles. In kickbacks alone, I think they have received and will receive around 80 billion rubles.
And their train doesn’t fit past the platform.
The trains. And the platforms. Do. Not. Match. Each. Other.
Not light bulbs. Not cable. Not connectors. Not phone chargers that don’t fit phones. Not drivers’ boots that don’t fit drivers’ feet. Not an urbanists’ forum that doesn’t fit the urbanists. But trains and platforms.
Please forward this post to Grigory Revzin as well. It will come in handy for yet another article about the amazing urban spectacle created by Sergei Semyonovich (Sergei Sobyanin).
P.S. If you know anything about theft and corruption on the MKZhD and/or about this specific case, write to us (and send documents) via Black Box. Completely anonymously.