ABSTRACT
Following the war with Turkey, the Odessa, the Kiev-Brest, and the Brest-Gaev railroads were merged to form the Southwestern Railroad, with Ivan [Jan] Bloch as chairman of the board, the aim being to produce a profitable operation. Naturally, some officials had to be let go and some had to be shifted as a result of the merger. I might have become traffic chief of the new road if Bloch had not offered the position to Danilevich, who had been his traffic chief when he had been head of the Kiev-Brest Railroad. I was offered the post of chief of the operational section of the new road, with my office to be in Petersburg, and accepted it for two reasons. First, another position might have taken me to Kiev, and that would have been uncomfortable for me, as I shall explain. Second, I wanted to be in Petersburg to work with the so-called Imperial commission to investigate the condition of the railroads, about which I will speak later.
