Poezd v sovremennost' [Train to Modernity]

The invention of the railroad awakened great hopes for technical progress in Russia. The tsarist government dreamed that the network of railways would unite the empire. Engineers and traffic planners appealed to the civilizing influence of modern infrastructure. The construction of railroads literally set in motion a multinational empire. Railways opened previously difficult regions and contributed to the explosive growth of geographic mobility. In 1879, the explosion of the imperial train showed the vulnerability of the political and spatial order in the era of technical modernity. The monograph for the first time highlights the diverse and ambivalent consequences of the construction of railways in a cultural and social perspective. Using the methodological approaches to the sociology of space, the author of the book traces new ways of organizing space in the era of steam engines.