“Vast rivers, the kind that flow through continents and look like seas at their widest points, hold a particular fascination for me, as do trains. The reason is simple: we don't have these things in Shetland, and I hope the childlike awe I feel on a riverbank, or watching an intercity train swoosh across a high bridge, will never fade. Best, of course, when the two are combined.

About a hundred miles southwest of Kharkiv the train had slowed, and I watched from the window, totally transfixed, as we clunked across a bridge that seemed to stretch on and on over the dark river. Lights glimmered, reassuring, in the distance. There are many bridges which knit the city of Dnipro together, taking trains and traffic across both the Dnipro and Samara rivers. The city sprawls at their confluence.”