NEW YORK , August 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russian student Katie Nikolaeva finished her 10-day railroad research trip across the United States on Friday after winning a spot on a youth education scheme called the Millennial Trains Project.
“It was a rewarding experience. We had group discussions every day and met with journalists and government officials,” Nikolaeva, 25, told RIA Novosti. “I was also able to do research about some of the coolest start-up firms that I encountered in cities along the way.”
“A pizzeria in Portland, Oregon, for example, used locally grown ingredients, cooked pizzas with burned waste and made deliveries in electric cars. It was a great example of local entrepreneurship – and the pizza was pretty tasty too.”
The journey started in Portland and stopped in Seattle, Whitefish, St. Paul, Milwaukee and Chicago before ending in New York City. Other students selected for the trip came from Pakistan, Indonesia, Colombia and Yemen.
Nikolaeva, a Muscovite who is studying economics at Brandeis University in Boston, carried out research on small businesses reinvigorating the economies of declining industrial US cities during her cross-country trip.
The Millennial Trains Project is a non-profit scheme that used crowd-funding to cover the costs of trans-American train journeys for entrepreneurial and community-minded members of the so-called “millennial” generation.
