Construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway (set of postcards). Transsib. History of construction Start of construction of the Trans-Siberian railway

In the middle of the 19th century, after the campaigns and discoveries of Captain Nevelsky and the signing in 1858 by Count N.N. Muravyov of the Aigun Treaty with China, the eastern borders were finally formed Russian Empire. In 1860, the military post of Vladivostok was founded. The post of Khabarovsk in 1893 became the city of Khabarovsk. Until 1883, the population of the region did not exceed 2,000 people.

From 1883 to 1885, the road Yekaterinburg - Tyumen was laid, and in 1886 from the Governor-General of Irkutsk A.P. Ignatiev and the Amur Governor-General Baron A.N. Korf received in St. Petersburg justification for the urgency of work on the Siberian cast-iron. Emperor Alexander III responded with a resolution "I have already 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."

In February 1891, the Cabinet of Ministers decided to simultaneously start work from opposite ends of Vladivostok and Chelyabinsk. They were separated by a distance of more than 8 thousand Siberian kilometers.

On March 17 of the same 1891, the emperor's rescript addressed to Crown Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich followed: "I command now to start building a continuous railway, which has (the goal) to connect the abundant gifts of nature of the Siberian regions with a network of internal rail communications. I instruct you to declare such my will, upon entering the Russian land again, after reviewing the foreign countries of the East. At the same time, I entrust you with laying foundations in Vladivostok for the construction of the Ussuri section of the Great Siberian Railroad, which is allowed for construction, at the expense of the treasury and by direct order of the government.

On March 19, Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich drove the first wheelbarrow of earth to the canvas of the future road and laid the first stone in the building of the Vladivostok railway station.

In 1892, the sequence of driving the route, divided into six sections, was proposed. The first stage is the design and construction of the West Siberian section from Chelyabinsk to the Ob (1418 km), the Middle Siberian section from the Ob to Irkutsk (1871 km), and the South Ussuriysky section from Vladivostok to the station. Grafskoy (408 km). The second stage included the road from st. Cape on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal to Sretensk on the river. Shilke (1104 km) and the North-Ussuri section from Grafskaya to Khabarovsk (361 km). And last but not least, as the most difficult, the Circum-Baikal road from the station. Baikal at the source of the Angara to Mysovaya (261 km) and the no less difficult Amur road from Sretensk to Khabarovsk (2130 km).

In 1893, the Committee of the Siberian Road was established, the chairman of which the sovereign appointed the heir to the throne, Nikolai Alexandrovich. The committee was given the broadest powers.

At one of the very first meetings of the Committee of the Siberian Road, the building principles were declared: "...To complete the construction of the Siberian Railroad, which has begun, cheaply, and most importantly, quickly and firmly"; "to build both well and firmly, in order to subsequently supplement, and not rebuild"; "... so that the Siberian railway, this great national cause, be carried out by Russian people and from Russian materials." And most importantly - to build at the expense of the treasury. After long hesitation, it was allowed "to attract exiled convicts, exiled settlers and prisoners to the construction of the road various categories, with the provision of a reduction in sentences for their participation in the work. "The high cost of construction forced them to go for lightweight technical standards for laying the track. The width of the subgrade was reduced, the thickness of the ballast layer was almost halved, and on straight sections of the road between the sleepers, they often did without ballast, the rails were lighter (18-pound instead of 21 pounds per meter), steeper ascents and descents were allowed, wooden bridges were hung across small rivers, station buildings were also of a lightweight type, most often without foundations. However, as soon as the load increased, and many times during the war years, it was necessary to urgently lay the second track and involuntarily eliminate all the "facilitations" that did not guarantee traffic safety.

From Vladivostok, they led the way towards Khabarovsk immediately after the consecration of the beginning of construction in the presence of the heir to the throne. And on July 7, 1892, a solemn ceremony was held to start the oncoming traffic from Chelyabinsk. The first crutch at the western end of the Siberian route was entrusted to score a student-trainee of the St. Petersburg Institute of Railways Alexander Liverovsky.

He, A.V. Liverovsky, twenty-three years later, in the position of head of the work of the East Amur road, he scored the last, "silver" crutch of the Great Siberian Way. He also headed the work on one of the most difficult sections of the Circum-Baikal road. Here, for the first time in the practice of railway construction, he used electricity for drilling, for the first time, at his own peril and risk, he introduced differentiated norms for directed, individual-purpose explosives - for ejection, loosening, etc. He also led the laying of the second tracks from Chelyabinsk to Irkutsk. And he also completed the construction of the unique, 2600 meters, Amur Bridge, the latest structure on the Siberian road, put into operation only in 1916. The Great Siberian Way set off to the east from Chelyabinsk. Two years later, the first train was in Omsk, a year later - at the Krivoshchekovo station in front of the Ob (future Novosibirsk), almost simultaneously, due to the fact that from the Ob to Krasnoyarsk, work was carried out at once on four sections, they met the first train in Krasnoyarsk, and in 1898 year, two years earlier than originally designated date, - in Irkutsk. At the end of the same 1898, the rails reached Baikal. However, before the Circum-Baikal road there was a stop for six whole years. Further to the east from the Mysovoy station, the way was led back in 1895 with the firm intention in 1898 (this year, after a successful start, was taken as the finish for all roads of the first stage) to finish laying on the Trans-Baikal route and connect the railway leading to the Amur. But the construction of the next - Amur - road was stopped for a long time. The first blow was dealt by the permafrost. The flood of 1896 eroded the embankments that had been erected almost everywhere. In 1897, the waters of the Selenga, Khilka, Ingoda and Shilka demolished villages, the district town of Doroninsk was completely washed off the face of the earth, there was not a trace left for four hundred miles from the railway embankment, building materials were blown and buried under silt and garbage. A year later, an unprecedented drought fell, an epidemic of plague and anthrax broke out. Only two years after these events, in 1900, was it possible to open traffic on the Transbaikal road, but it was half laid "on a zhivulka".

On the opposite side - from Vladivostok - the South Ussuriyskaya road to the Grafskaya station (Muravyov-Amursky station) was put into operation in 1896, and the North Ussuriyskaya to Khabarovsk was completed in 1899.

But there was no easy road even in Western Siberia. Of course, the Ishim and Baraba steppes were lined on the western side with an even carpet, so the rail route from Chelyabinsk to the Ob, as if on a ruler, ran smoothly along the 55th parallel of northern latitude, exceeding the shortest mathematical distance of 1290 versts by only 37 versts. Here excavation carried out with the help of American earthmoving graders. However, there was no forest in the steppe area; it was brought from the Tobolsk province or from the eastern regions. Gravel, stones for the bridge over the Irtysh and for the station in Omsk were transported by rail for 740 miles from Chelyabinsk and for 900 miles on barges along the Irtysh from the quarries. The bridge across the Ob was under construction for 4 years, the Central Siberian road began from the right bank.

Before Krasnoyarsk, "cast iron" was carried out quickly, work was going on simultaneously at four sites. 18-pound rails were laid. There were sections where it was necessary to raise the canvas by 17 meters (on the Trans-Baikal road, the height of the embankment reached 32 meters), and there were sections where the excavations, and even stone ones, were comparable to dungeons.

The project of the bridge across the Yenisei, which has already gained a kilometer wide near Krasnoyarsk, was made by Professor Lavr Proskuryakov. According to his drawings, the most grandiose bridge across the Amur in Khabarovsk, more than two and a half kilometers long, was later hung on the European-Asian continent. The Krasnoyarsk bridge demanded, based on the nature of the Yenisei at the time of ice drift, significant, exceeding accepted norms, increasing the length of spans. The distance between the supports reached 140 meters, the height of the metal trusses ascended to the upper parabolas by 20 meters. At the Paris World Exhibition of 1900, the model of this bridge, 27 arshins long, received the Gold Medal. The Trans-Siberian was advancing along a vast front, leaving behind not only its own track and repair facilities, but also schools, schools, hospitals, and churches. Stations, as a rule, were set up in advance, before the arrival of the first train, and were of beautiful and festive architecture - both stone in large cities, and wooden in small ones. The railway station in Slyudyanka, on Baikal, lined with local marble, can only be perceived as a wonderful monument to the builders of the Circum-Baikal section. The road brought with it beautiful forms of bridges, and graceful forms of stations, station settlements, booths, even workshops and depots. And this, in turn, required a decent view of the buildings around the forecourt, landscaping, and ennoblement. By 1900, 65 churches and 64 schools had been built along the Trans-Siberian Railway, another 95 churches and 29 schools were being built at the expense of the specially created Fund of Emperor Alexander III to help new settlers. Not only that, the Trans-Siberian made it necessary to intervene in the chaotic development of old cities, to improve and decorate them.

The whole of Russia built the Trans-Siberian. All the ministries, whose participation in the construction was necessary, all the provinces provided workers. So it was called: workers of the first hand, the most experienced, skilled, workers of the second hand, the third. In some years, when the sections of the first stage started work (1895-1896), up to 90,000 people took to the track at the same time.

Under Stolypin, migration flows to Siberia, thanks to the announced benefits and guarantees, as well as the magic word "cut", which gives economic independence, immediately increased significantly. Since 1906, when Stolypin headed the government, the population of Siberia began to increase by half a million people annually. More and more arable lands were developed, the gross grain harvest rose from 174 million poods in 1901-1905. up to 287 million poods in 1911-1915. So much grain went through the Trans-Siberian that it was necessary to introduce the "Chelyabinsk barrier", a special kind of customs duty, in order to limit the grain shaft from Siberia. In huge quantities, oil went to Europe: in 1898, its loading amounted to two and a half thousand tons, in 1900 - about eighteen thousand tons, and in 1913 - over seventy thousand tons. Siberia was turning into the richest granary, breadwinner, and ahead it was still necessary to uncover its fabulous bowels. Transportation, including industrial, for several years of operation of the Trans-Siberian Railway has increased so much that the road has ceased to cope with them. The second tracks and the transfer of the road from a temporary state to a permanent one were urgently required.

And he, P.A. Stolypin, decisively rescued the Trans-Siberian from the Manchurian "captivity" (CER), returning the through passage of the Siberian road, as it was designed from the very beginning, to Russian soil.

The originally set amount of expenses of 350 million rubles was exceeded three times, and the Ministry of Finance went to these Trans-Siberian appropriations. But the result: 500-600-700 kilometers of addition annually, such a rate of construction of railways has not happened either in America or in Canada.

The laying of the track on the Amur road, on the very last run of the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway, was completed in 1915. The head of the construction of the easternmost, final section of the Amur road, A.V. Liverovsky scored the last, silver spike.

On this, the history of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway ended, the history of its operation began.

In the middle of the 19th century, after the campaigns and discoveries of Captain Nevelsky and the signing of the Aigun Treaty with China in 1858 by Count N.N. Muravyov, the eastern borders of the Russian Empire finally took shape. In 1860, the military post of Vladivostok was founded. The post of Khabarovsk in 1893 became the city of Khabarovsk. Until 1883, the population of the region did not exceed 2,000 people.
From 1883 to 1885, the road Yekaterinburg - Tyumen was laid, and in 1886 from the Governor-General of Irkutsk A.P. Ignatiev and the Amur Governor-General Baron A.N. Korf received in St. Petersburg justification for the urgency of work on the Siberian cast-iron. Emperor Alexander III responded with a resolution: “I have already 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."
On June 6, 1887, by order of the emperor, a meeting of ministers and managers of the highest state departments was held, at which it was finally decided: to build. Three months later, exploration work began on the highway from the Ob to the Amur region.
In February 1891, the Cabinet of Ministers decided to simultaneously start work from opposite ends of Vladivostok and Chelyabinsk. They were separated by a distance of more than 8 thousand Siberian kilometers.
On March 17 of the same 1891, the emperor’s rescript addressed to Crown Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich followed: “I order now to begin the construction of a continuous railway through the whole of Siberia, which has (the goal) to connect the abundant natural gifts of the Siberian regions with a network of internal rail communications. I instruct you to declare such my will, upon entering the Russian land again, after reviewing the foreign countries of the East. At the same time, I entrust you with laying the groundwork in Vladivostok for the construction of the Ussuri section of the Great Siberian Railroad, which is allowed for construction, at the expense of the treasury and by direct order of the government.
On March 19, Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich drove the first wheelbarrow of earth to the canvas of the future road and laid the first stone in the building of the Vladivostok railway station.

In 1892, the sequence of driving the route, divided into six sections, was proposed.
The first stage is the design and construction of the West Siberian section from Chelyabinsk to the Ob (1418 km), the Middle Siberian section from the Ob to Irkutsk (1871 km), and the South Ussuriysky section from Vladivostok to the station. Grafskoy (408 km). The second stage included the road from st. Cape on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal to Sretensk on the river. Shilke (1104 km) and the North-Ussuri section from Grafskaya to Khabarovsk (361 km). And last but not least, as the most difficult, the Krutobaikalskaya road from the station. Baikal at the source of the Angara to Mysovaya (261 km) and the no less difficult Amur road from Sretensk to Khabarovsk (2130 km).

In 1893, the Committee of the Siberian Road was established, the chairman of which the sovereign appointed the heir to the throne, Nikolai Alexandrovich. The committee was given the broadest powers.
At one of the very first meetings of the Siberian Road Committee, the building principles were declared: “...To complete the construction of the Siberian Railroad, which has begun, cheaply, and most importantly, quickly and firmly”; “to build both well and firmly, in order to subsequently supplement, and not rebuild”; "... so that the Siberian railway, this great national cause, be carried out by Russian people and from Russian materials." And most importantly - to build at the expense of the treasury. After long hesitation, it was allowed "to involve in the construction of the road exiled convicts, exiled settlers and prisoners of various categories, with the provision of a reduction in the terms of punishment for their participation in the work."
The high cost of construction forced to go to lightweight technical standards for laying the track. The width of the subgrade was reduced, the thickness of the ballast layer was almost halved, and on straight sections of the road between the sleepers, they often did without ballast at all, the rails were lighter (18-pound instead of 21 pounds per meter), steeper, in comparison with the normative, ascents were allowed and slopes, wooden bridges were hung across small rivers, station buildings were also of a lightweight type, most often without foundations. All this was calculated on a small capacity of the road. However, as soon as the load increased, and many times during the war years, it was necessary to urgently lay the second track and involuntarily eliminate all the “facilitations” that did not guarantee traffic safety.
From Vladivostok, they led the way towards Khabarovsk immediately after the consecration of the beginning of construction in the presence of the heir to the throne. And on July 7, 1892, a solemn ceremony was held to start the oncoming traffic from Chelyabinsk. The first crutch at the western end of the Siberian route was entrusted to score a student-trainee of the St. Petersburg Institute of Railways Alexander Liverovsky.

He, A.V. Liverovsky, twenty-three years later, in the position of head of the work of the East Amur road, scored the last, “silver” crutch of the Great Siberian Way. He also headed the work on one of the most difficult sections of the Circum-Baikal road. Here, for the first time in the practice of railway construction, he used electricity for drilling, for the first time he, at his own peril and risk, introduced differentiated norms for directed, individual-purpose explosives - for ejection, loosening, etc. He also led the laying of the second tracks from Chelyabinsk to Irkutsk. And he also completed the construction of the unique, 2600 meters, Amur Bridge, the latest structure on the Siberian road, put into operation only in 1916.
The Great Siberian Way set off to the east from Chelyabinsk. Two years later, the first train was in Omsk, a year later - at the Krivoshchekovo station in front of the Ob (future Novosibirsk), almost simultaneously, due to the fact that from the Ob to Krasnoyarsk, work was carried out at once on four sections, they met the first train in Krasnoyarsk, and in 1898 year, two years earlier than the originally designated date - in Irkutsk. At the end of the same 1898, the rails reached Baikal. However, before the Circum-Baikal road there was a stop for six whole years. Further east from the Mysovoy station, the path was led back in 1895 with a firm intention in 1898 (this year, after a successful start, was taken as the finish line for all roads of the first stage) to finish laying on the Trans-Baikal route and connect the railway leading to the Amur. But the construction of the next - Amur - road was stopped for a long time.
The first blow was dealt by the permafrost. The flood of 1896 eroded the embankments that had been erected almost everywhere. In 1897, the waters of the Selenga, Khilka, Ingoda and Shilka demolished villages, the district town of Doroninsk was completely washed off the face of the earth, there was not a trace left for four hundred miles from the railway embankment, building materials were blown and buried under silt and garbage. A year later, an unprecedented drought fell, an epidemic of plague and anthrax broke out.
Only two years after these events, in 1900, was it possible to open traffic on the Trans-Baikal road, but it was half laid "on a zhivulka".
On the opposite side - from Vladivostok - the South-Ussuriyskaya road to the Grafskaya station (station Muravyov-Amursky) was put into operation in 1896, and the North-Ussuriyskaya to Khabarovsk was completed in 1899.
The Amur road, relegated to the last turn, remained untouched, and the Circum-Baikal road remained inaccessible. On Amurskaya, having come across impassable places and being afraid to get stuck there for a long time, in 1896 they preferred the southern option through Manchuria (CER), and through Baikal they hurriedly built a ferry crossing and brought from England prefabricated parts of two icebreaker ferries, which for five years trains were to be received.
But there was no easy road even in Western Siberia. Of course, the Ishim and Baraba steppes were lined on the western side with an even carpet, so the rail route from Chelyabinsk to the Ob, as if on a ruler, ran smoothly along the 55th parallel of northern latitude, exceeding the shortest mathematical distance of 1290 versts by only 37 versts. Here earthworks were carried out with the help of American earth-moving graders. However, there was no forest in the steppe area; it was brought from the Tobolsk province or from the eastern regions. Gravel, stones for the bridge over the Irtysh and for the station in Omsk were transported by rail for 740 miles from Chelyabinsk and for 900 miles on barges along the Irtysh from the quarries. The bridge across the Ob was under construction for 4 years, the Central Siberian road began from the right bank.

Before Krasnoyarsk, the "cast iron" was carried out quickly, work was going on simultaneously at four sites. 18-pound rails were laid. There were sections where it was necessary to raise the canvas by 17 meters (on the Trans-Baikal road, the height of the embankment reached 32 meters), and there were sections where the excavations, and even stone ones, were comparable to dungeons.
The project of the bridge across the Yenisei, which has already gained a kilometer wide near Krasnoyarsk, was made by Professor Lavr Proskuryakov. According to his drawings, the most grandiose bridge across the Amur in Khabarovsk, more than two and a half kilometers long, was later hung on the European-Asian continent. Based on the nature of the Yenisei at the time of ice drift, the Krasnoyarsk bridge demanded a significant increase in the length of the spans, exceeding the accepted norms. The distance between the supports reached 140 meters, the height of the metal trusses ascended to the upper parabolas by 20 meters. At the Paris World Exhibition of 1900, the model of this bridge, 27 arshins long, received the Gold Medal.
The Trans-Siberian was advancing along a vast front, leaving behind not only its own track and repair facilities, but also schools, schools, hospitals, and churches. Stations, as a rule, were set up in advance, before the arrival of the first train, and were of beautiful and festive architecture - both stone in large cities, and wooden in small ones. The railway station in Slyudyanka, on Baikal, lined with local marble, can only be perceived as a wonderful monument to the builders of the Circum-Baikal section. The road brought with it beautiful forms of bridges, and graceful forms of stations, station settlements, booths, even workshops and depots. And this, in turn, required a decent view of the buildings around the forecourt, landscaping, and ennoblement. By 1900, 65 churches and 64 schools had been built along the Trans-Siberian Railway, another 95 churches and 29 schools were being built at the expense of the specially created Fund of Emperor Alexander III to help new settlers. Not only that, the Trans-Siberian made it necessary to intervene in the chaotic development of old cities, to improve and decorate them.
And most importantly, the Trans-Siberian Railway settled more and more millions of migrants in the vast Siberian expanses. The whole of Russia built the Trans-Siberian. All the ministries, whose participation in the construction was necessary, all the provinces provided workers. So it was called: workers of the first hand, the most experienced, skilled, workers of the second hand, the third. In some years, when the sections of the first stage started work (1895-1896), up to 90,000 people took to the track at the same time.
Under Stolypin, migration flows to Siberia, thanks to the announced benefits and guarantees, as well as the magic word "cut", which gives economic independence, immediately increased significantly. Since 1906, when Stolypin headed the government, the population of Siberia began to increase by half a million people annually. More and more arable lands were developed, the gross grain harvest rose from 174 million poods in 1901-1905. up to 287 million poods in 1911-1915. So much grain went through the Trans-Siberian Railway that it was necessary to introduce the "Chelyabinsk barrier", a special kind of customs duty, in order to limit the grain shaft from Siberia. In huge quantities, oil went to Europe: in 1898, its loading amounted to two and a half thousand tons, in 1900 - about eighteen thousand tons, and in 1913 - over seventy thousand tons. Siberia was turning into the richest granary, breadwinner, and ahead it was still necessary to uncover its fabulous bowels.
Transportation, including industrial, for several years of operation of the Trans-Siberian Railway has increased so much that the road has ceased to cope with them. The second tracks and the transfer of the road from a temporary state to a permanent one were urgently required.
And he, P.A. Stolypin, decisively rescued the Trans-Siberian from the Manchurian “captivity” (CER), returning the through passage of the Siberian road, as it was designed from the very beginning, to Russian soil.
The originally set amount of expenses of 350 million rubles was exceeded three times, and the Ministry of Finance went to these Trans-Siberian appropriations. But the result: 500-600-700 kilometers of addition annually, such a rate of construction of railways has not happened either in America or in Canada.
The laying of the track on the Amur road, on the very last run of the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway, was completed in 1915. The head of the construction of the easternmost, final section of the Amur road, A.V. Liverovsky scored the last, silver spike.
On this, the history of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway ended, the history of its operation began.

On June 6, 1887, by order of the emperor, a meeting of ministers and managers of the highest state departments was held, at which it was finally decided: to build. Three months later, exploration work began on the highway from the Ob to the Amur region.
In February 1891, the Cabinet of Ministers decided to simultaneously start work from opposite ends of Vladivostok and Chelyabinsk. They were separated by a distance of more than 8 thousand Siberian kilometers.
On March 17 of the same 1891, the emperor’s rescript addressed to Crown Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich followed: “I order now to begin the construction of a continuous railway through the whole of Siberia, which has (the goal) to connect the abundant natural gifts of the Siberian regions with a network of internal rail communications. I instruct you to declare such my will, upon entering the Russian land again, after reviewing the foreign countries of the East. At the same time, I entrust you with laying the groundwork in Vladivostok for the construction of the Ussuri section of the Great Siberian Railroad, which is allowed for construction, at the expense of the treasury and by direct order of the government.
On March 19, Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich drove the first wheelbarrow of earth to the canvas of the future road and laid the first stone in the building of the Vladivostok railway station.

In 1892, the sequence of driving the route, divided into six sections, was proposed.
The first stage is the design and construction of the West Siberian section from Chelyabinsk to the Ob (1418 km), the Middle Siberian section from the Ob to Irkutsk (1871 km), and the South Ussuriysky section from Vladivostok to the station. Grafskoy (408 km). The second stage included the road from st. Cape on the eastern shore of Lake Baikal to Sretensk on the river. Shilke (1104 km) and the North-Ussuri section from Grafskaya to Khabarovsk (361 km). And last but not least, as the most difficult, the Krutobaikalskaya road from the station. Baikal at the source of the Angara to Mysovaya (261 km) and the no less difficult Amur road from Sretensk to Khabarovsk (2130 km).

The high cost of construction forced to go to lightweight technical standards for laying the track. The width of the subgrade was reduced, the thickness of the ballast layer was almost halved, and on straight sections of the road between the sleepers, they often did without ballast at all, the rails were lighter (18-pound instead of 21 pounds per meter), steeper, in comparison with the normative, ascents were allowed and slopes, wooden bridges were hung across small rivers, station buildings were also of a lightweight type, most often without foundations. All this was calculated on a small capacity of the road. However, as soon as the load increased, and many times during the war years, it was necessary to urgently lay the second track and involuntarily eliminate all the “facilitations” that did not guarantee traffic safety.

The Great Siberian Way set off to the east from Chelyabinsk. Two years later, the first train was in Omsk, a year later - at the Krivoshchekovo station in front of the Ob (future Novosibirsk), almost simultaneously, due to the fact that from the Ob to Krasnoyarsk, work was carried out at once on four sections, they met the first train in Krasnoyarsk, and in 1898 year, two years earlier than the originally designated date - in Irkutsk. At the end of the same 1898, the rails reached Baikal. However, before the Circum-Baikal road there was a stop for six whole years. Further east from the Mysovoy station, the path was led back in 1895 with a firm intention in 1898 (this year, after a successful start, was taken as the finish line for all roads of the first stage) to finish laying on the Trans-Baikal route and connect the railway leading to the Amur. But the construction of the next - Amur - road was stopped for a long time.

The first blow was dealt by the permafrost. The flood of 1896 eroded the embankments that had been erected almost everywhere. In 1897, the waters of the Selenga, Khilka, Ingoda and Shilka demolished villages, the district town of Doroninsk was completely washed off the face of the earth, there was not a trace left for four hundred miles from the railway embankment, building materials were blown and buried under silt and garbage. A year later, an unprecedented drought fell, an epidemic of plague and anthrax broke out.
Only two years after these events, in 1900, was it possible to open traffic on the Trans-Baikal road, but it was half laid "on a zhivulka".
On the opposite side - from Vladivostok - the South Ussuriyskaya road to the Grafskaya station (Muravyov-Amursky station) was put into operation in 1896, and the North Ussuriyskaya to Khabarovsk was completed in 1899.

The Amur road, relegated to the last turn, remained untouched, and the Circum-Baikal road remained inaccessible. On Amurskaya, having come across impassable places and being afraid to get stuck there for a long time, in 1896 they preferred the southern option through Manchuria (CER), and through Baikal they hurriedly built a ferry crossing and brought from England prefabricated parts of two icebreaker ferries, which for five years trains were to be received.
But there was no easy road even in Western Siberia. Of course, the Ishim and Baraba steppes were lined on the western side with an even carpet, so the rail route from Chelyabinsk to the Ob, as if on a ruler, ran smoothly along the 55th parallel of northern latitude, exceeding the shortest mathematical distance of 1290 versts by only 37 versts. Here earthworks were carried out with the help of American earth-moving graders. However, there was no forest in the steppe area; it was brought from the Tobolsk province or from the eastern regions. Gravel, stones for the bridge over the Irtysh and for the station in Omsk were transported by rail for 740 miles from Chelyabinsk and for 900 miles on barges along the Irtysh from the quarries. The bridge across the Ob was under construction for 4 years, the Central Siberian road began from the right bank.

The Trans-Siberian was advancing along a vast front, leaving behind not only its own track and repair facilities, but also schools, schools, hospitals, and churches. Stations, as a rule, were set up in advance, before the arrival of the first train, and were of beautiful and festive architecture - both stone in large cities, and wooden in small ones. The railway station in Slyudyanka, on Baikal, lined with local marble, can only be perceived as a wonderful monument to the builders of the Circum-Baikal section. The road brought with it beautiful forms of bridges, and graceful forms of stations, station settlements, booths, even workshops and depots. And this, in turn, required a decent view of the buildings around the forecourt, landscaping, and ennoblement. By 1900, 65 churches and 64 schools had been built along the Trans-Siberian Railway, another 95 churches and 29 schools were being built at the expense of the specially created Fund of Emperor Alexander III to help new settlers. Not only that, the Trans-Siberian made it necessary to intervene in the chaotic development of old cities, to improve and decorate them.

And most importantly, the Trans-Siberian Railway settled more and more millions of migrants in the vast Siberian expanses. The whole of Russia built the Trans-Siberian. All the ministries, whose participation in the construction was necessary, all the provinces provided workers. So it was called: workers of the first hand, the most experienced, skilled, workers of the second hand, the third. In some years, when the sections of the first stage started work (1895-1896), up to 90,000 people took to the track at the same time.

Under Stolypin, migration flows to Siberia, thanks to the announced benefits and guarantees, as well as the magic word "cut", which gives economic independence, immediately increased significantly. Since 1906, when Stolypin headed the government, the population of Siberia began to increase by half a million people annually. More and more arable lands were developed, the gross grain harvest rose from 174 million poods in 1901-1905. up to 287 million poods in 1911-1915. So much grain went through the Trans-Siberian Railway that it was necessary to introduce the "Chelyabinsk barrier", a special kind of customs duty, in order to limit the grain shaft from Siberia. In huge quantities, oil went to Europe: in 1898, its loading amounted to two and a half thousand tons, in 1900 - about eighteen thousand tons, and in 1913 - over seventy thousand tons. Siberia was turning into the richest granary, breadwinner, and ahead it was still necessary to uncover its fabulous bowels.

Transportation, including industrial, for several years of operation of the Trans-Siberian Railway has increased so much that the road has ceased to cope with them. The second tracks and the transfer of the road from a temporary state to a permanent one were urgently required.

And he, P.A. Stolypin, decisively rescued the Trans-Siberian from the Manchurian “captivity” (CER), returning the through passage of the Siberian road, as it was designed from the very beginning, to Russian soil.

In 1909, construction began on the last section of the Trans-Siberian Railway - the Amur Railway. Construction was carried out in extremely difficult conditions. At this construction site, the "prisoners" were already the main labor force. The difficulties of building the road were exacerbated by the first World War. Only in 1915 did trains begin to move to Khabarovsk on Russian soil. In the same 1915, they planned to open a through traffic along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. Actually, the full-flowing Amur, which separated the railway near Khabarovsk, remained the only obstacle on the way. In the summer, a ferry crossing was organized here, in the winter the rails were laid directly on the ice. During the off-season, the movement of trains here, of course, was interrupted. In order to put an end to this, it was necessary to block the mighty river with a giant railway bridge. It was supposed to be one of the largest in the world - 18 spans in total had a length of over 2.5 km!

Preparatory work began as early as 1912. Lack of qualified work force and difficult geological conditions at the construction site delayed this construction. And then the First World War led to the mobilization of skilled workers into the army. And again, "according to tradition" "convicts" were involved in the construction ... They performed a considerable amount of work (including most of the caisson). But the builders still failed to meet the deadlines. The fact is that the span structures of the bridge were made in Warsaw. Then they were taken by rail to Odessa, and then across the seas and oceans to Vladivostok. From Vladivostok to Khabarovsk they were again transported by rail. And so, during sea transportation, one of the steamers delivering the spans was sunk by a German submarine. It was a disaster: by this time Warsaw had been captured by the Germans, and not a single Russian enterprise could manufacture the necessary span structures. The missing spans were ordered from America, which drastically delayed the completion of the work.

And then came October 5, 1916. On this day (which, by the way, was the birthday of Tsarevich Alexei), the grand opening of the bridge across the Amur took place. The old newsreel has preserved to this day the details of this solemn ceremony. In the presence of a large number of guests, the wife of the Khabarovsk governor-general cut the ribbon. This meant that the rails of the Trans-Siberian were closed, and it was fully put into operation. In honor of this event, a special commemorative cast-iron plaque was strengthened on one of the bridge trusses, the text on which read: "The bridge of the heir to Tsarevich Alexei Nikolayevich across the Amur with a total opening of 1141.41 sazhens with a total length of 1217.81 sazhens was built in the reign of His Imperial Majesty Sovereign Emperor Nicholas II in the summer of the Nativity of Christ 1913 - 1916 ... The laying was done on July 30, 1913. Opening for traffic on October 5, 1916. " Alas, this board did not last long. During the triumphal procession Soviet power"Through the lands of the Amur region, she was defeated and thrown into the Amur. Only her photographs have survived to this day. Many years later, the bridge itself will be called" unreliable in case of war "and" erroneous ", since it was located too close to the Soviet-Chinese border. This, in turn, will lead to one of the most senseless and wasteful construction projects - the construction of ... a railway tunnel under the Amur!

But the bridge stands and will stand as long as the Trans-Siberian Railway will exist. And the Trans-Siberian will exist as long as Russia exists.

The construction required huge funds. By preliminary calculations Committee for the construction of the Siberian railway, its cost was determined at 350 million rubles in gold. In order to speed up and reduce the cost of construction, in 1891-1892 for the Ussuri line and the West Siberian line (from Chelyabinsk to the Ob River) they took simplified specifications– reduced the width of the subgrade in embankments, cuts and mountainous areas, as well as the thickness of the ballast layer, laid lightweight rails and short sleepers, reduced the number of sleepers per kilometer of track, etc.

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. A significant part of the builders were exiled prisoners and soldiers. The labor force was also replenished by attracting Siberian peasants and townspeople and the influx of peasants and philistines from European Russia.
In total, the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1891, at the beginning of construction, was 9.6 thousand people, and in 1895-1896, at the height of construction works, - 84-89 thousand people, in 1904, at the final stage - only 5.3 thousand people. 20 thousand people worked on the construction of the Amur railway in 1910.
Many works were done by hand, the tools were the most primitive - an ax, a saw, a shovel, a pick and a wheelbarrow. Despite this, about 500-600 kilometers of railway track were laid annually.

The bridge of the rails along the Great Siberian Way took place on November 3 (October 21, old style), 1901, but there was no regular train traffic along the entire length of the highway at that time. The originally set amount of expenses of 350 million rubles was exceeded three times, and the Ministry of Finance went to these Trans-Siberian appropriations. But the result: 500-600-700 kilometers of addition annually, such a rate of construction of railways has not happened either in America or in Canada. The laying of the track on the Amur road, on the very last run of the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway, was completed in 1915. The head of the construction of the easternmost, final section of the Amur road, A.V. Liverovsky scored the last, silver spike.

July 4 (July 1, according to the old style), 1903, was marked by the commissioning of the Great Siberian Railway along its entire length, although there was a break in the rail track: trains had to be transported across Lake Baikal on a special ferry.
A continuous rail track between St. Petersburg and Vladivostok appeared after the start of working traffic along the Circum-Baikal Railway on October 1 (September 18, old style), 1904, and on October 29 (October 16, old style), 1905, the Circum-Baikal Road, as a segment of the Great Siberian Way was put into permanent operation.
On October 18 (October 5, old style), 1916, construction was completed on the territory of the Russian Empire, with the launch of a bridge over the Amur near Khabarovsk and the start of train traffic on this bridge.

Transsib in figures and facts.

During World War I and the Civil War technical condition The road deteriorated sharply, after which restoration work began.
During the Great Patriotic War The Trans-Siberian Railway performed the tasks of evacuating the population and enterprises from the occupied regions, uninterrupted delivery of goods and military contingents to the front, without stopping intra-Siberian transportation.
In the postwar years, the Great Siberian Railway was actively built and modernized. In 1956, the government approved a master plan for the electrification of railways, according to which one of the first electrified lines was to be the Trans-Siberian along the section from Moscow to Irkutsk. This was done by 1961.

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 across the Amur near Khabarovsk was reconstructed, resulting in the Trans-Siberian.
In 2002, full electrification of the main line was completed.

At present, the Trans-Siberian Railway is a powerful double-track electrified railway line equipped with modern information and communication facilities.
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 Soviet Union- V European countries.
The highway passes through the territory of 20 constituent entities of the Russian Federation and five federal districts. More than 80% of the industrial potential of the country and the main natural resources, including oil, gas, coal, timber, ores of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. There are 87 cities on the Trans-Siberian, of which 14 are centers of subjects of the Russian Federation.
More than 50% of foreign trade and transit cargo is transported via the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Trans-Siberian Railway

For a century, the Trans-Siberian Railway has been the main “window” to the Far East, linking together vast Russia, from its western to eastern borders. Its construction, despite the fact that almost a hundred years have passed since its completion (next year, 2016, the anniversary will be celebrated) is the largest (in terms of effort and time expended) and the most expensive project in the history of imperial Russia.

Building background

Russia's access to the shores of the Pacific Ocean occurred as early as the 17th century, but the remoteness of these places with the then means of transportation was simply incredible - it is enough to recall the tragicomic story of a long-term journey to the capital, for the coronation of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, "pretty Kamchatka girls". Only by the time of their arrival, Elizabeth had long been crowned, and the “slightly late” girls categorically refused to go back.

In the practical plane, this problem moved only in the 19th century. The “epoch of steam” has greatly reduced the time required to move people and goods over long distances. There was, however, one snag - to lay rails and run trains along them.

Railway construction was driven by the needs industrial age and itself became its locomotive: after all, for the construction of hundreds, or even thousands of kilometers of rail tracks, powerful metallurgy, advanced mechanical engineering, and a lot of related things - the production of construction equipment and the building materials industry, communication systems, personnel training and so on.

At the same time, railway construction became the largest source of superprofits and swindles phenomenal in impudence in the era of primitive accumulation. When the United States decided to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with a railroad, paying contractors for every kilometer of track laid, it turned out that the railroad "on the ground" turned out to be twice as long as it should have been under normal construction. The Trans-Siberian, alas, did not escape this fate either: during the initial estimated cost at half a billion rubles, he, in the end, “pulled” a full-weight one and a half. For clarity, we point out that a million rubles of that time is more than a ton of gold.

Construction and modernization

Having acquired a network of railways in the European part of the country in the second half of the 19th century, the Russian Empire was ready for larger projects. After preliminary survey work, in the spring of 1891, Alexander II the Peacemaker signed a decree on the start of the construction of the "Great Siberian Route" (as the Trans-Siberian was originally called). Moreover, construction began both from European Russia and from Vladivostok.

Incredible difficulties in the construction of the highway - despite the fact that the main "mechanism" was a shovel and a wheelbarrow, and the road passed through sparsely populated, and even uninhabited areas, through all sorts of obstacles created by nature. We had to build bridges and punch tunnels, tear down hills and erect embankments, make our way through the dense taiga. However, the construction - site by site - was completed, basically, within the project time frame. And this record - both the duration and the speed of construction in the most difficult conditions, has not been beaten so far!

The Trans-Siberian Railway includes the following sections:

Ussuri road;
West Siberian road;
Central Siberian road;
Transbaikal road;
Manchurian road;
Circum-Baikal road;
Amur road.

Its significance for Russia is most clearly evidenced by the fact that work to increase the capacity did not stop even in the "dashing nineties", and in 2002 the full electrification of the highway was completed. And "Russia's turn to the East" will be carried out, as it was a hundred years ago, precisely along the rails of the Great Siberian Route.

By the middle of the 19th century, the borders of the Russian Empire began to take their final shape. The colossal power spread over the expanses of Eurasia seemed unviable to many. Remote regions of the country, Siberia and the Far East, were connected to the capital by a thin line of difficult roads, which was a huge obstacle to their successful development.

The Senate rejected the proposal

Governor General Eastern Siberia Nikolai Nikolaevich Muraviev-Amursky, the founder of Khabarovsk and Vladivostok, back in the mid-1850s, applied to St. Petersburg with a request to build a railway to the Pacific Ocean.

On one of the documents in 1856 Emperor Alexander II wrote: “With this request, Count N.N. Muravyov-Amursky addressed the late father Nikolai Pavlovich. But the Senate rejected the proposal. And we are rejecting this costly project.”

Muravyov-Amursky did not give up. Over and over again, he reported to the capital: without a railway, Russia would not be able to expand its influence in China, nor preserve its territories.

In fact, in St. Petersburg they understood the importance of the project, but the length of the road and, accordingly, the cost, frankly frightened.

The price doesn't matter

But in the 1870s, the first scientific studies of the issue began. In 1887, under the leadership engineers Nikolai Mezheninov, Orest Vyazemsky and Alexander Ursati Three expeditions were organized to find the route of the Central Siberian, Transbaikal and South Ussuri railways.

In March 1891, the final settlements lay on the table Emperor Alexander III. The monarch signed the highest decree on the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, or, in other words, the Great Siberian Way.

According to preliminary calculations by the Committee for the Construction of the Siberian Railway, its cost was determined at 350 million rubles in gold. As usual in Russia, this amount turned out to be somewhat inaccurate. According to sources Soviet period, by 1916, 1.5 billion rubles were spent on the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

According to the approved project, construction was supposed to start simultaneously from Chelyabinsk and Vladivostok.

The crown prince is laying, the man is building

May 31, 1891 the then heir to the throne Tsarevich Nicholas laid the first stone of the Ussuri railroad to Khabarovsk on the Amur not far from Vladivostok. So the grandiose construction project was officially launched.

The ceremony of laying the Trans-Siberian Railway by Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich in Vladivostok. Photo: Public Domain

At the government level, it was decided to build on their own, without involving foreign companies. The problem was that Russia did not have enough equipment to carry out such work. Therefore, the main bet was made on the person. Exile prisoners, soldiers recruited into Central Russia peasants - that's the force thanks to which the Trans-Siberian was born. In the most difficult climatic conditions, with axes, saws, shovels and wheelbarrows, Russian men paved kilometers main road countries.

By 1896, the Ussuri railway (769 km) and the West Siberian railway (1418 km) were completed.

The second stage of construction included the Central Siberian Railway (1818 km), the Trans-Baikal Railway (1104 km) and the Chinese Eastern Railway (1520 km).

In November 1901, there was a bridge of rails along the Great Siberian Route, but there was still regular communication along the entire length of the road.

Map of fast trains from Moscow to the port of Dalniy (1903). Photo: Public Domain

At first, Baikal was crossed on icebreaker ferries

On July 14, 1903, traffic along the Trans-Siberian Railway from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok was opened. The end of the work, however, was out of the question.

The fact is that trains crossed Lake Baikal on the Baikal and Angara icebreaker ferries, built to order Russian government by the British firm Armstrong, Whitworth & Co.

Back in 1899, the construction of the Circum-Baikal Railway began, which was supposed to ensure the movement of trains without the help of ferries throughout the route.

And the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 showed that the Chinese Eastern Railway, conceived Finance Minister Sergei Witte as the shortest route to Vladivostok through Chinese territory, in addition to economic benefits, it also entails political problems. Control over the Chinese Eastern Railway could be lost at any moment, and then the Trans-Siberian Railway would be paralyzed. Therefore, in 1906, the construction of the Amur Railway began, which was supposed to ensure safe movement along the Trans-Siberian Railway through the territory of Russia.

The Circum-Baikal Railway was put into permanent operation in October 1905. The Amur road went into operation in October 1916, after the Khabarovsk bridge across the Amur River was completed.

Construction of a tunnel on the Amur railway. Photo: Public Domain

The road that is always evolving

The formal completion of construction at the end of the history of the period of the Russian Empire did not mean that the Trans-Siberian Railway would not develop further.

Immediately after the Civil War, it took a lot of effort to restore the damaged areas. The construction of new sections, approaches and branches continued throughout the 20th century.

The electrification of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which began in 1956, was divided into a large number of stages. This process was completed only in 2002.

Today, the Trans-Siberian Railway passes through the territory of 20 constituent entities of the Russian Federation and five federal districts, which provide more than 80 percent of the industrial potential of our country.

9288 km of legend

The Trans-Siberian can be called a kind of "circulatory system" of Russia, without which the existence of the country is unthinkable.

The Great Siberian Way fascinates foreign tourists. Its 9288.2 km is the longest railway in the world. The Rossiya branded train covers the distance from Moscow to Vladivostok in just over six days. In the recent past, the world's farthest train Kharkov-Vladivostok ran here, overcoming 9714 km of the way in 7 days 6 hours 10 minutes, as well as the farthest carriage of the direct connection Kiev-Vladivostok, traveling one way at a distance of 10 259 km.

Perhaps someday these achievements will be blocked, and trains will go from Lisbon to Hanoi or Tokyo. Let today it seem to someone a fantasy. But a century and a half ago, the Great Siberian Route itself seemed such a fantasy.