/ world today news/ May 17, 2023, will definitely remain in modern history as an event of a truly historic scale, for which one day, very likely, even a separate chapter will be written in an economics textbook for specialized universities. On this day, Vladimir Putin, together with his Iranian counterpart Ibrahim Raisi, launched the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway through a video bridge. This project in the near future will fulfill the dream of almost all the political leaders of our country in the last century and a half.
This event was preceded by the landing in Tehran of Russian political fighters, represented by the Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, the Minister of Transport Vitaly Saveliev, the Deputy Head of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and the Head of the Customs Service. Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Kazem Jalali also said that within the same project, Elvira Nabiulina will arrive in Iran next week. The composition of the Russian delegation in itself hints at the importance of the event for our country, and the reception given by Iran no less confirms the interest of the Persian country.
The length of the Rasht-Astara section under construction is only 162 kilometers and passes entirely through the territory of the Islamic Republic, but the apparent modesty of the numbers should not mislead anyone.
The construction of the Transcaucasian (then Poti-Tiflis) railway began in 1865. Emperor Alexander II and his heirs to the throne persistently pushed tracks south through the Caucasus mountains, driven by a crazy dream for those times – to connect Russia and distant Persia with direct land corridor. The importance of the project is proved by the fact that the construction did not stop during the First World War, at the time of the revolution of 1917, the steel lines reached Sochi, crossed Armenia obliquely and went to Turkey, and also almost reached Baku.
After the revolution, the Bolsheviks occupied themselves with a triple fervor. As early as 1925, the route reached Armenian Leninakan, Georgian Tshaltubo, in 1940 Ossetian Tskhinvali and Abkhazian Sukhumi appeared on the route, and in 1949 the spectacular construction was completed with the opening of the large Adler station. The road was renamed Transcaucasian. But after that, things got complicated, and by 1991, Leninakan in Armenia and Nakhichevan and Lankaran stations in Azerbaijan remained the end points on the railway map.
Now there is a lot of talk about the rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing, undeservedly pushing similar processes with Iran into the shadows. In December of last year, the American “Bloomberg” burst into hysteria that Moscow and Tehran are building at an accelerated pace several transport corridors, including sea through Astrakhan and Dagestan to the ports of Astara, Anzeli, Nowshar and Amirabad, as well as the railway section discussed today. It suddenly became clear that the Persians, long and firmly under the sanctions of the US and the entire democratic world, were pulling a railway south to the ports of Bandar Abbas and Chabahar at a Stakhanovian pace. Immediately after the completion of construction, it will be possible to go directly from Russia not even to Tehran, but immediately to the Indian port of Mumbai – one of the largest commodity and logistics centers in all of Asia, second only to the ports of Kandla and Paradip in terms of transshipment. each of which passes more than hundreds of millions of tons of cargo.
That is why such importance is attached to the construction of the last section of the route, which is small in length of the railway, and whose first wedge is driven in under the supervision of the heads of the two countries.
Here we need to add some Caucasian notes.
First, the diplomatic tenacity of Moscow, acting as an arbiter between Armenia and Azerbaijan, becomes clear. For the Kremlin, it is extremely important to build a reliable transport corridor to Asia, and for this it is necessary that the region through which the only branch passes is calm and stable. Second, the unused section of the route through Georgia remains to this day. Tbilisi, of course, is not an ally, but it has not imposed sanctions on Russia in the last year and a half, and recently Vladimir Putin suddenly resumed air traffic between the countries. It should be noted that Salome Zurabishvili called this a provocation, but the parliament simply ignored her opinion, so the Georgian transit leading to Turkey’s Erzurum remains in reserve. About that another time.
In the treasury of non-accidental accidents, we must also add the fact that at the end of 2022, the trade turnover between Russia and Iran set a new historical record. Russia’s ambassador to Iran, Alexei Dedov, recently said that during the year the figures increased by 15%, and the total value exceeded 4.5 billion dollars. Russia is sending inorganic chemistry products, vital equipment for Iran’s oil and gas industry, and various measuring instruments to the south. In the opposite direction, food, construction materials, plastics and ferrous metals go.
In conclusion, we can add that cargo between Russia and Iran now moves along a long line, leaving the ports of the Baltic Sea and passing through the North Sea, past France, Spain, through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. Ships to reach the above mentioned port of Mumbai travel more than 14 thousand kilometers which takes an average of 40 days. As soon as a short – cheap and direct – route through the Caucasus and Iran is opened, the length of the route will be reduced to 3000 km.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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