BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

12/08/2009

In Minsk, children run the rails

A staff member stood watch at the Children's Railway station in Minsk. The atmosphere is always festive in the train cars. (Photos by Steve Vincent)

Steve Vincent, a former computer consultant from Boston, recently returned from studying Russian in Minsk, Belarus.

By Steve Vincent

MINSK -- My wife and I noticed signs on the Minsk subway announcing that the Children's Railway was running. I figured it would be like the little trains I rode as a kid in zoos and amusement parks. I was surprised, then, to see that it's a fairly large-scale model of a real Belarusian passenger train. We saw the train running along the edge of a city park, and we decided to take a ride.

My real surprise, however, was to discover that the train was operated almost entirely by children in uniform. I'm not around children often enough to guess their ages, but if anybody's voice had changed I didn't hear him speak. Most of them looked to be preteen through about midteens. My wife remembers the railway during her childhood as the first of several such training projects, implemented by the communist party.

Each car had at least two conductors, and the engine carried one adult engineer and two or three young apprentice engineers. I think there may have been a second adult on the train somewhere, but as far as the public is concerned the operators are all children. The train cars even have child-size cabins for the conductors. I believe each car has a separate public announcement system. In our car we saw a conductor in his office talking into the microphone to announce our trip.

The whole railroad is devoted to children in a Disneyesque way. The architecture reminded us of many Soviet train stations, but much smaller. And whereas in a real railway station they play tinny patriotic music when a train arrives, here they played tinny children's music continuously. There was also an actor or actress who kept reappearing in various animal suits reminiscent of cartoon characters.

The exhibits inside the station included a fine electric-train diorama operated by kids in railway uniforms. At the back of the station I found a huge classroom filled with kids in railway uniforms, including a few of the giant hats police and military officers wear here. The kids in the classroom were generally younger than most of the kids running the trains, and if I spoke better Russian I could have tested my theory that this was a training school for future operators of the Children's Railway.

Inside the train, families chatted and stared at the scenery as we rode and listened to more of the same tinny children's music we'd heard at the station. We got off the train at its remote terminus to take a walk in the secluded picnic area. Watching the next train arrive we realized just how serious these kids are. When a train pulls out of the station, all the conductors stand in their doorways holding yellow flags straight out. As each door passes the end of the platform, the conductor lowers his or her flag with an authoritative snap. And the conductors are clearly in charge of their cars. I suspect that many of these kids will end up working at bigger railroads as adults.

Source:

http://www.boston.com/news/world/blog/2009/08/_a_staff_member.html

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