Railway attendant Inna Oleksandrivna Manoylenko is one of hundreds of Ukrainian railway employees who signal to passing trains and keep impatient people off the tracks.ByDaniel StonePhotographs bySasha MaslovFebruary 4 2021•7 min readThis story appears in the March 2021 issue of National Geographic magazine.Many of Sasha Maslov’s best childhood memories are connected to trains he’d stare out the window to see the texture of his country in the apartment buildings and shops and cars waiting for the train to pass he’d see a tiny house with a woman standing by it “Ukrainian railroad ladies,” as Maslov calls them in his portrait series are a cultural tradition that feels as old as rail travel in Ukraine The workers are tasked with sending flag-based signals to conductors of approaching trains A folded yellow flag means all clear ahead An unfolded flag means reduce speed and proceed with caution A red flag—or a flare shot into the air—means to stop moving entirely Nataliia Yuriivna Pylypenko passes time between trains by tending the garden at this trackside house which is owned by the Ukrainian railway.Railway worker Svitlana Oleksiivna Yevstihnieieva operates the Poltava-South station in the central Ukrainian city of Poltava.Kononivka Station is one of many stations known by their name and distance from a main city but some retain their Soviet-era distance measure from Moscow.No two railway houses look the same but common traits are their small size—a single-story may be about 225 square feet—and their location near rail crossings The workers’ lives revolve around train schedules.A whistle hangs in a crossing house at the Sakhnovshchyna station crossing workers might use such a whistle to warn pedestrians of an approaching train.Some aspects of rail officer life are changing has expanded its hiring to try to bring more young workers into the unglamorous but stable work In a world of high-speed trains and automated crossings rail attendants today may spend less time signaling to trains than policing and warning motorists “Ukrainians are notoriously not law-abiding,” Maslov comments people will go around the barriers to beat a moving train.” Maslov saw a notebook in which an attendant had taken down the license plate numbers of cars that ran through barriers Railway workers like Trofymova Yelena Sergiivna plan their lives around the train schedule.Every railway house is different some showing aspects of architecture particular to their region The vast majority of occupants are female.The color of the flag signals to train operators what lies ahead A folded yellow flag means to maintain speed Red signals that a collision may be imminent.Some railway workers still communicate with telephones and radio frequencies.At crossing stations like this one in Sakhnovshchyna in eastern Ukraine flashlights can be used in case of a power outage to warn motorists of a train’s approach.Crossing houses and their contents hark back to a time before trains could rely on radios and digital communication to boost railway safely Watch your inbox over the next few days for photos captured in mistnet on the outskirts of Wanang village their jelly matrix will limit ventilation to the egg masses starving out especially dense eggs like this (La Jolla Castor canadensis."},"title":"Where does vanilla flavoring come from The silken case itself is visible with the greyish material (a mix of caterpillar saliva and silk) the first black man to make it to the top of the country and western music field From Twenty Hand-Coloured Prints after Original Paintings of Famous American Thoroughbreds by Edward Troye (1808–1874) image: 11 3/8 x 14 15/16 in.","ttl":"2B0GHKP.jpg"},"title":"The life of Lexington used to make tequila on the grounds of the Fortaleza Tequila Distillery."},"title":"Visit Jalisco The Haenyeo make a living out of harvesting the sea floor catching conch They freedive to depths of 20 meters and hold their breath for minutes But the Haenyoe is an endangered 'species' the sea was abundant with them – around 30.000 of them would take to the sea almost daily they hardly number 5000 and more than two-thirds are over 60 years old Here are a few experts love."}],"topicName":"Lifestyle"},"rightpromo":{"id":"2c88edf9-e45c-48a7-a57e-3c8667c53fbc","cmsType":"TileGridModule","tiles":{"id":"drn:src:natgeo:unison::prod:441fde9e-010c-4a0c-a09d-296ee7cb9690","href":"https://www.nationalgeographic.com/lifestyle/article/best-compact-cameras","cmsType":"ArticleNavTile","ratio":"4x3","title":"The 10 best compact cameras for travel holding a yellow flag."},"type":"p","style":{}},{"id":"html1","cntnt":{"mrkup":"“Ukrainian railroad ladies,” as Maslov calls them in his portrait series as a hazard is ahead."},"type":"p","style":{}},{"id":"inline-2","cntnt":{"aspectRatio":"2x3","cmsType":"photogallery","id":"inline-2","media":[{"caption":{"text":"Nataliia Yuriivna Pylypenko passes time between trains by tending the garden at this trackside house which 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Moscow.","ttl":"proof-ukraines-train-ladies-projector-bicycle"},"src":"https://i.natgeofe.com/n/3e6a461e-ca82-47d5-b11d-2eb3c8bf060f/proof-ukraines-train-ladies-projector-bicycle.jpg"},{"aspectRatio":0.75,"alt":"woman in uniform standing on stairs of green and blue house.","caption":"No two railway houses look the same has expanded its hiring to try to bring more young workers into the unglamorous but stable work."},"type":"p","style":{}},{"id":"html3","cntnt":{"mrkup":"In a world of high-speed trains and automated crossings people will go around the barriers to beat a moving train.”"},"type":"p","style":{}},{"id":"html4","cntnt":{"mrkup":"The life can be monastic The vast majority of occupants are female.","ttl":"proof-ukraines-train-ladies-tiny-house-green-roof"},"src":"https://i.natgeofe.com/n/e1088752-f313-4588-a194-aaf0f14c350b/proof-ukraines-train-ladies-tiny-house-green-roof.jpg"},{"aspectRatio":0.75,"alt":"woman in blue uniform showing folded yellow flag.","caption":"The color of the flag signals to train operators what lies ahead flashlights can be used in case of a power outage to warn motorists of a train’s approach.","ttl":"proof-ukraines-train-ladies-flashlight"},"src":"https://i.natgeofe.com/n/825b842c-e0e2-444e-9436-a0b794405d21/proof-ukraines-train-ladies-flashlight.jpg"},{"aspectRatio":0.75,"alt":"phone with no dial and folded yellow flag on small table by window.","caption":"Crossing houses and their contents hark back to a time before trains could rely on radios and digital communication to boost railway safely Crossing houses and their contents hark back to a time before trains could rely on radios and digital communication to boost railway safely Цей веб-сайт зберігає файли cookie на вашому комп'ютері The village council agreed on waste disposal including tests for the COVID-19 coronavirus Seven bags with this waste were found near the village of Dubovi Hryady thanks to the appeal of people the State Environmental Inspection in the Kharkiv region reports on Facebook The message emphasized that placing medical waste on open ground is a violation of the requirements of Law No Eco-inspectors imposed a fine on an official of the Sakhnovshchyna settlement council and sent a letter regarding the need to bring the territory to an appropriate ecological state It is noted that the village council concluded a contract with "EKO-NOVA" LLC for the disposal of medical waste and cleaned the territory of the landfill Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that in 2021 law enforcement officers exposed a company that, instead of incinerating medical waste, simply dumped it on land plots in Kyiv, Mykolaiv, and Lviv regions. During 2020-2021, the company received more than 6 thousand tons of medical waste including waste from infectious diseases hospitals and Covid-wards As EcoPolitic previously reported, eco-inspectors conducted raids in more than 10 communities in Kharkiv Oblast where they discovered a number of spontaneous landfills as part of the beautification action "For a clean environment" Compensation in the amount of UAH 200,000 will be collected from another community in Ternopil region 13 out of 43 discovered spontaneous landfills were removed during the year Melitopol was turned into a complete landfill Medicines belong to hazardous waste and require special disposal The use of materials posted on the EcoPolicy media platform is permitted only if the link to the EcoPolicy is provided and for online publications - the placement of a direct hyperlink to the page where the original material is posted The editors may not share the point of view stated in the author's material The advertiser is responsible for the accuracy of information published in promotional materials.