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Some believe they did.“Fifty years after the death of St. Patrick on March 17, 461 A.D., another Celtic saint continued the work of converting pagan Ireland to Christianity. Born near Tralee in County Kerry in 484 A.D., St. Brendan the Navigator traveled tirelessly to evangelize and establish monasteries following his ordination to the priesthood at age 28. The sixth-century monk frequently sailed the high seas to spread the gospel throughout Ireland as well as to Scotland, Wales and Brittany in the north of France.”“According to a 1,500-year-old Irish tale, however, St. Brendan embarked on one particularly epic journey in the winter of his 93-year-old life. According to the story, St. Barinthus told St. Brendan that he had just returned from a visit to Paradise, a land that lurked far beyond the horizon. For 40 days St. Brendan fasted and prayed atop a mountain on the rugged Dingle Peninsula, a spindly finger of land on the west of Ireland that points directly at North America. The octogenarian squinted out at the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean in wonder of what was out there before deciding to go in pursuit of the fabled Garden of Eden.”“St. Brendan crafted a traditional Irish round-bottom boat, shaped like a canoe and called a currach, with square sails and leather skins stitched together to create a watertight seal over the vessel’s wooden skeleton. Along with a crew of anywhere between 18 and 150 according to the differing accounts, the saint sailed off into the cobalt ocean. As the fragile craft beat against the waves, St. Brendan encountered towering crystal pillars afloat in the oceans, sheep the size of oxen, giants who pelted the ship with fireballs the smelled like rotten eggs and talking birds singing psalms. Finally, as the boat drifted through a fog, it landed at what the Irishmen thought was Paradise, a land lush with vegetation, fragrant with flowers and abounding in fruit and colorful stones. After staying for 40 days, an angel told the men to return home. When St. Brendan came back to the Emerald Isle after the seven-year voyage, pilgrims who heard the sensational story flocked to his side in remote County Kerry until he died around 577 A.D.““Much like with St. Patrick, the line between the history and legend surrounding St. Brendan has been blurred. The account of his voyage passed from lip to lip for generations until a ninth-century Irish monk finally put it to paper in a Latin text entitled “Navigatio Sancti Brendani” (“The Voyage of St. Brendan”). The book was among the biggest page-turners of the Middle Ages and became so widely known that cartographers began to include Paradise, recorded as “St. Brendan’s Island,” on maps. Christopher Columbus was aware of the elusive island—which was drawn everywhere from the southwest of Ireland to near the Canary Islands off the African coast—as he embarked on his own voyage across the Atlantic in 1492.”“Most scholars consider “The Voyage of St. Brendan” to simply be a religious allegory, but some believe that the tale was based on an actual voyage, albeit with some Irish embellishment. When Columbus and succeeding explorers failed to find the mythical island drawn on their maps, a new theory arose that perhaps St. Brendan and his crew had actually sailed clear across the Atlantic and that Paradise was in fact North America. Proponents pointed to Scandinavian sagas that mentioned that the Irish had already visited North America by the time the Vikings landed there around 1000 A.D. The Vikings referred to the lands south of their settlement in Vinland as “Irland it Mikla,” or “Greater Ireland.”“In addition, the fantastical sights encountered by St. Brendan, although exaggerated, could be matched to actual stopovers between Ireland and North America on a similar North Atlantic route taken by the Vikings. The crystal pillars could be icebergs, the Faroe Islands are home to large sheep and a chorus of squawking birds and the foul-smelling fireballs could correlate to the sulfuric dioxide spewed by Iceland’s volcanoes, minus the giants.”“But would a trans-Atlantic voyage have even been possible in the sixth century? In 1976, modern-day adventurer Tim Severin attempted to answer the question. Based on the description of the currach in the text, he crafted an identical vessel and cast off from the Dingle Peninsula with four fellow explorers in the shadow of the same mountain where St. Brendan had been enraptured in prayer prior to his voyage (now named Mount Brandon in the saint’s honor). Following the prevailing winds across the northernmost part of the Atlantic Ocean, they crossed it using landing points such as the Aran Islands, the Hebrides, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland as stepping stones before arriving in Newfoundland.”“While Severin proved that a trans-Atlantic voyage was possible during St. Brendan’s day, no archaeological evidence of an Irish settlement in North America before the Vikings has ever been unearthed. Nor would discovery of such artifacts prove that St. Brendan was the first Irishman in North America. After all, in the tale itself, St. Barinthus had first set foot in the distant land.““Everything described in “The Voyage of St. Brendan” could be complete blarney, but for centuries numerous scholars also discounted the Vikings sagas of their voyages to the New World as legends. That all changed with the discovery of a Viking settlement on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland in 1960, and Irish eyes would be smiling if any artifacts connected to St. Brendan are ever found in North America.“https://www.history.com/news/did-an-irish-monk-discover-america

First, an anecdote (Mikhail Rozhkov kindly reminded me of that).— Have you heard that Ivanov won a thousand in a game of chess?— Sure thing. But it was Rabinovich, not Ivanov. It was a game of poker, not a game of chess. It was ten thousand and not one thousand. And, well, he lost, not won.It was neither Stalin, nor the Trans-Siberian, nor a ruler, nor a finger.The Trans-Siberian Railway was built in 1898–1904 when young Iosif, son of Vissarion the shoemaker from the town of Gori in Georgia/Sakartvelo, was a mere priest school (seminary) student in Tiflis (Tbilisi), expelled in 1899. Even before the expulsion from the seminary, in 1898, with otherwise commendable effort he became a radical Marxist, which apparently was the reason to kick him out of school where he was among the best students.MORE DETAILS ON HOW STALIN BECAME STALIN (skip for further railway story)After expulsion Iosif was a cram teacher for a short time, later becoming a racketeer nicknamed Kóba, and was involved in criminal and revolutionary activities around Trans-Caucasian area and other parts of Russian Empire that was almost at the peak of its might and development. For his Marxist undoings he needed a convincingly sounding pseudonym too, so then, about 1902 or so, he started to call himself Iosif Stalin. Nevertheless, he allowed his old and most trustworthy friends to call him Koba in private talks, as a reminder of turbulent youth.Stalin’s real family name was Dzhugashvili (as well as Lenin was originally Ul'yanov and Lev Trotsky was Léiba Bronshtéin) and that was mentioned in encyclopedias and official biographies of the period. In the first years after the 1917 revolution Iosif Dzhugashvili became Iosif Stalin officially. He signed as I. Stalin, his Soviet domestic passport, the Party Card and other IDs contained that surname, but his autobiographic forms that were filled as a formality, but nevertheless filled, probably by his long-time — and legendary — secretary and immediate aide Andréy Poskrébyshev, likely had the original surname as well.His two sons had different surnames — Yakov Dzhugashvili, from the first wife (1907–1943; his Soviet domestic passport had 1908 as a birth year for whatever reason) and Vasily Stalin, from the second wife (1921–1962). That pretty much goes in line with Russian bureaucratic tradition to “make it smooth in papers”. After Iosif Stalin’s death Vasily was jailed. After the final release from jail in 1961 he was officially banned from living in Moscow and Georgia, and prohibited from using the surname Stalin, so he died shortly as Vasily Iosifovich Dzhugashvili.The Trans-Siberian was never imagined as a straight line. It was and is rather... not straight, because something was actually learned during the preceding 50 years of rapid railway development in Russian Empire and the rest of the world. Look at this map (in Russian), see a thin red line and think yourself if it is ruler-straight. I’d say no, even though due to scale the line here is significantly smoother than the railway is in reality.It is true though that there really are ruler-straight stretches there, between Ishím and Omsk, and between Barábinsk and Nóvosibírsk (as well as some other that are much shorter). They are there because it’s a flat steppe with solid enough ground to really make a straight line out of any kind of road.Now to the ruler story. It has to do with the third ever (and the second public) railway in Russia, between St. Petersburg (then capital) and Moscow.WHY RUSSIAN RAILWAYS USE A DIFFERENT GAUGE THAN THE REST OF THE WORLDThe first public line was a not quite practical 6 ft (1829 mm) gauge stretch between St. Petersburg and Tsárskoye Seló that was rather a proof of concept built in 1836–37 (later standardized), while the St. Petersburg — Moscow line was built in 1843–1851. The latter, and all subsequent regular-gauge Russian railways, had a gauge of precisely five feet, which makes 1524 millimeters. Later, in Soviet times, it was, mostly for simplicity in fully metricated country, narrowed down to 1520 mm everywhere except Finland (which proclaimed independence on December 6, 1917) and Estonia (which was independent in 1918–1940, and is since 1991) during the construction of new lines and repair of existing ones. It has nothing to do with another popular legend of a “pizzle length” wider Russian gauge, or a “brilliant strategic plan to hinder possible foreign invasion” — it was that just the 5 ft gauge was at the time considered more practical than a 6 ft gauge and easier to design and use than a European not-yet-standard 4’ 8½” (1435 mm) gauge. The difference between 1520 and 1524 millimetres is insignificant, yet it adds some to wear of wheels and rails. The modern Allegro EMU train (based on Alstom Pendolino) that runs between St. Petersburg and Helsinki is calibrated for 1522 millimetres — exactly between 5 feet and 1520 millimetres.The legend says that the emperor Nicholas the First just drew a straight line between St. Petersburg and Moscow on a map and in one place a royal fingernail made an obstacle to the royal pencil. Wrong, and I'll explain why.It was NOT an order of the emperor Nicholas the First to build it ruler-straight, it was a consensus among various officials that the most important (then, and, to a degree, now) railway of Russia was to be built as short as possible — and the most basic school geometry teaches us that the shortest way from point A to point B is a straight line.Of course that consensus had to be and eventually was approved by the emperor who was quite an engineer himself, but there was no emperor’s ruler in the real story. Nicholas the First really said that the railway should be built as a direct line, but he, for whatever reason, meant that it should not be routed through Velíkiy Nóvgorod, then a place much more important economically than it is today, despite being a huge tourist attraction. Yet, the railway is perfectly straight between Tósno and Chúdovo, right along the engineer’s ruler.Pavel Melnikov, who is considered (and actually was) the father and godfather of Russian railways (and not only Russian — his heritage can be found everywhere in the world in sleeper cars, for example, as his concepts were very thoughtful — enough so to live until modern days in 3rd and 2nd class sleepers, for instance), seriously objected the straightness of that line from purely engineering standpoint, but had less administrative power than those who thought rulers. Conclusion: bureaucrats+geometry=not good.Moreover, that “finger” near the village Veréb’ye appeared later, when Nicholas the First was long dead, in 1877 to 1881. By the way, Pavel Melnikov retired in 1872 and died in 1880 as a private person at his manor in Lyuban’, not far from that rail line — although I surmise that he gave some advice to actual designers of the “finger” curve.It happened because there was a gradient too steep for weak steam engines of the era — but, again, it took so long because… bureaucracy. Here’s another map in Russian with a thin red line.The red line here is that “finger” that did exist between 1881 and 2001, and the story appeared no earlier than in 1910s. The gray line is now again the main route (tracks along the red line were disassembled and now only traces of former infrastructure remain — to much dismay of locals who are deprived of a railway at their doorstep since then), and it poses no problem for modern electric locomotives and EMUs, diesel-electric engines, and even the remaining steam engines. You rarely see a steam engine on Russian railways after the late 1960s.STILL, TO TAKE A RIDE ON A STEAM-DRIVEN TRAIN IN RUSSIA IS EASY AND CHEAP EVEN IN THE 21st CENTURYApparently you can get a steam ride between Bologóe — the middle of the St. Petersburg-Moscow line — and Ostáshkov, an old town near the lake Seligér. It runs every Saturday at 9:25 in the morning from Bologoe (3 hours 24 minutes journey) and back after dinner at 3:07 p.m. from Ostashkov (3 hours 14 minutes journey).Contrary to other steam rides, that one is a commuter, tickets are sold for the regular price of 295 rubles — about US$4.50/€4.10 as of September 2019 (half price or free of charge for those eligible of social discounts). On other days this train runs under regular diesel, and it goes further to/from Velíkie Lúki under diesel as well. When under steam, the train has a water-refilling stopover at Kuzhénkino station where the old station building and infrastructure were specially restored, and there is some kind of small guided tour while the locomotive gets its water supply refilled. Thanks to Pavel Novikov for the information.Also there are some joyrides in and around Moscow, and some other steam events, but those, contrary to that regular train, have to be specially booked and cost like a tourist attraction rather than like a regular commute. Anyway, we have less steam engine stuff going on than the UK does.Anyway, even the steam engines that are used for historical rides, being powerful and originally made in the 1940s–1950s, can easily traverse gradients like that. Even more so because in that particular place it was made less steep: railway, locomotive and construction technologies made a giant leap during the 150 years that passed between the grand opening of that railway and reinstating it along the original route.THE “RULER-STRAIGHT” RAILWAY WAS NEVER RULER-STRAIGHTAnother really noticeable curve is between Rédkino and Kuz’mínka stations to the south-east from Tver’. There was no royal finger either but a huge bog that was later turned into a peat mine. Laying the railway tracks right across it is hard enough even in the 21st century, let alone in the middle of the 19th with the most primitive technology and unassisted manual labor that prevailed during the construction of that track (I’m a lifetime hater of Nikolay Nekrásov’s poem “The Railway” about the atrocities and disasters of that construction… because I had to learn it all by heart in the 6th grade and I never liked the style so I failed to do it on time and was in trouble about that).So much for distorted urban legends…

Before Peter the Great, most of Russia was oriented toward the Middle East and Turkic lands along the Volga river. In spite of proclaiming Russia a Czardom under Ivan the Terrible, the country remained a dependency of Turkic kingdoms until the end of the 17th century. Geographical maps from that time, as well as foreign traveller’s accounts show that Europeans had great difficulty telling Muscovy from Tartaria farther east.Meanwhile, starting from Ivan the Terrible times, more and more foreign merchants, mostly Germans, got attracted to the highly lucrative Russian trade in furs and other colonial wares. They had a permanent settlement in Moscow, German Quarter. It became a major conduit of Western influence. Peter the Great and a few other aristocrats became great fans of Europe, and particularly Holland.The Dutch had a great success in empire-building at the time, and Peter the Great decided to replicate it. This involved a drastic re-orientation toward Europe. Its magnitude could be compared to erasing the Kremlin, building a copy of the White House in its place and introduction of English as the language of state administration in today’s Russia.Facing a stiff resistance from the aristocracy and clergy (Peter had to kill the hard core of Streltsý, the old government military troops), the Czar decided to simply get away from the place of rotten Asiatic influence. He ordered building of a new capital next door to Europe, in the place of an old Swedish settlement, and gave it a distinctly un-Russian name, St. Petersburg.All he needed afterwards, was to watch who followed suit, shaved off their Slavic beards and took on European clothes—they were his allies. Those who didn’t, were left behind seven hundred kilometers south, with no army, no navy, and were now just a minor nuisance, rather than a problem with a potential of mutiny or poisoning.Art below: “Peter the Great saves drowning people from ship wrecks in Lakhta”, by Petr Ushakov (1844). According to a legend, Peter was inspecting his realms not far from St. Petersburg when he spotted a wrecked ship with drowning people. He saved them, but caught bad cold in the process and died soon afterwards. Note that the only distinctly “Russian thing” in the picture is the insignia on the imperial banner. Everything else is European imports.