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 Efforts to revitalise the Great Silk Road on a new, “industrial” basis started only a little over 100 years ago. In the very beginning of the 20th century, the famous Trans-Siberian Railway was completed. It played an essential role in the colonisation of Siberia and the Far East and their industrial development in the Soviet era. It also fulfilled important mobilisation functions during the two world wars. However, in the period of political divisions and confrontation between the two systems in the 20th century, the Trans-Siberian Railway could not serve its unifying purpose on the Eurasian landmass.
It was only in the last quarter of the 20th century that the first attempts were undertaken against the backdrop of the so-called “détente” to use the Railway for international trade. In the 1970s and 80s, the main source of goods in the Asian region was Japan, so goods transited by rail to Europe were mainly of Japanese origin. The maximum transport volume, 140,000 containers TEU, was reached in 1981. TSCS [1] was owned by the USSR Ministry of Railways whose main partner was Juyra, a Japanese forwarder with an interest in developing the shortest route from Japan to Europe. Juyra’s containers were used for the first time to test the first technologies of brand route-specific trains on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
However, the early 1990s ushered in a series of events which virtually excluded TSCS from the list of routes connecting Asia and Europe.
First, the collapse of the USSR led to a serious disintegration of the national economy and to its regionalisation, which quickly weakened the trust of potential shippers for the Euro-Asian rail route. This was caused, in particular, by numerous instances of theft from containers traveling from Asia to Europe.
Secondly, there was a steep rise in the transit tariffs applicable to the Trans-Siberian Railway (although in those years the Ministry of Railways was able to regulate tariff policy independently).
Thirdly, the breakup of the TSCS was caused by the Ministry’s refusal to cooperate with Juyra, the Japanese forwarder, which had its own container fleet, and its decision to invest in the Trans-Siberian Railway in Eurasia company. Bailing out of Eurasia, the Ministry created a joint venture with SeaLand, one of the leaders in goods transport via the Suez Canal, a major competitor for the Trans-Siberian Railway. Juyra was internationally recognised as bankrupt and left the market. Japanese and international press reported in depth on this scandal.
Finally, the last step to kill (at least for a while) the idea of transit from Asia to Europe via the Trans-Siberian Railway was the transfer of the largest container terminal in the Vostochniy seaport for 50 years under the management of a joint venture created by SeaLand and Pindou, major shipping companies with a strategic stake in developing direct transport between Europe and Asia using their own container ship fleet.s
Other attempts to revitalise transit transport and economic ties between Asia and Europe were made only after the collapse of the USSR in the 1990s, i.e. less than 20 years ago.
These attempts are reflected in the TRACECA Programme (“Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia”) initiated by the European Communities, in the United Nations Development Programme for Landlocked and Transit Countries, the Joint UNECE/UNESCAP Project for Institutional Capacity-Building to Develop and Euro-Asian Land and Land-cum-Sea Transport Linkages, and declarations adopted by international conferences and fora, in particular, the four IRU Euro-Asian conferences.
[1]“Trans-Siberian Container Service” (TSCS) was designed mainly to attract transit goods of Asian origin bound for Europe for transportation along the Trans-Siberian Railway.
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