Putin’s Plan to Make Russian Cities Worth Living In

On a Sunday morning in December, the future arrived in Torzhok, a sleepy town about 155 miles (250 kilometers) northwest of Moscow. It came in the form of an electric locomotive resembling a bright red caterpillar, chugging along through snow-covered forests toward the town of 50,000.

There were only a dozen passengers on the inaugural journey of the train, dubbed the Lastochka—which is Russian for swallow. Among them was Tatyana Sokolova, an entrepreneur and one of a growing number of players rushing to redevelop cities across the country—including Torzhok, her hometown.