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Fired Moscow Metro Boss Gets Job at Railways

Ivan Besedin, who headed Moscow's subway system until he was fired in the aftermath of a deadly crash last year, will now work at the country's national railroad monopoly, Russian Railways said Wednesday.

Besedin will be in charge of a logistics and transportation department at Russian Railways and is tasked with "improving the economic efficiency of transportation," the statement said.

He had earlier headed the Kaliningrad branch of Russian Railways before heading the Moscow Metropolitan company.

Besedin was reportedly on vacation during the deadliest accident in the subway system's 80-year history, a derailment last year that killed 23 people and injured more than 160 others. He was subsequently dismissed by Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

Russian Railways runs the second-largest railway network in the world, transporting almost a billion passengers and 1.2 billion tons of freight across Russia annually, according to its website.

The Moscow subway's current boss, Dmitry Pegov, who replaced Besedin, is a former director of Russian Railways' high-speed service department.

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