Photo: Screenshot from Facebook
People are resourceful, and this trait can best be observed in places where - how should I put this nicely? - the income level isn’t at its highest. Yup, the cold hard truth is that being in need is what forces people to think outside the box.
The former communist countries in Eastern Europe (and we’ve included Russia here as well) once had a bloated economic system that covered pretty much every type of conceivable industry. Of course, they couldn’t all be profitable, so once the bubble burst, a lot of the factories had to be closed. The buildings were left to rust and, together with them, so were the railroad tracks that were once being used to move the goods from one place to the other.
At the same time, the railroad transport is at an all-time low, with poor conditions and high prices forcing people to rely more on buses or even personal cars. Or bicycles, as the old man in this clip demonstrates.
Rather than leaving the railroads to wait for their slow death or selling the iron for scrap, this man decided to make the best of what’s being offered to him and converted his bike (well, it looks like his grand daughter’s bike, but that’s another story) to be used on the railroad track. We have to admit we’re quite impressed with his idea and also his execution, to such a degree, actually, that we’re even starting to wonder how come we haven’t seen anything like it so far.
It makes perfect sense. It’s safe, it’s easy, it doesn’t require a lot of balancing effort (you know where we’re going with this, right? I mean, this is rural Russia, after all) and it’s free. All you need to do is have a few poles of the correct length welded to the bike’s frame and you’re ready to go. We’re guessing the next step would be fixing two whole bikes together, side by side. And then two more behind. And so on, until the railroad transportation is reborn, only this time with trains using leg power.
At the same time, the railroad transport is at an all-time low, with poor conditions and high prices forcing people to rely more on buses or even personal cars. Or bicycles, as the old man in this clip demonstrates.
Rather than leaving the railroads to wait for their slow death or selling the iron for scrap, this man decided to make the best of what’s being offered to him and converted his bike (well, it looks like his grand daughter’s bike, but that’s another story) to be used on the railroad track. We have to admit we’re quite impressed with his idea and also his execution, to such a degree, actually, that we’re even starting to wonder how come we haven’t seen anything like it so far.
It makes perfect sense. It’s safe, it’s easy, it doesn’t require a lot of balancing effort (you know where we’re going with this, right? I mean, this is rural Russia, after all) and it’s free. All you need to do is have a few poles of the correct length welded to the bike’s frame and you’re ready to go. We’re guessing the next step would be fixing two whole bikes together, side by side. And then two more behind. And so on, until the railroad transportation is reborn, only this time with trains using leg power.
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