Russian Railways Dressed a $16,000 Chinese Unitree Robot in a Vest to Check Train Tickets
When high-tech innovation meets official corporate theater, the results are pure comedy. Russian Railways tried flexing cutting-edge robotics on a high-speed train, but slapping a uniform on imported hardware doesn't quite turn a party trick into an automated workforce.
State carrier Russian Railways deployed a humanoid robot named "Volodya" on Sapsan train No. 768 for a trial run. The machine was tasked with greeting passengers, scanning ticket documents, guiding people to their assigned seats, participating in a wine tasting session in the bistro car, and posing for souvenir photos.
While the state railway operator chose not to disclose the origin or retail cost of their newly minted digital employee, observers quickly identified the machine as the Unitree G1 humanoid created by a Chinese robotics firm. The official dress code for the maiden voyage consisted of a tailored red company vest paired with oversized analog wristwatches on its metallic wrists.
The off-the-shelf $16,000 Chinese robot features up to 43 joints, enabling it to bend backwards until its head touches the floor and recover smoothly after being kicked or struck with chairs. Earlier demonstrations saw the exact same model performing backflips as backup dancers for pop star Wang Leehom and washing cars for cash in China.
Glued-on accessories and branded vests remain the pinnacle of domestic tech achievement when buying off the shelf is just one click away. Rebranding imported acrobat bots as train conductors proves that true technological sovereignty is mostly about finding the right size uniform.
Source: Unitree
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