event
Kukuyevka railway disaster
Kukuyevka
also: Kukuyevka catastrophe, Kukuyevskaya katastrofa
A storm-collapsed rail embankment near Mtsensk on the night of 29-30 June 1882 swallowed a passenger train, killing 42 people; it was the most notorious Russian rail catastrophe of the day and entered common speech as shorthand for sudden disaster.
Reading notes
- On a Dark Night §15 Kukuyevka
The Kukuyevka railway disaster of 29-30 June 1882, when a storm-swollen embankment collapsed under a passenger train near Mtsensk, killing 42 people; it was the most notorious Russian rail catastrophe of the day, and the wife's cry invokes it to check her husband's fury by reminding him how narrowly they, too, have just escaped a ravine in a storm.