Tim and I happened to catch this on tape the other night as we were walking home. There were several guys using a crane to lift an advertisement stand into the bed of a truck.
Admittedly, not the craziest thing I've ever seen...but can you ever imagine this happening in America? Let's go through the multitudinous reasons why the answer is HECK NO:
1. How about, oh I don't know, the fact that they're TOUCHING LIVE POWER LINES?
2. Or that they are doing it right next to a pedestrian sidewalk?
3. Or, worse still, next to an extremely busy eight lane road?
4. AND they're right by the trolley bus lane?
5. And NONE of the guys are wearing hard hats?
Yeesh.
I mean, I will say that I think America is way too over-protective sometimes with projects like this, usually because of our sue-happy country. However, Russians seem to take that idea and run with it--in the opposite direction.
I almost ate it the other day on the sidewalk because there was a chunk of rebar poking up, out of nowhere. Luckily for me, it hit my sandal but not my foot. Otherwise, it would have been pretty bad.
I've also seen gaps between the stair railing and the escalator large enough for a child to easily fit through, on the fourth floor of a mall. Wow.
Also, THIS:
It's cool, just let that giant transformer box thingy dangle a couple feet off the ground while people are just casually passing it by. Whatevs.
Russia is definitely not for the faint of heart. It sure keeps things interesting, though.