Russia's International Transport Infrastructure Constraints, Global and Regional Roles

Abstract

Russia, far the largest successor state of the Soviet Union, having lost its super power posi- tion is trying to integrate into the global economy by infrastructure developments beyond its means, concentrated geographically in a few directions. This effort is manifested in two, related measures. One of them is the construction of the country's own port capacities in order to eliminate the dependence on the transit paid to the neighbouring countries, the other is the increase of the transit traffic and eves the global importance of the West–East (Trans- sib) corridor linking the great power poles of the world economy from the East Sea to the Far East, and the construction of the North–South Corridor between Finland and the Persian Gulf, serving the interests of the Muslim large region of the Middle East but also alleviating the access to the markecs important for the Russian foreign trade (and establishing a more cost effective logistic line to Asia for Northwest-Europe). However, the operation of these trans- and Intercontinental corridors and the Eurasian turntable depends to a large extent on whether the technical inter-operability of the sections in the Soviet successor states and Finland, and in the adjoining Central European/ScandinavianlMiddle Eastern/East Asian parts of the corridor is provided. In addition, these infrastructures of semi-global scale are very sensitive to the political relations among the regions that they connect. It is a vested interest of Russia that the operation of these infrastructures, promising a high yield, should be built on "good neighbourhood" relations on the basis of correct co-operation. For the foreign trade of China, the transit tracks running through Russia are irreplaceable today. It is possible that the more southern railway chain of East–West direction to be built in Middle Asia (inter-operational in its whole length) will break the monopoly situation of the Russian Railways and their central role in the trans-Eurasian transport between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean.