We can all aspire to better ourselves during our commutes, but it's so easy to get distracted by the fun things on our phones that are not bleak Russian novels. Moscow, however, is making a stand for literature, turning its metro stations into digital libraries for downloading Russian classics.
The digital library project is currently being piloted in a few of the city's 195 metro stations, according to the Guardian. By scanning a code while waiting the platform, commuters can browse and download over 100 ebooks drawn from classic Russian authors such as Gogol, Chekov, and Pushkin.
To be sure, there's plenty of ways to download free public domain books to your phone, but it usually involves some third-party app and more finagling than you'd really like. Am I going to go through all that to read Tolstoy on the train or am I going to pull to refresh Twitter again? Putting books front and center at Moscow's metro station is certainly a nice gesture to get people reading again. Would you want to see your subway station giving out free ebooks? [The Guardian]
Top image: Moscow metro station. Boris Bartels/Flickr