For the past year, Moscow and St. Petersburg have been connected by a high-speed railway service. But tracks and level crossings were not modernized, and there have been several fatal accidents as a result.The Sapsan, or peregrine falcon as English would have it, is Russia's pride and joy. A variation on Germany's high-speed ICE train, it travels at 250 kilometers per hour. But the route takes the speedsters through the underdeveloped Russian provinces, where they tear through villages with sometimes fatal consequences. In the village of Popovka, south of St. Petersburg, a 15 year-old named Alyosha was hit and killed.
