The colorful ‘train ladies’ of Ukraine
Meet the rail safety officers who preside over the country’s vibrant railway crossing houses and other cultural touchstones.
Railway attendant Inna Oleksandrivna Manoylenko, at work on the outskirts of Kyiv, is one of hundreds of Ukrainian railway employees who signal to passing trains and keep impatient people off the tracks.
ByDaniel Stone
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Many of Sasha Maslov’s best childhood memories are connected to trains. Every vacation, every trip to another city, he’d stare out the window to see the texture of his country in the apartment buildings and shops and cars waiting for the train to pass. And every so often, he’d see a tiny house with a woman standing by it, holding a yellow flag.