Ilya Petoushkoff
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petoushkoff.bsky.social
Ilya Petoushkoff
@petoushkoff.bsky.social
Transport planner with views and opinions.
Formerly of Moscow, Russia.
Currently based in Melbourne, Australia.

Coffee, cities, public transportation, piano music.
Occasional cat noises may occur herein.

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By far the easiest solution for the time being is to include all zone C REM stations into the zone B, which will untangle the use of Opus cards, and just live with this while the technical fix is coming up.
November 26, 2025 at 11:36 AM
This may also have something to do with the fact that the Russian prefix 'pre-' has a wide range of meanings it conveys, including 'before', 'in front of', 'above', and 'over'.

(The way Russian uses prefixes is akin to how English uses prepositions after verbs, i.e. is meaning-definitive.)
November 25, 2025 at 1:11 AM
The Russian word 'prestol' is rather extraordinary in its etymology, as it originally meant 'chair' or 'bench' in old Slavic, but at some point got adopted as both 'throne' and 'table'/'lectern' in the context of Christianity and amenities in a church.
November 25, 2025 at 1:07 AM
Russian 'stool' (with [u:]) literally means chair.

'Sviatoy Prestol' would be the collective designation of the Pope and the Roman Curia in Russian language, although people would just refer to 'the Vatican' without too much diving into the complexities of the definitions.
November 25, 2025 at 1:02 AM
Produced in 1989 and 1990, two original 81-717/81-714 trains still running in Sofia maintain their Soviet look, with very little change, if any.

(Interestingly, Sofia metro was only opened in 1998, long after the Soviet Union ceased to be!)

Image: Transphoto, by Darai
transphoto.ru/photo/1805750/
November 24, 2025 at 9:26 AM
A somewhat similar experience is to travel on the last remaining Soviet 81-717/81-714 trains in Sofia, Bulgaria.
These won't last long: the new trains from Skoda are being supplied.

Image: Transphoto, by Dmitriy Romanenkov.
transphoto.ru/photo/2209733/

(The 1989 81-717 train is on the left)
November 24, 2025 at 9:22 AM
The fleet of E* from M3 line in Budapest was modernised-meaning-replaced in Russia in 2017...2018—meaning they basically got back a lot of similar-bodied mildly-modern-ish sets.
November 24, 2025 at 8:52 AM
The city of Tbilisi operates select remaining E* cars—which have been heavily modernised and are unrecognisable—as middle cars in 81-717 trains (which makes them the only city to ever do such a thing).
November 24, 2025 at 8:50 AM
The original Soviet E* series are still working on Line 1 in Kharkiv and retain their green-blue livery.
A mildly modernised version is still common on Line 1 in Kyiv, with the middle cars having their driver cabs removed. (All original cars were only produced in unified design with a driver's cab.)
November 24, 2025 at 8:46 AM
Various modifications of E* trains were also previously operated in Moscow (until 2020), Baku (until 2008), Budapest (until 2018), and Prague (till 1997).
Of these, Budapest has two heritage trains (6 and 4 cars), and Prague has one (3 cars).
November 24, 2025 at 8:43 AM
This new body has been the same across all other modifications of E series throughout the years, and also largely inspired the most widely known 81-717/81-714 series.
November 24, 2025 at 8:42 AM
The reason was that the shifted door position in the E series (on the left) wouldn't let them fit into the 'horizontal lift' deep-level 'closed-type' stations, as the platform doorway spacing there had been designed with the standard car layout in mind.

(Image to the right: Habr via TechInsider Ru)
November 24, 2025 at 8:33 AM
A heritage train of two original E series in between two Em cars is preserved.

The original E series had an experimental door layout that had to be revised back to standard for Lines 2 and 3 in St.Petersburg resulting in Em/Ezh series.

Image: Transphoto, by 'NeVa'.
transphoto.org/photo/2207461/
November 24, 2025 at 8:24 AM
To my personal taste, orange is by far superior, and definitely no vertical bars.
The horizontal bars may look better being anywhere between 3/4 and 2/3 as thick as they are now.

(can't wait to read this!)
November 20, 2025 at 6:53 AM
Jaime Lerner knew about this problem and that is exactly the reason why Curitiba BRT buses are equipped with automated folding ramps in every door.
November 19, 2025 at 3:43 AM
I bet this was MS Paint.
November 18, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Helsinki is indeed extremely relevant to North American cities as an example of what's possible.

Outside of its inner city, it's not particularly dense, and it has a good share of mid-to-low-density suburbs.

The resultant combination of mobility, accessibility, and urban environment is phenomenal.
November 18, 2025 at 12:07 AM
As the public gets to experience this completely new level of access to the city they live in, and the brilliant modern driverless rail technology behind it, now is the best time ever to come back to the important conversation focused on bringing REM de l'Est to reality, too.
November 17, 2025 at 12:41 PM
This will hopefully open up discussion on the role of the rail network in the Greater Montréal, particularly regional rail, with its severely limited frequencies and span.
While REM, just like Métro, runs every few minutes, the regional rail lines run few services a day.
A better vision is needed.
November 17, 2025 at 12:35 PM