A St. Petersburg-Murmansk train has recently added a special stop on its route - all so a girl and her grandma can easily commute to and from school.
According to Gudok newspaper translated by BBC, Karina Kozlova, 14, has been travelling to and from school with her grandmother, Natalia Kozlova, from their remote locality of Poyakonda. Poyakonda is a rural locality in the north-west part of Russia located beyond the Arctic circle.
Since the trains stopped in Poyakonda only for some railway staffers, Karina and her grandma would have no option but to follow their timings. This meant enduring three hour long commutes every day - they would board a train 7:30 in the morning and return 'close to nine at night'.
The children, for many years, have been commuting for three hours daily to and fro — catching the train at half past seven in the morning and reaching back home close to nine o’clock at night, stated a Gudok report.
“Every morning, I waited for the children by the village kiosk, then we walked 1km (0.6 miles) to the Poyakonda station,” Kozlova told Gudok. “We took the train to the Knyazhaya station, picking up other children along the way… then took the bus to school. After school, we took the long-distance train home,” she added.
The introduction of the new stop came about when Karina's mother, requested the regional authorities to help with the issue, reports Sputnik International.