Why Verebinsky Bypass is also called the Tsar’s Finger

Some say the Verebinsky Bypass – the seemingly pointless, semi-circular detour on the otherwise straight train line between St. Petersburg and Moscow – can literally be traced back to Tsar Nicholas the First. Keeping in line with European development, the tsar decided to lay down train track to connect his nation’s first and second cities in the mid-1800s. 

Engineers on the project argued over the best route, and Nicholas the First grew frustrated at them. Apparently he seized the map and drew a straight line between the two cities and declared that that was where the tracks were to be laid. 

In autocratic imperial Russia, tsar’s word is law, and so the engineers went about building a railway path exactly how the tsar drew it: in a straight line, except for the little bump where the tsar had drawn over the tip of his finger in haste. Because of this, the bypass’s nickname is the Tsar’s Finger. In 2001 the kink was removed (150 years later).

Source: https://theculturetrip.com/