The Trans-Siberian Railway, formerly known as the Great Siberian Railway, today surpasses all railway lines on earth. It was built from 1891 to 1916, that is, almost a quarter of a century. Its length is just under 10,000 km. The direction of the road is Moscow-Vladivostok. These are the starting and ending points for trains. That is, the beginning of the Trans-Siberian Railway is Moscow, and the end is Vladivostok. Naturally, trains run in both directions.
Why was the construction of the Trans-Siberian necessary?
The gigantic regions of the Far East, Eastern and at the beginning of the 20th century remained cut off from the rest of the Russian Empire. That is why there is a need to create a road by which one could get there with minimal cost and time. It was necessary to build railway lines through Siberia. Governor-General of all Eastern Siberia, in 1857 officially announced the issue of construction on the Siberian outskirts.
Who funded the project?
It was not until the 1980s that the government allowed the construction of the road. At the same time, it agreed to finance the construction on its own, without the support of foreign sponsors. Enormous investments required the construction of the highway. Its cost, according to preliminary calculations carried out by the Committee for the Construction of the Siberian Railway, amounted to 350 million rubles in gold.
First works
A special expedition, led by A. I. Ursati, O. P. Vyazemsky and N. P. Mezheninov, was sent in 1887 in order to outline the optimal location of the route for the passage of the railway.
The most intractable and acute problem was the provision of construction. The way out was the direction of the "army of a permanent labor reserve" for compulsory work. Soldiers and prisoners made up the bulk of the builders. The living conditions in which they worked were unbearably difficult. The workers were housed in dirty, cramped barracks, which did not even have a floor. Sanitary conditions, of course, left much to be desired.
How was the road built?
All work was done by hand. The most primitive were tools - a shovel, a saw, an ax, a wheelbarrow and a pick. Despite all the inconveniences, about 500-600 km of track were laid annually. Carrying out a grueling daily struggle with the forces of nature, engineers and construction workers coped with honor with the task of building the Great Siberian Way in a short time.
Creation of the Great Siberian Route
Almost completed by the 90s were the South Ussuri, Transbaikal and Central Siberian railways. The Committee of Ministers in 1891, in February, decided that it was already possible to start work on the creation of the Great Siberian Way.
It was planned to build the highway in three stages. The first is the West Siberian road. The next one is Zabaikalskaya, from Mysovaya to Sretensk. And the last stage is the Circum-Baikal, from Irkutsk to Khabarovsk.
From the two final points, the construction of the route began simultaneously. The western branch reached Irkutsk in 1898. At that time, passengers here had to transfer to a ferry, overcoming 65 kilometers on it along Lake Baikal. When it was ice-bound, the icebreaker made a path for the ferry. This colossus weighing 4267 tons was made in England to order. Gradually, the rails ran along the southern shore of Lake Baikal, and the need for it disappeared.
Difficulties during the construction of the highway
In severe climatic and natural conditions, the construction of the highway took place. The route was laid almost along its entire length through a deserted or sparsely populated area, in impenetrable taiga. The Trans-Siberian Railway crossed numerous lakes, the mighty rivers of Siberia, areas of permafrost and increased swampiness. For builders, the site located around Lake Baikal presented exceptional difficulties. In order to build a road here, it was necessary to blow up the rocks, as well as erect artificial structures.
The natural conditions did not contribute to the construction of such a large-scale facility as the Trans-Siberian Railway. In the places of its construction, up to 90% of the annual precipitation fell during two summer months. The brooks turned into mighty streams of water in a few hours of rain. Large areas of fields were flooded with water in areas where the Trans-Siberian Railway is located. Natural conditions made its construction very difficult. The flood did not begin in the spring, but in August or July. Up to 10-12 strong rises of water happened during the summer. Also, work was carried out in winter, when frosts reached -50 degrees. People warmed up in tents. Naturally, they often got sick.
In the mid-50s, a new branch was laid - from Abakan to Komsomolsk-on-Amur. It is located parallel to the main highway. This line, for strategic reasons, was located much to the north, at a sufficient distance from the Chinese border.
Flood of 1897
A catastrophic flood occurred in 1897. For more than 200 years there was no equal to him. A powerful stream with a height of more than 3 meters demolished the built embankments. The flood destroyed the city of Dorodinsk, which was founded in the early 18th century. Because of this, it was necessary to significantly adjust the original project, according to which the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway was carried out: the route had to be moved to new places, protective structures were built, embankments were raised, and slopes were strengthened. Builders first encountered permafrost here.
In 1900, the Trans-Baikal Mainline began to operate. And at the Mozgon station in 1907, the first building in the world was built on permafrost, which still exists today. Greenland, Canada and Alaska have adopted a new method of building facilities on permafrost.
Location of the road, the city of the Trans-Siberian Railway
The next route is made by a train departing along the Trans-Siberian Railway. The road follows the direction Moscow-Vladivostok. A train departs from the capital, crosses the Volga, and then turns towards the Urals to the southeast, where it passes about 1800 km from Moscow. From Yekaterinburg, a large industrial center located in the Urals, the path lies to Novosibirsk and Omsk. Through the Ob, one of the most powerful rivers in Siberia with intensive shipping, the train goes on to Krasnoyarsk, located on the Yenisei. After that, the Trans-Siberian Railway follows to Irkutsk, along the southern shore of Lake Baikal overcomes the mountain range. Having cut off one of the corners of the Gobi Desert and passing Khabarovsk, the train departs for its final destination - Vladivostok. This is the direction of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
87 cities are located on the Trans-Siberian. Their population is from 300 thousand to 15 million people. The centers of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation are 14 cities through which the Trans-Siberian Railway passes.
The regions it serves account for more than 65% of coal production in Russia, as well as about 20% of oil refining and 25% of commercial timber production. About 80% of deposits of natural resources are located here, including timber, coal, gas, oil, as well as ores of non-ferrous and ferrous metals.
Through the border stations of Naushki, Zabaikalsk, Grodekovo, Khasan in the east, the Trans-Siberian Railway provides access to the road network of Mongolia, China and North Korea, and in the west, through border crossings with the former republics of the USSR and Russian ports, to European countries.
Features of the Transsib
Two parts of the world (Asia and Europe) were connected by the longest railway on earth. The track here, as well as on all other roads of our country, is wider than the European one. It is 1.5 meters.
The Trans-Siberian Railway is divided into several sections:
Amur road;
Circum-Baikal;
Manchurian;
Transbaikal;
Central Siberian;
West Siberian;
Ussuri.
Description of road sections
The Ussuriyskaya road, which is 769 km long and has 39 points on its way, entered into permanent operation in November 1897. It was the first railway line in the Far East.
In 1892, in June, construction began on the West Siberian. It passes, except for the watershed between the Irtysh and Ishim, through flat terrain. Only near bridges over large rivers does it rise up. The route deviates from a straight line only to bypass ravines, reservoirs, and river crossings.
In 1898, in January, the construction of the Central Siberian road began. Along its length there are bridges over the Uda, Iya, Tom. L. D. Proskuryakov designed a unique bridge across the Yenisei.
Trans-Baikal is part of the Great Siberian Railway. It starts on Baikal, from the Mysovaya station, and ends on the Amur, at the Sretensk pier. The route runs along the shore of Lake Baikal, on its way there are many mountain rivers. In 1895, the construction of the road began under the leadership of A. N. Pushechnikov, an engineer.
After the signing of an agreement between China and Russia, the development of the Trans-Siberian Railway continued with the construction of another road, the Manchurian, connecting the Siberian Railway with Vladivostok. Through traffic from Chelyabinsk to Vladivostok was opened by this route, the length of which is 6503 km.
The construction of the Circum-Baikal section began last (because it was the most expensive and difficult area. Engineer Liverovsky led the construction of its most difficult segment between Capes Sharazhangai and Aslomov. The length of the main line is the 18th part of the total length of the entire railway. A quarter of the total cost was required its construction A train passes through 12 tunnels and 4 galleries along this route.
The Amur road began to be built in 1906. It is divided into the East Amur and North Amur lines.
The value of the Trans-Siberian
The great achievement of our people was the creation of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway took place on humiliation, blood and bones, but the workers nevertheless completed this great work. This road made it possible to transport a huge number of goods and passengers around the country. The deserted Siberian territories were populated thanks to its construction. The direction of the Trans-Siberian Railway contributed to their economic development.
100 years ago, in the autumn of 1916, the construction of the Great Siberian Way was completed - the Trans-Siberian Railway, which connected the European part of Russia with the Pacific coast.
On May 19, 1891, the laying of the Great Siberian Route in Vladivostok took place. Tsesarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich took a wheelbarrow of earth for the canvas of the future road
The 19th century became an era for Russia of the rapid development of communications, including the construction of an extensive network of railways. It is not surprising that in a country with such vast expanses as ours, this convenient, cheap and, most importantly, fast mode of transportation soon gained popularity and made the government think about laying more and more new lines. Undoubtedly, a significant milestone, one of the key processes in the history of railway construction in Russia, was the construction of the Great Siberian Way, which connected the central part of the country with strategically important territories and contributed to the development and settlement of the then very little-studied, but very rich region.
Beginning of the Siberian Railway
For the first time, the idea of “laying a railway” across the territory of Siberia was expressed in 1836 by N.I. Bogdanov. However, the project of building a railway line between the western and eastern parts of the country began to be seriously considered only in the second half of the 19th century, when the foreign policy activity of Russia's near and far neighbors forced the government to pay attention to the Asian possessions of the empire and raised the question of creating a railway connection with them.
In the first such plans that arose in the reign Alexander II, it was only about the entrances to Siberia. So, when discussing in 1873 in the Committee of Ministers the issue of the Siberian railway, the main goal of the upcoming construction was formulated as follows:
"Implementation of a transit route connecting Siberia with Central Russia".
Two years later, in 1875, the discussion of these plans became more concrete: various options for the direction of the path began to be considered. At that time, the network of Russian railways adjoined the Volga in two settlements - in Rybinsk and Nizhny Novgorod. Therefore, two possible directions of the future highway were put forward: northern - from Rybinsk to Vyatka and Perm and southern - from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan and Yekaterinburg. Preference was given to the second option, but the project as a whole was not destined to be realized: due to financial difficulties in the country, the issue was reduced to a narrower task - connecting the inland waterways of Central Russia and Siberia by rail.
The next time, the emperor drew attention to the Siberian road project. Alexander III. By that time, railway communication in the European part of the empire covered almost all the most important directions; active construction of new lines continued. In May 1882, on the journal of the Committee of Ministers, following the results of a meeting at which the issue of creating a Siberian railroad was raised, Alexander wrote:
"Research should be carried out without delay and considered in the Committee of Ministers to discuss the direction of the Siberian trunk line."
In 1882-1883, a series of studies were organized and carried out to select the direction along which one could "enter" Siberia. Based on these surveys, the Committee of Ministers considered the Ufa-Chelyabinsk line to be the most suitable, while noting the need for further survey work. Nevertheless, a decision was made to build a road from Samara to Ufa, Zlatoust and Chelyabinsk, which began in 1886 and was completed by the autumn of 1892. It was this line that became the beginning of the Siberian Railway.
Further path choice
The project for the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway for several years remained the subject of constant heated debate and discussion in various circles. There were several basic ideas about the most advantageous further direction of the road. The construction of the highway was supposed to be combined with the solution of other tasks, for example, with the development of inland waterways or with the promotion of the industrial growth of the Urals. Thus, the question of the direction of the road was not only and not so much technical as economic and even political.
Trans-Siberian Railway on the map of Russia
Many brochures, books, notes, newspaper articles and notes, statistical tables were devoted to this topic. There were maps with explanations and explanations with maps, telegrams from city public administrations, city councils and merchants, letters, petitions in favor of one or another option, written in calligraphic, or sweeping, or small, barely readable, or completely unreadable handwriting, or printed on separate sheets in a typographical way and stitched in the most primitive way. It was difficult even for a special official to make sense of this mass of papers of polemical content, but those interested in a definite solution of the problem vigilantly followed everything that appeared in the press about the Siberian railway. The prospects of the project were repeatedly discussed in various societies and exchange committees. The need for a railway track was also mentioned in the reports of the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia A.P. Ignatiev and the Governor-General of the Amur Region A.N. Korf for 1885-1886.
And finally, in June 1887, a series of meetings were held in St. Petersburg, at which issues related to the construction of the railway in Siberia were considered. Three main directions were chosen and five parties were appointed to carry out the program of government surveys: one each for the Sredne-Sibirskaya and Ussuriyskaya lines, three for the Trans-Baikal. Party leaders were subordinate to the local governors-general, who, in turn, were obliged to take care of the successful work of the expeditions and report to higher authorities.
A.N. Korf (1831-1893) - Governor-General of the Amur region from 1884 to 1893
According to the plan, the survey work should have been completed in two years. However, the difficulties faced by research teams almost everywhere, including difficult natural and climatic conditions, as well as a fairly frequent change of priorities in choosing a specific direction for laying paths, led to the fact that the survey, which began in 1887, lasted much longer than expected. , until 1911 (with a break in 1902 and during the Russo-Japanese War).
A.P. Ignatiev (1842-1906) - East Siberian (later Irkutsk) Governor-General from 1885 to 1889
Nevertheless, the main decisions regarding the construction of the main railroad through Siberia were made. At the suggestion of the Minister of Finance S.Yu. Witte, the construction of the road was divided into three stages: the first - the construction of the Ussuriysk (Vladivostok - Grafskaya), West Siberian (Chelyabinsk - Ob) and Central Siberian (Ob - Irkutsk) lines, as well as the Yekaterinburg - Chelyabinsk line; the second - work on sections from Grafskaya to Khabarovka (later Khabarovsk) and from Irkutsk to Lake Baikal and the laying of the Trans-Baikal line (Mysovaya - Sretensk); finally, the third is the construction of the Circum-Baikal (Baikal - Mysovaya) and Amur (Sretensk - Khabarovka) roads.
The following were recognized as the main principles and priorities in the choice of specific directions of the highway and the construction of its individual sections: as little work as possible, the lowest initial cost of construction, the admissibility of using simplified technical conditions. Everything was planned to be built modestly, without luxury, but capitally and with the expectation that during operation temporary structures could be replaced by permanent ones and, if necessary, expanded.
The first stage of the Transsib
Construction work on certain sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway began in 1891. And May 19 of the same year became the official start date for the construction of the Great Siberian Way. It was on this day that Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, returning from a round-the-world trip, personally poured a wheelbarrow of earth into a railway embankment and laid a stone and a silver commemorative plate in the building of the Vladivostok station station.
One of the most acute problems in the construction of the highway was the provision of construction workforce. The route was laid through a sparsely populated, almost deserted area. Workers had to be recruited and transferred from the European part of Russia, and almost all materials were brought from there. A significant part of the work was carried out by exiles and soldiers. The construction of the road was carried out mainly by hand. Means of mechanization - New Era earthmoving machines of the American company Ostin - were used to fill the railway embankment only in Western Siberia, but even there in minimal volumes.
Notch sleepers. Workers for the construction of the Siberian railway had to be recruited and transferred from the European part of Russia
Severe natural and climatic conditions dictated their own requirements during construction. The road crossed mighty rivers, permafrost regions, swampy areas. It was necessary to blow up monolithic rocks when laying tunnels, arrange special galleries to protect the path from rockfalls, erect artificial structures in the gorges of mountain streams to prevent possible flooding of the road.
In order to reduce the cost of construction, as already mentioned, it was decided to use the so-called lightweight technical conditions: for example, it was about reducing the width of the subgrade, reducing the ballast layer and using light rails. At that time, it also seemed expedient to build wooden, rather than iron, bridges across small rivers and the construction of track buildings without foundations. All this also contributed to the reduction of construction time.
The laying of the first part of the Trans-Siberian Railway - the South Ussuri Road, which began in the spring of 1891, was completed in 1894. Three years later, the northern section of the Ussuri road was also ready. November 13, 1897 opened a permanent movement between Vladivostok and Khabarovsk.
In 1896, the West Siberian Railway was put into operation, linking Chelyabinsk and Novonikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk), and in 1898 the construction of the Central Siberian Railway from the Ob to Irkutsk was completed. The Yekaterinburg-Chelyabinsk line was put into operation in 1896. Thus, the first stage of the Trans-Siberian Railway was opened to the constant movement of trains seven years after the start of construction.
As individual sections were ready, temporary movement of trains was established on them, delivering workers and materials for construction needs. At the same time, the transportation of passengers and private goods was also organized, and the tariffs were personally approved by the Minister of Railways.
The second stage of the Transsib
In April 1894, the Minister of Finance presented a note on the deadlines for completing work on the sections assigned to the second and third stages of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. It was proposed to open the movement along the Trans-Baikal Railway, as well as along the branch from Irkutsk to Lake Baikal, no later than 1898.
Eastern portal of the tunnel at the 592nd verst of the Trans-Baikal Railway. It was the construction of tunnels that caused particular difficulties in laying the Great Siberian Route.
The work project provided for the use of the Chulym and Angara rivers for the supply of building materials, for which it was planned to improve navigation conditions on these rivers. In addition, in order to meet the scheduled construction deadlines, the laying of tracks had to be carried out simultaneously in two directions towards each other - from Krasnoyarsk and from Irkutsk. Finally, in order not to carry rails from the Urals, it was decided to prepare for the rental of rails the capacity of the Nikolaev plant of the Butin brothers in the Irkutsk province, rented by a merchant Nikolai Glotov. The plant was given an advance payment for the purchase of additional equipment, and a contract was concluded with Glotov for the supply of 1 million pounds of rails and fasteners.
However, it was not possible to implement all these projects in practice. A set of works to improve the navigation conditions of the Angara was not completed. The manager of the Nikolaevsky plant failed to rebuild production, and as a result, the laying of the track was carried out only from Krasnoyarsk. Nevertheless, the planned deadlines were met, and in the autumn of 1898 the first working train arrived on the western shore of Lake Baikal.
The situation with the construction of the Trans-Baikal Railway turned out to be more difficult, construction work on which began in April 1895. The July flood of 1897 severely damaged three already finished sections with a total length of over 750 versts. Road work had to be stopped. It became clear that the construction project needed to be significantly adjusted: in particular, when laying tracks along the valleys of the Khilok, Ingoda and Shilka rivers, it was necessary to take into account the maximum water level during the flood period. The cost of additional work, including raising the railway track and changing the height of artificial structures, was estimated at 6.2 million rubles. Ultimately, the construction of the Trans-Baikal section of the Trans-Siberian Railway to the Sretensk station was completed only in the spring of 1901.
Chinese Eastern Railway
In 1896, the route of the Great Siberian Route was revised, and instead of the originally planned Amur section, it was decided to build the road along a more southerly route, through the territory of Manchuria. So, at the end of the same year, active work began on the project of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), which was supposed to pass through Harbin to the Pogranichnaya station.
Participants in the opening of work on the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway on August 16, 1897. Its implementation became one of the stages in the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway
Parties of engineers organized for the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway began to arrive in Manchuria in the summer of 1897. But as soon as the work plan was drawn up, it had to be significantly expanded. Under the Beijing Convention of March 15, 1898, Russia received for lease the southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula with the city of Port Arthur, which had to be connected to Russia by rail as soon as possible. This led to a slowdown in the pace of work on the main line of the road.
The construction of the CER was greatly complicated by the so-called "boxing riots" of 1900. A significant part of the track was destroyed: out of 1,300 versts laid before the unrest, only 400 versts of continuous rail track remained. Many buildings were burned, the telegraph line was destroyed for a long distance, the rolling stock was damaged, the coal mines of the road were completely destroyed.
As the Russian troops sent here to quell the unrest advanced, work on the railway was resumed. In November 1900, the main line was restored in a section west from Harbin to Qiqihar and east to the Liaolin Range. At that time, trains from Port Arthur to Mukden were already running on the southern line of the CER.
M.I. Khilkov (1834-1909) - Minister of Railways from 1895 to 1905
Despite all the unfavorable circumstances, construction continued, and on October 21, 1901, on the anniversary of the accession to the throne of Emperor Nicholas II, temporary train traffic was opened along the CER. This meant that communication between the European part of Russia and the Far East was established along the entire length of the Great Siberian Route (including the Baikal ferry railway crossing).
The third line of the Transsib
In parallel with the construction of the CER, the construction of the third stage of the Trans-Siberian Railway was also carried out. In 1899, work began on the Circum-Baikal Railway from the Mysovaya station to the Baikal station. This seemingly small section - 244 versts long - was one of the most difficult and dangerous along the entire length of the highway: 78 versts of the road passed at the foot of potentially landslide steep and sheer cliffs. The construction of 31 tunnels and hundreds of bridges was planned on the site.
However, in the course of the work it turned out that it was necessary to build eight more tunnels, add more than two dozen galleries to them and erect sixteen separate stone galleries to protect the railway track from collapses. In some places, in order to protect against possible rockfalls, the line had to be "pushed" further from the rocks.
Temporary traffic on the Circum-Baikal Railway was opened on September 13, 1904: military trains were sent to the east, and sanitary trains were sent in the opposite direction (the Russo-Japanese War was going on). On this day, the Trans-Siberian Railway closed on the shore of Lake Baikal. The last crutch was scored by the Minister of Railways, Prince M.I. Khilkov. And the full construction work on the line was completed only in October 1905.
Additional track
However, the capacity of the road was clearly insufficient. The movement along it was especially intense during the Russo-Japanese War - it was then that it turned out that the highway was not able to cope with the increased movement of troops and cargo.
At the end of the war, a special commission, having considered a set of issues related to the functioning of the Trans-Siberian Railway, decided on the need to increase the speed of trains. To do this, it was necessary to abandon the simplified technical conditions adopted at the initial stages of construction and not only increase the number of sleepers per 1 km of track and the width of the subgrade, but also replace lightweight rails with heavier types of rails. In addition, instead of temporary wooden bridges, permanent structures were to be built. It was also about increasing the number of locomotives and wagons on the line.
The Circum-Baikal Railway turned out to be one of the most dangerous and difficult sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway
And in June 1907, the Council of Ministers considered and approved proposals for the construction of the second track of the Siberian Railway and the reconstruction of mountainous sections of the track. In 1909, the main line for 3274 km became double-track on the section between Chelyabinsk and Irkutsk. In 1913, the second track was continued along Baikal and beyond Baikal to Karymskaya station. The implementation of all these activities was accompanied by the construction of new sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway and branches from it.
Amur railway
The results of the Russo-Japanese War (the loss of Port Arthur) contributed to the acceleration of the construction of the last section of the Trans-Siberian Railway - the Amur Railway. Surveys on its possible directions were carried out in 1906-1907, but at the same time, a final decision on the junction of the Amur and Transbaikal lines (through the city of Nerchinsk or the Kuenga siding) was not made. A little later, the studies were recognized as of poor quality, and new survey parties got down to business.
In March 1908, for consideration by the first session of the III State Duma, the Ministry of Railways submitted a bill "On the start of the construction of the Amur Railway by order of the treasury and at its expense." There were many opponents of this construction in the Duma. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Council of Ministers P.A. was an ardent supporter of the construction of the road. Stolypin. Speaking in the State Duma on March 31, 1908, he convinced the deputies that their positive decision on this issue "will give great strength to the state." As a result, in the spring of 1908, active construction work began on the head section of the Amur line.
Particular difficulties in laying the path in this direction were caused by the construction of eight tunnels. For the first time in the practice of world railway construction, tunneling was carried out in permafrost conditions.
In general, work on the eastern part of the Amur railway ended in 1915. To connect the Great Siberian Railroad, it only remained to complete the bridge across the Amur River. Work on the construction of the bridge began in 1913, and on October 5, 1916, traffic on it was solemnly opened. The railroad closed. In this regard, the Bulletin of Communications wrote: “The construction of a bridge in the Far East quietly, almost imperceptibly for the rest of Russia, completed a great national cause, laid the last link of a continuous rail track across Siberia across Russian land.”
In general, the cost of building the Siberian railway from Chelyabinsk to Vladivostok, together with the Baikal ferry railway crossing, the Chinese Eastern Railway, the Chelyabinsk-Yekaterinburg branch, two branches to the Chinese border (from the Trans-Baikal and Ussuri railways) and the Tyumen-Omsk line, amounted to more than 1 .2 billion rubles. The Great Siberian Way connected the European and Asian parts of Russia. Its creation made passenger and cargo supplies cheaper and more accessible, and also contributed to the development of industry and the development of the little-studied territory of Siberia.
Alexander Hobta,
Candidate of Historical Sciences
(with the participation of Anastasia Akchurina)
Creation of the Great Siberian Way: a reference book / Ed. Yu.L. Ilyin. T. 1–2. SPb., 2005
HOBTA A.V. Construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway: Essays on History (late 19th - early 20th centuries). Irkutsk, 2009
- (Great Siberian Railway), w. e. line Chelyabinsk Omsk Irkutsk Khabarovsk Vladivostok (about 7 thousand km), connects the European part of Russia with Siberia and the Far East. Built in 1891 1916; electrified for a considerable distance. ... ... Russian history
- (Great Siberian Mainline) railway line Chelyabinsk Omsk Irkutsk Khabarovsk Vladivostok (about 7 thousand km), connects the European part of Russia with Siberia and the Far East. Built in 1891 1916 ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Trans-Siberian Railway- (Trans Siberian Railway), railway, which facilitated the development of Siberia and the penetration of Russia into the East. Asia. The building began with money received from the French. loan in 1891, and was practically completed in 1904. The concern that it caused in Japan was ... ... The World History
The Great Siberian Mainline, the railway line Chelyabinsk Omsk Irkutsk Khabarovsk Vladivostok (about 7 thousand km), connects the European part of Russia with Siberia and the Far East. Built in 1891 1916. * * * TRANSSIBERIAN LINE… … encyclopedic Dictionary
Trans-Siberian Railway- The Trans-Siberian Railway, the Great Siberian Railway, the largest transcontinental double-track railway connecting the central regions of the country with Siberia and the Far East (Moscow - Ryazan - Syzran - ... ... Dictionary "Geography of Russia"
Trans-Siberian Railway- The world's largest transcontinental railway line with a total length of 9332 km (in the Amur Region, the length is 1104 km). It connects countries with the Far East, passing through the whole of Siberia, which determined its name: Latin ... ... Toponymic Dictionary of the Amur Region
Trans-Siberian Railway- Russia. The world's largest transcontinental railway line with a total length of 9332 km. It connects the countries with the Far East, passing through the whole of Siberia, which determined its name: Latin trans - “through, through” ... Geographical names of the Russian Far East
Transcontinental d., double track throughout. Connects the European part of Russia with Siberia and the Far East along the route: Moscow - Ryazan - Syzran - Samara - ... Geographic Encyclopedia
Trans-Siberian Railway- Trans-Siberian Railway al ... Russian spelling dictionary
Trans-Siberian Railway - … Spelling Dictionary of the Russian Language
Books
- Trans-Siberian Railway. The history of the creation of the Russian railway network, Volmar Christian. The book of the famous British journalist Christian Volmar "The Trans-Siberian Railway. The history of the creation of the Russian railway network", the author of over a dozen various publications in the field of…
- The Trans-Siberian Railway The History of the Russian Railway Network, Volmar K.
The Trans-Siberian Railway (Great Siberian Way) surpasses any railway line on our planet, it was built for almost a quarter of a century - from 1891 to 1916, and its total length is more than 10,000 kilometers. The Trans-Siberian Railway reliably connects Russian western and southern ports, as well as railway outlets to Europe (St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Novorossiysk), on the one hand, with Pacific ports and railway outlets to Asia (Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Vanino, Zabaikalsk). The history of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway will be discussed below ...
So, we continue the series of stories about the construction of the century on LifeGlobe. This highway is one of the longest in the world, and the most difficult in the world in terms of construction. The Trans-Siberian is one of the most important achievements, along with DneproGes, BAM and other construction projects of the century, which we have already talked about. Let's turn to the history of the highway: They started talking about construction in the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1857, the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia N. N. Muravyov-Amursky raised the question of building a railway on the Siberian outskirts of Russia. He instructed the military engineer D. Romanov to conduct surveys and draw up a project for the construction of a railway from the Amur to the De-Kastri Bay. The first practical impetus for the start of the construction of the grandiose highway was given by the Emperor of the Russian Empire Alexander III. In 1886, the sovereign imposed a resolution on the report of the Irkutsk governor-general:
"I have read so many reports of the Governor-Generals of Siberia and I must confess with sadness and shame that the government has so far done almost nothing to meet the needs of this rich, but neglected region. And it's time, it's time."
Alexander III 
The merchants of Russia were especially active in supporting the idea of construction. So, in the most loyal address of the Siberian merchants in 1868, it was emphasized
“We alone, Sovereign, Your Siberian children, are far from You, if not in heart, then in space. We suffer great need from that.
The riches of the arable land lie useless for Your throne and for us. Grant us a railroad, draw us closer to You, estranged from You. They ordered that Siberia be introduced together in a single state.
At the same time, there were also principled opponents of the construction of the railway in Siberia. They frightened us with rotten swamps and dense taiga, terrible cold and the inability to develop agriculture. They even urgently demanded an urgent medical examination to determine the mental abilities of the defenders of the idea of building railways in Siberia. Acting Governor of Tobolsk A. Sologub, in response to a government inquiry about the possibility and necessity of building a highway in Siberia, replied that all sorts of swindlers, buyers and the like would come to the province with railways, that a struggle would flare up between foreigners in Russian merchants, that the people would be ruined, and all the benefits will go to foreigners and crooks. And the most important thing: "Observation of the maintenance of order in the region will become impossible, and, in conclusion, the supervision of political exiles will become more difficult due to the facilitation of escapes." 
The Committee of Ministers considered on 18 December 1884 and 2 January 1885 the submission of the Ministry of Railways. As before, the voices were divided. Therefore, the Committee of Ministers came to the conclusion that the indication of a specific direction of the road within Siberia, due to the lack of information about the economy of many regions of Western Siberia, especially the movement of goods along them, is premature. At the same time, he recognized that it was possible to allow, without starting the construction of a road from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan, the construction of a road from Samara to Ufa. This decision was influenced by the statement of the chairman of the State Council, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich, about the importance for the country of the state-owned artillery factories of the Zlatoust District. The decision of the Committee of Ministers was approved by the emperor on January 6, and on January 25 he also allowed the construction of the road to begin at the expense of the treasury. Construction work began in the spring of 1886, and in September 1886 the road to Ufa was opened. The well-known engineer K. Mikhailovsky supervised the work. In the same year, under his leadership, the construction of the road to Zlatoust began. Construction work had to be carried out in a mountainous area. Many artificial structures were erected. In August 1890, trains went along the entire Samara-Zlatoust road 
According to estimates by the committee for the construction of the Siberian Railway, the cost of the project reached 350 million rubles in gold. Almost all work was done by hand, using an ax, saw, shovel, pick and wheelbarrow. Despite this, about 500–600 km of railway track were laid annually. History has never known such a pace. The most acute and intractable was the problem of providing the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway with labor. The need for skilled workers was met by the recruitment and transfer to Siberia of builders from the center of the country. At the height of construction work on the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, 84-89 thousand people were employed. The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway was carried out in harsh natural and climatic conditions. For almost the entire length, the route was laid through sparsely populated or deserted areas, in impenetrable taiga. It crossed the mighty Siberian rivers, numerous lakes, areas of increased swampiness and permafrost (from Kuenga to Bochkarevo, now Belogorsk). Exceptional difficulties for the builders were presented by the area around Lake Baikal (Baikal station - Mysovaya station). Here it was necessary to blow up rocks, lay tunnels, erect artificial structures in the gorges of mountain rivers flowing into Lake Baikal.
The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway required huge funds. According to preliminary calculations by the Committee for the Construction of the Siberian Railway, its cost was determined at 350 million rubles. gold, therefore, in order to speed up and reduce the cost of construction, in 1891-1892. for the Ussuriyskaya line and the West Siberian line (from Chelyabinsk to the Ob River), simplified specifications were taken as a basis. Thus, according to the recommendations of the Committee, they reduced the width of the subgrade in embankments, excavations and in mountainous areas, as well as the thickness of the ballast layer, laid lightweight rails and short sleepers, reduced the number of sleepers per 1 km of track, etc. It was envisaged to build only large railway lines. bridges, and medium and small bridges were supposed to be built of wood. The distance between stations was allowed up to 50 miles, track buildings were built on wooden poles. Here builders first encountered permafrost. Traffic along the Trans-Baikal Mainline was opened in 1900. And in 1907, the world's first building on permafrost was built at the Mozgon station, which still stands today. The new method of building buildings on permafrost has been adopted in Canada, Greenland and Alaska. 
In terms of the speed of construction (within 12 years), the length (7.5 thousand km), the difficulties of construction and the volume of work performed, the Great Siberian Railway was unmatched in the whole world. In conditions of almost complete impassability, a lot of time and money was spent on delivering the necessary building materials - in fact, everything except timber had to be imported. For example, for the bridge over the Irtysh and for the station in Omsk, stone was transported 740 versts by rail from Chelyabinsk and 580 versts from the banks of the Ob, as well as by water on barges from quarries located on the banks of the Irtysh 900 versts above the bridge. Metal structures for the bridge over the Amur were manufactured in Warsaw and delivered by rail to Odessa, and then transported by sea to Vladivostok, and from there by rail to Khabarovsk. In the autumn of 1914, a German cruiser sank a Belgian steamer in the Indian Ocean, which was carrying steel parts for the last two trusses of the bridge, which delayed the completion of work by a year. 
Trans-Siberian Railway already in the first period of operation revealed its great importance for the development of the economy, contributed to the acceleration and growth of the turnover of goods. However, the capacity of the road was insufficient. Traffic along the Siberian and Trans-Baikal railways became extremely tense during the Russo-Japanese War, when troops poured in from the west. The highway could not cope with the movement of troops and the delivery of military cargo. During the war, the Siberian railway passed only 13 trains a day, so it was decided to reduce the transportation of civilian goods and, a few decades later, to build the Baikal-Amur Mainline (for more information about the construction of BAM, follow the link) 
The train leaves Moscow, crosses the Volga, and then turns southeast towards the Urals, where it - about 1800 kilometers from Moscow - passes the border between Europe and Asia. From Yekaterinburg, a large industrial center in the Urals, the path lies to Omsk and Novosibirsk, across the Ob - one of the mighty Siberian rivers with intensive navigation, and further to Krasnoyarsk on the Yenisei. Then the train goes to Irkutsk, overcomes the mountain range along the southern coast of Lake Baikal, cuts off the corner of the Gobi Desert and, passing Khabarovsk, heads for the final point of the route - Vladivostok. There are 87 cities on the Trans-Siberian with a population of 300,000 to 15 million people. 14 cities through which the Trans-Siberian Railway passes are the centers of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. In the regions served by the highway, more than 65% of the coal produced in Russia is mined, almost 20% of oil refining and 25% of commercial timber production is carried out. More than 80% of deposits of the main natural resources are concentrated here, including oil, gas, coal, timber, ores of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. In the east, through the border stations of Khasan, Grodekovo, Zabaikalsk, Naushki, the Trans-Siberian Railway provides access to the railway network of North Korea, China and Mongolia, and in the west, through Russian ports and border crossings with the former republics of the Soviet Union - to European countries. The Trans-Siberian Railway is marked with a red line on the map, the BAM is marked with a green line 
The entire Trans-Siberian Railway is divided into several sections:
1. The Ussuri railway, with a total length of 769 kilometers with thirty-nine separate points, entered into permanent operation in November 1897. It became the first railway line in the Far East. 
2. West Siberian road. With the exception of the watershed between the Ishim and the Irtysh, it runs through flat terrain. The road rises only at the approaches to bridges over large rivers. Only for bypassing reservoirs, ravines and when crossing rivers, the route deviates from a straight line 
3. The construction of the Central Siberian Road began in January 1898. Along its length there are bridges over the rivers Tom, Iya, Uda, Kiya. The unique bridge across the Yenisei was designed by an outstanding bridge builder - Professor L. D. Proskuryakov. 
4. The Trans-Baikal Railway is part of the Great Siberian Railway, which starts from the Mysovaya station on Baikal and ends at the Sretensk pier on the Amur. The route runs along the shore of Lake Baikal, crosses numerous mountain rivers. The construction of the road began in 1895 under the guidance of engineer A. N. Pushechnikov. 
5. After the signing of the agreement between Russia and China, the construction of the Manzhurskaya road began, connecting the Siberian Railway with Vladivostok. The new road with a length of 6503 kilometers made it possible to open through railway traffic from Chelyabinsk to Vladivostok. 
6. The construction of the Circum-Baikal section was the last to begin (in 1900), since this is the most difficult and expensive area. The construction of the most difficult section of the road between capes Aslomov and Sharazhangai was headed by engineer A.V. Liverovsky. The length of this highway is an eighteenth of the total length of the road, and its construction required a fourth of the total cost of the road. Throughout the journey, the train passes twelve tunnels and four galleries. The Circum-Baikal Railway is a unique monument of engineering architecture. On May 17, 1891, Tsar Alexander III issued a decree on the start of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, "ordering now to begin the construction of a continuous railway through the whole of Siberia, which has to connect the Siberian regions abundant with gifts with a network of internal rail communications." At the beginning of 1902, the construction of the Circum-Baikal Railway began, headed by engineer B.U.Savrimovich. The railway track along the shore of Lake Baikal was built mainly in 2 years 3 months and put into operation almost a year ahead of schedule (which was largely facilitated by the outbreak of hostilities in the Far East). On September 30, 1904, the working movement along the Circum-Baikal Railway began (the Minister of Railways, Prince M.I. Khilkov, traveled from the port of Baikal to Kultuk on the first train), and on October 15, 1905, permanent traffic was opened. In the photo: tunnel No. 8 punched through the rock of Cape Tolstoy.
7. In 1906, work began on the route of the Amur road, which is divided into the North Amur (from the Kerak station to the Bureya river with a length of 675 kilometers with a branch to Blagoveshchensk) and the East Amur line. 
In the 1990s - 2000s, a number of measures were taken to modernize the Trans-Siberian Railway, designed to increase the throughput of the line. In particular, the railway bridge over the Amur near Khabarovsk was reconstructed, as a result of which the last single-track section of the Trans-Siberian was eliminated. Further modernization of the road is expected due to obsolescence of infrastructure and rolling stock. Preliminary negotiations are underway with Japan, aimed at the possibility of building Shinkansen-type tracks, which will reduce the total travel time from Vladivostok to Moscow from 6 days to 2-3. January 11, 2008 China, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany entered into an agreement on the Beijing-Hamburg freight traffic optimization project 
The creation of the Trans-Siberian Railway is the greatest achievement of the Russian people. With difficulties and joys, the builders finished the road. They paved it on their bones, blood and humiliation, but still coped with this incredibly hard work. This road allowed Russia to transport a huge number of passengers and cargo. Every year, up to 100 million tons of cargo are transported along the Trans-Siberian railway. Thanks to the construction of the highway, the deserted territories of Siberia were settled. If the Trans-Siberian Railway had not been built, then Russia would certainly have lost most of its northern territories.
The Trans-Siberian Railway is strongly associated with the word "most". The longest railway in the world (9288.2 km), the largest and most expensive project of its time. The construction of the highway took 25 years, 1.5 billion gold rubles were spent (about 25 billion US dollars at the current exchange rate).
If you stretch the Trans-Siberian into a straight line, then its length will take 73% of the diameter of the Earth. The road passes through 7 time zones and 87 cities. Today, a full route along the highway from Moscow to Vladivostok takes 6 days. Train No. 1 with the speaking name "Russia" runs between the two cities. This symbolic unity is also emphasized by the similarity of the Yaroslavsky station in Moscow (where the train leaves from) and the station in Vladivostok (where it arrives).
In the middle of the 19th century, Siberia and the Far East were sparsely populated and poorly developed territories. Until 1883, the Russian population here did not exceed 2 million people. And without the railway it was impossible to develop the land. Plans for the construction were nurtured for a long time, but things got off the ground only at the end of the century.
On February 5, 1891, Emperor Alexander III issued a decree on the construction of the Great Siberian Way. On May 19 of the same year, Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich (future Emperor Nicholas II) personally drove the first wheelbarrow with earth to the railroad track and laid the first stone in the foundation of the Vladivostok railway station.
Historically, the Trans-Siberian Railway is considered the eastern part of the road with a length of about 7000 km. It stretched from Miass in the Chelyabinsk region to Vladivostok. This section was built from 1891 to 1916. Construction was carried out simultaneously from Vladivostok and Chelyabinsk.
Many difficulties awaited the builders: they had to dig tunnels through the mountains, make embankments under the canvas up to 30 m high, build bridges across the full-flowing Siberian rivers, pave the way through the dense taiga, vast swamps and permafrost. It was especially difficult in the area near Lake Baikal. In 1897, a powerful flood washed away railway embankments for 400 km, the city of Doroninsk was completely destroyed by water. The next year there was a severe drought, an epidemic of plague and anthrax broke out. As a result, the movement of trains on the Transbaikal road began only in 1900.
On the contrary, in the steppes of Western Siberia it was easy to build a road, but there were no suitable building materials. Therefore, timber for sleepers was transported 400 km from Tobolsk, gravel for embankment - 750 km from Chelyabinsk. In 1913-1916, a railway bridge over 2.5 km long was built across the Amur River. At the time of completion, it was the second longest bridge in the world.
At the same time, more than 100 thousand people were employed in the construction. They built not only hired workers, they also attracted local residents, soldiers and convicts. Much was done by hand, the tools were primitive - an ax, a saw, a pickaxe and a wheelbarrow.
But, despite all the difficulties, the railway was built at an accelerated pace. At least 500 km of railroad tracks were laid per year. Already in 1903, long before the end of construction, a regular railway connection between St. Petersburg and Vladivostok began. Some sections of the highway were then laid according to a simplified technology. And across Lake Baikal, trains were transported on a special ferry.
By the end of construction, the population of Siberia had almost doubled (from 5.8 to 9.4 million people). Since 1906, the growth rate has been amazing - the region's population has grown by 500,000 people a year. According to the Stolypin agrarian reform, land plots were allocated to the settlers, numerous benefits were given. The Trans-Siberian was not just a road - many schools, hospitals, colleges and temples were built along the way.
The Trans-Siberian Railway still retains its strategic importance. More than 100 million tons of cargo is transported from east to west every year. It is also the shortest route for goods from China to Western Europe. By rail, the journey takes 11-15 days, and by sea - 20 days longer.
