Russian Transportation

The public part of the railway network is located mostly in the European part of Russia (68.5%, or 59,013 km) which accounts for only 25.2% of the total area; 31.5% of the network (27,138 km) is located in the Asian part (Siberia and the Russian Far East) which accounts for 74.8% of the country's area. The railway network's density in the European part of Russia is 13.7 km/1,000 km2. In the Asian part it is 2.1 km/1,000 km2. The Central (12,913 km), the Urals (11,470 km) and the Volga (8,495 km) economic regions have the most extensive railway network in the country, and account for 38% of public-use Russian railways (32,878 km).

About 59,530 km or 69% of railways of common use are located in the belt where economic activity and population density are highly concentrated. This belt covers the triangle-form area between St. Petersburg (northwestern corner of Russia), Kemerovo (eastern top of this belt in Siberia, Kuzbass coal basin), Orsk (Southern Urals) and Krasnodar (western part of Northern Caucasus). Around 82% of Russia's total population (120,039,500 inhabitants) live in this area. The highest level of the railway network's density (near 250-260 km/1,000 km2) is in the central part of this main economic bulk. Its maximum is registered in the Moscow region (585 km/1,000 km2). Then follow: Tula region (429 km/1,000 km2), Kaliningrad region (377 km), Kursk region (358 km), Leningrad region (327 km), Vladimir region (320 km), Lipetsk region (312 km), Bryansk region (297 km), Kaluga region (286 km) and Krasnodar kray (286 km). Undeveloped areas and the economically weak regions of the Russian North, Siberia, and the Far East have the lowest railway network's density (7-50 km/1,000 km2). The average network's density for all Russian railway lines is 86 km and - for public lines - 5.0 km/1,000 km2.

Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Samara, Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Rostov-na-Donu, Volgograd, Saratov, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok are Russia's main railway nodes.

New trunk railways in northern parts of Siberia and the Far East have been built in the 1980s and 90s. These include BAM (Baykal - Amur trunk railway, connecting the river Lena, Lake Baykal, and the river Amur: Ust'-Kut - Severobaykal'sk - Chara - Tynda - Komsomol'sk-na-Amure); Surgut - Urengoy - Yamburg (to natural gas and oil deposits in the north of Tyumen' region, Western Siberia). Another railway line Obskaya - Bovanenkovo (peninsula Yamal) to new gas deposits is under construction now in the north of Western Siberia. The construction of a new railway called "Belkomur," connecting Karpogory, Vendinga, Mikun', Syktyvkar, and Perm', is starting. This line will connect the port Oulu (in Finland) to the Kareliya Republic, the Arkhangel'sk region, the Komi Republic, and the Urals.

Of the total public-use railway network, 39.8 % is electrified. Electric traction is in use in main latitude trunk lines such as Smolensk - Moscow - Samara -Chelyabinsk - Kurgan - Omsk - Novosibirsk - Krasnoyarsk - Irkutsk - Chita - Khabarovsk, Moscow - Nizhniy Novgorod - Kotel'nich - Kirov - Perm' - Yekaterinburg - Tyumen' - Omsk, Moscow - Arzamas - Kazan' - Agryz - Yekaterinburg - Kamensk-Ural'skiy - Kurgan, Omsk - Karasuk - Barnaul - Novokuznetsk - Abakan - Tayshet - Bratsk - Severobaykal'sk - Chara, Cherepovets - Vologda - Buy - Kotel'nich; as well as meridian lines such as Vyborg - St.-Petersburg - Moscow - Oryol - Belgorod, Belomorsk - Kandalaksha - Murmansk, Obozerskaya - Konosha - Yaroslavl' - Moscow, Moscow - Ryazan' - Voronezh - Rostov-na-Donu - Mineral'nye Vody - Makhachkala with branches to Novorossiysk and Sochi, Serov - Nizhniy Tagil - Yekaterinburg - Kamensk-Ural'skiy - Chelyabinsk - Kartaly - Orsk - Orenburg. Lines like Samara - Saratov - Volgograd - Tikhoretskaya along the Volga river and Cherepovets - Volkhovstroy (near St. Petersburg), as well as Obozerskaya - Belomorsk - Petrozavodsk, Khabarovsk - Ussuriysk line are under electrification now.

Of all railways in public use, 36.5% have double-tracks and the rest are single-tracks. Main double-track trunk lines of Russia are Vyborg - St.-Petersburg - Moscow, Smolensk - Moscow, Moscow - Vologda - Kotlas - Vorkuta (with branches to Cherepovets and Obozerskaya), Moscow - Nizhniy Novgorod - Kirov - Perm' - Yekaterinburg - Tyumen' - Omsk, Moscow - Arzamas - Kazan' - Agryz - Yekaterinburg - Kurgan, Moscow - Ryazan' - Ruzayevka - Samara - Ufa - Chelyabinsk - Omsk - Novosibirsk - Krasnoyarsk - Irkutsk - Chita - Khabarovsk - Vladivostok (Transsiberian railway), Ryazan' - Voronezh - Rostov-na-Donu - Bataysk - Mineral'nye Vody - Mozdok - Gudermes - Makhachkala - Baku (with a branch Bataysk - Krasnodar), Moscow - Tula - Oryol - Belgorod, Moscow - Bryansk - Khutor Mikhaylovskiy, Michurinsk - Saratov, Valuyki - Liski - Rtishchevo - Penza - Syzran', Kinel' - Orenburg - Orsk - Chelyabinsk, Omsk - Karasuk - Barnaul - Novokuznetsk.

The first high-speed railway Moscow - St.-Petersburg is planning to build in next 10 years, and then the same quality line Moscow - Smolensk - Minsk - Warsaw.

Road network

The total length of all roads in Russia is 916,000 km. About 574,000 km of this length are commonly used roads and 342,000 km belong to different ministries and companies. Most Russian roads got hard surfacing (ballast) or were covered by asphalt in the 1980s and 90s. The length of roads with the best surfaces (asphalt-concrete, cement-concrete, tarmac) was 517,000 km in 1999.

Many of the roads (553,211 km) with hard surfaces are located in the European part of Russia (which is 25.2% of Russia's total area); only 198,423 km are in Siberia and the Russian Far East (74.8% of the country's area). The average density of roads with a hard surface is 194.8 km/1,000 km2 in the European part and 13.9 km in the Asian part. The Central (110,593 km), the Urals (107,486 km), North Caucasus (83,142 km) and the Volga (76,379 km) economic regions have the most extensive road network. These four regions contain 377,600 km of roads with hard surfaces.

The belt where economic activity and population density are concentrated (covering a triangle between St. Petersburg [northwestern corner of Russia], Kemerovo [eastern top of this belt in Siberia, Kuzbass coal basin], Orsk [Southern Urals] and Krasnodar [western part of Northern Caucasus]) and where 82% of total population lives, has in it 569,06 km of roads with hard surface. The heart of this belt has the highest average level of road density in the country - 230-275 km/1,000 km2. For example, road density in the Central economic region is 229 km/1,000 km2, in the Central-Chernozem region, it is 274 km, and the North Caucasus region. 234 km (average density for the entire country is 44 km/1,000 km2). Some regions have a maximum level of road density: in the Kaliningrad region it is 440 km/1,000 km2, in Adygeya, 413 km; in the Moscow region, 409 km; Northern Osetiya, 349 km; Krasnodar kray, 338 km; Kabardino-Balkariya, 329 km; Belgorod region, 312 km; Kursk region, 308 km; Lipetsk region, 303 km; Chuvashiya, 293 km; Tula region, 279 km; Bryansk region, 277 km; and Tatarstan, 272 km. Spatial distribution of road density is clearly zonal: it is increasing from north to south and from the east to the west. Azonal areas with the highest level of road density are the vast urban conglomerates (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod). The regions of the Russian European North with a weak developed economy have low levels of road density (17-40 km/1,000 km2) and the areas of Eastern Siberia and the North of the Russian Far East ("economic deserts") have the lowest level of density (0.02 - 19 km/1,000 km2).

The bulk network of main trunk highways radiating out from Moscow was built between the 1960s and 1980s. These highways connect Moscow to Bryansk - Sevsk (highway M-3), to Smolensk (M-1), to Rzhev & Velikiye Luki (M-9), to St. Petersburg (M-10), to Yaroslavl' - Arkhangel'sk (M-8), to Vladimir - Nizhniy Novgorod - Kazan' - Ufa - Chelyabinsk (M-7), to Ryazan' - Penza - Samara - Ufa (M-5), to Tambov - Volgograd (M-6), to Voronezh - Rostov-na-Donu - Krasnodar (M-4), and to Tula - Kursk - Belgorod (M-2). There are also interregional and intraregional highways, such as St. Petersburg - Murmansk (M-18), Rostov-na-Donu - Mineral'nye Vody - Nal'chik - Makhachkala (M-29), Yekaterinburg - Perm', Chelyabinsk - Omsk - Novosibirsk - Kemerovo - Krasnoyarsk - Irkutsk - Chita (M-55 or Siberian highway), and AYAM (Aldan - Yakutsk) with the extension to Magadan (Kolyma highway). The highways "Don" (section Moscow - Kashira was finished last year) and Chita - Khabarovsk (to connect the isolated road network of the southern part of the Russian Far East to the main trunk network in Siberia) are under construction now.

Russia has a few small motorways: Moscow - Tula, the Moscow circular road with a branch to the international airport Sheremet'yevo and some sections of highway from Moscow to Smolensk, Moscow to Rzhev to Velikiye Luki to Riga, and the "Don" (Moscow - Kashira).

River transport network

The length of navigable river and lake ways of Russia is 89,000 km. Of these, 74,900 km have navigation signs, including 24,300 km with light and light-reflectors. About 39,000 km of inner waterways have guaranteed depths for navigation.

The river transport network located in the European part of Russia (unlike railway and road networks) is smaller (28,611 km) than that in the Asian section (59,905 km). The reason is the highly extensive river network in Siberia. Nevertheless, the average density of the river transport network of the European part is higher (6.6 km/1,000 km2), than in the Asian part (4.5 km).

The most extended network of navigable river ways is in the Russian Far East economic region (23,365 km; due to the rivers Lena and Amur and its tributaries), the Western Siberian economic region (18,352 km; due to the rivers Irtysh, Ob' and its tributaries), and the Eastern Siberian economic region (18,188 km; due to rivers Yenisey, Angara, and Lena and its tributaries). These three regions (which cover 75% of the country's area) account for 59,905 km of all inner navigable waterways. The Northern economic region (11,409 km; due to rivers Severnaya Dvina, Pechora and its tributaries) and the Volga economic region (4,218 km; the river Volga and its tributaries) have very extensive networks of navigable waterways in the European part of Russia.

These are the main river ports: on the river Volga - Rybinsk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Kazan', Samara, Saratov, Volgograd, and Astrakhan'; on the river Severnaya Dvina - Kotlas and Arkhangel'sk; on the river Kama - Perm'; on the river Irtysh - Omsk and Tobol'sk; on the river Ob' - Barnaul, Novosibirsk, Nizhnevartovsk, Surgut, and Salekhard; on the river Yenisey - Krasnoyarsk and Dudinka; on the river Lena - Ust'-Kut and Yakutsk; on the river Amur - Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk, Komsomol'sk and Nikolayevsk. There are ports on Ladozhskoye, Onezhskoye, and Baykal lakes. There were 835 freight and 1,182 passenger river and lake moorages in 1999.

The length of artificial navigable waterways of Russia is 15,400 km. The longest navigable channels and artificial water systems of Russia are the system "Volga-Baltic basin" (1,100 km), Belomoro-Baltiyskiy channel (227 km), Severo-Dvinskaya water system (130 km), channel Moscow - Volga (128 km), Volga -Don channel (101 km), and Saimen channel (43 km).

See also: List of airlines