urban history

The article shows the scale of the problem of tram accidents in early Soviet cities, identifies its causes, proposed and implemented measures to eliminate them, and assesses their effectiveness. The main factors of the disasters were disregard for safety rules, mistakes of the tram drivers, a small number of tram cars and their poor quality. Despite a number of measures taken, the issue of creating a safe urban transport system could not be resolved in the unstable economic and social conditions of the 1920s.

The author of the article uses an artwork as a visual source for the research. The painting Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette by the great impressionist artist A. Renoir allows studying the scene from daily life in Paris in the last third of the 19th century.

The article deals with the evolution of relationship between the towns of Netherlands (mainly Flanders) during the XIV – middle XV centuries. The research of great town revolts shows gradual decrease of mutual support in the case of political crisis that could be caused by the increased power of the “central government” along with the rising number of economical and political contradictions which always existed between towns and regions of the Low Countries.