Q: When is the high-speed rail link between Moscow and St. Petersburg due to be completed, and how long will the journey take? And also, Joe, what's the condition of your train network?
– Justin Mason, Romford, England.

A: It is already completed and functioning. In December, they were running two trains a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. The distance is 650 km. They once covered the distance in three hours and 54 minutes, a record in the 150-year history of the line. They hope to cut it down to three hours and 30 minutes. Today, the average train takes four hours and 20 minutes. The speed is 200 km per hour but they plan to reach a speed of 350 km per hour. This will require much preparation.

The high-speed trains will give the airlines some very tough competition. First, you have to travel to the airport, register yourself and the baggage, and then after landing, wait for the baggage. Finally, you make the long trip to the city. The airline ticket to St. Petersburg costs 1,500-2,000 rubles. The train ticket costs 273 rubles, without meals. But there are two bars – in the first and last cars of the train. They plan to introduce high-speed trains from Moscow to Warsaw, Berlin, the Black Sea resort cities and to other places, too. It's fast and cheap.

As to the overall condition of Russia's rail infrastructure, 40 percent of our engines and rolling stock are now too old to be considered safe. Fifty percent of our electric engines are worn out; 54 percent of our diesel engines are unfit for service. There are 232,000 defective rails; 730 km of track are unsatisfactory; and 9.8 percent of all bridges are defective.

Q: What are the recent figures for train accidents and injuries?
–David Martin, address unknown.

A: In the past year, we have had eight train disasters. Our crossings take a big toll on life. In the past seven years, 1,000 people died under the wheels of trains. In 99 percent of the cases, those to blame were the car and truck drivers who did not adhere to the rules. But it is a fact that the number of deaths in the past eight years has dropped noticeably.

Railroads seem to attract criminals of every type – rapists, murderers, thieves – but, nevertheless, the number of crimes on trains has also dropped. The average Russian uses trains 50 times more often than airlines. Train tickets are three to four times cheaper and trains derail 50 times less often than planes crash. The number of people killed in train disasters in the past seven years was 10 times less than in air crashes. It seems railroads are the safest means of transport. We have devices that brake the train as soon as the engineer stops driving it; trains will not pass a red light.

Q: How many zoos are there in Moscow?
– Martin Tourigian, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

A: There is one zoo in Moscow and it's 137 years old. The oldest inhabitant is a crocodile named Saturn. He was brought from Germany during World War II and is 100 years old. They have a zebra which is over 30 years old, even though the average life span of a zebra is roughly half that.

There are 13 zoos in Russia. Not long ago a visitor wanted to give an elephant a piece of candy and climbed up onto the railings. The elephant pushed him with his trunk and the man was left hanging on his belt, which got caught on a spike. He hung there helplessly. The crowd got so scared, it scattered. The man called for help, but there was no one around. Finally, the elephant himself lifted the man off the spike.

What haven't they got at the zoo? They have an Insectoscopia, a land of insects. Forty species of spiders, 10 praying mantises, whose females bite off the heads of the males during sex. They have the largest water beetles in Europe and night butterflies that can smell each other at a distance of 11 km. I just can't believe it. To visit the Insectoscopia you have to reserve your ticket in advance, it's so popular. The zoo trades many animals with zoos in other countries. To feed a walrus, which eats fish and shrimp, costs $80 a day. A gorilla's meals cost $20. To feed a brown bear – $5, same as to feed a lion. A man once took a lovely lion cub to his apartment and raised it until it became so unmanageable he had to call the zoo to come and take it.

(Joe Adamov is host of the Voice of Russia radio station's "Moscow Mailbag" program, from which these letters were taken. E-mail Joe at editor@russiajournal.com.)