Page "Moscow – Saint Petersburg Railway" Paragraph 13

For many years the line was completely straight apart from a bend near the city of Novgorod.

This became the subject of an urban legend stating that when planning the project, Tsar Nicholas ( who reputedly, exasperated by the bickering of officials arguing over the route, selected the route by taking a ruler and drawing a straight line between the two cities on a map ) accidentally drew around his own finger on the ruler.

The planners were supposedly too afraid to point out the error and constructed the line with the bend.

In reality, the line was originally built without the curve.

Known as the Verebinsky bypass (), it was constructed in 1877 to circumvent a steep gradient that caused severe problems for steam locomotives.

Trains heading to St Petersburg would pick up so much speed that they could not stop at the next station, while those heading for Moscow could not get up the hill without the assistance of four locomotives.

It has been suggested that the late 19th century writer Nikolai Grech originated the story about the Tsar's finger being responsible for the curve.