steam locomotive

In the beginning of this month I watched a new Russian film “Kray” (the film director - Aleksei Efimovich Uchitel, the main role was acted by Vladimir Lvovich Mashkov).

This is a story of life and relations between different people in a distant Siberian settlement “Kray”. Some of them are exiles, other are security or ordinary workers. Another important point is that it is 1945. It means that it is a time immediately after the WWII and that lives of these people have been dramatically changed by this even and sometimes even their lives have been broken.

In this film you can see expressions of different fillings: love, hate, fear, jealousy and others. And it is not the only interesting thing in this film. The other one is an atmosphere of that settlement. You can see the way people lived there, their clothes, their food, their entertainments and so on.

The most tremendous thing of this film is steam locomotives. There are at least three or four of them in the film. These steam locomotives have different constructions but the common thing for all of them is that they are loved and adored by their mechanics and that they are full value participants of the whole story. These steam locomotives are as independent actors like human beings.

And also I heard that this film would be nominated for Oscar as the best foreign film. I wish this film authors and actors luck and success!

A steam locomotive has been restored by RZD (Russian railways) and now it is used for excursions. I think it was made especially for the war veterans of WWII. It is some kind of a gift for the Victory Day (the 9th of May). Here are a record of its arrival or departure at the Kazan railway station:

P.S. I've heard that the same action (a restoration of a steam locomotive) would take place in the other division of the RZD - Sverdlovskaya railway with the HQ in Yekaterinburg. If it is so, I will try to take a look at this machine or even will go for a ride.