17 October] 1888 near Borki station in Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Birky, Ukraine), 295 kilometres (183 mi) south of Kursk, when the imperial train carrying Emperor Alexander III of Russia and his family from Crimea to Saint Petersburg derailed at high speed.

According to the official version of events, Alexander held the collapsed roof of the royal car on his shoulders while his family escaped the crash site uninjured.

[1] None of the royal family initially appeared to be hurt, but the onset of Alexander's kidney failure was later linked to the blunt trauma suffered in Borki.

[2] According to Witte, he had warned the government earlier of the deficiencies in train setup, notably using paired steam engines and faulty saloon cars.

[8] In the end, Alexander preferred to close the case quietly, allowed Sherval and Posyet to retire, and appointed Witte as the director of Imperial Railways.

The contractor who built the Kursk-Kharkov line, Samuel Polyakov, who died two months before the crash, was posthumously linked to inferior construction quality of the railroad.