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Nazrul

2019-08-20

Dear Lesya
Thank you very much for your complement.
We will be always in touch with you for our future trip : Sochi
My experience is your company is very sincere for organising tour of overseas tourists.
All the best
Yours sincerely
Nazrul

Vjay

2019-08-13

Dear Ms Lesya/team,

Good day, thanks for all the arrangements done for these clients, just took their feedback they were happy with the tour, They felt st peterburg guides & driver were slightly better than moscow.


Thanks & Regards
Vjay

Jesús

2019-07-09

Hola Lesya,

El martes regresamos de nuestro viaje. Globalmente fue muy bien: la organización, los guias... Todo el grupo ha estado muy contento con Ostwest.com, por eso queríamos darles las gracias por su profesionalidad y eficiencia.

Saludos,

Jesús

All RecordsAdd Record

Encyclopedia of Transsiberianprint version

What is Transsiberian?

 

The Transsiberian, the Trans-Siberian Railway (modern names) or the Great Siberian Way (historical name) is a well-equipped rail track across the continent connecting European Russia, its largest industrial areas and the capital of the country, Moscow, with its middle (Siberia) and eastern (Far East) areas. This is the road holding Russia together - a country stretching across 10 time zones, into a single economic organism, and most importantly, into a single military-strategic space. If it had not been built in due time, it is very likely that Russia would hardly have kept the Far East and the Pacific coast - just as it could not have kept Alaska, which was not connected in any way with the Russian Empire by stable means of communication. The Trans-Siberian Railway is also a road that gave impetus to the development of the eastern regions and involved them in the economic life of the rest of the vast country.

Some people think that the term “Transsiberian” should be interpreted as the path connecting the Urals and the Far East, and literally passing “through” Siberia (Trans-Siberian). But this contradicts the circumstances and does not reflect the true significance of this highway. What about the name? This name was given to us by the British, who dubbed the path not the “Great Siberian Way”, as there should have been a literal translation from Russian, but “Trans-Siberian Railway” - and then it took root in speech.

Now the “Transsiberian” as a geopolitical concept makes sense as a path connecting the Center and the Pacific Ocean, Moscow and Vladivostok, and wider as a path connecting the ports of the West and the capital of Russia, as well as exits to Europe (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Brest, Kaliningrad) with ports of the East and exits to Asia (Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Vanino, Zabaykalsk); but not the local route connecting the Urals and the Far East.

A narrow interpretation of the term “Transsiberian” suggests that we are talking about the main passenger path Moscow – Yaroslavl – Yekaterinburg – Omsk – Irkutsk – Chita – Vladivostok.

 

 

The length of the Transsiberian

The actual length of the Trans-Siberian Railway along the main passenger path (from Moscow to Vladivostok) is 9288.2 km, and it is the longest on the planet by this indicator, crossing almost all of Eurasia by land. The fare length (by which ticket prices are calculated) is slightly longer - 9298 km and does not coincide with the real one. There are several parallel cargo detours at various sites. The gauge on the Trans-Siberian Railway is 1520 mm.

The length of the Great Siberian Route before the First World War from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok along the northern passenger path (via Vologda - Perm - Yekaterinburg - Omsk - Chita - Harbin) was 8913 versts, or 9508 km.

The Trans-Siberian Railway passes through the territory of two parts of the world: Europe (0 - 1777 km) and Asia (1778 - 9289 km). Europe accounts for 19.1% of the length of the Trans-Siberian Railway, Asia accounts for 80.9% respectively.

 

 

Start and end of the Transsiberian

Currently, the starting point of the Trans-Siberian Railway is the Yaroslavl Station in Moscow, and the final point is the Vladivostok Station.

But this was not always the case: until about the middle of the 20s, the Kazan (then Ryazan) station was the gateway to Siberia and the Far East, and Kursk-Nizhny Novgorod at the very beginning of the Trans-Siberian period (now Kursky) Moscow station. It is also worth mentioning that before the revolution of 1917, the Moscow Railway Station of St. Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire, was considered the starting point of the Great Siberian Way.

Vladivostok was not always considered the final destination: for a short time, starting from the very end of the 90s of the 19th century until the decisive land battles of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, contemporaries considered to be the end of the Great Siberian Way the naval fortress and the city of Port-Arthur, located on the coast of the East China Sea, on the Liaodong Peninsula rented from China.

 

 

Construction and milestones

Start of construction: May 19 (31), 1891 in the area near Vladivostok (Kuperovskaya Pad), the tab was attended by Tsarevich Nikolai Aleksandrovich, future Emperor Nicholas II.

The actual start of construction took place a little earlier, in early March 1891, when the construction of the Miass - Chelyabinsk section began.

The bow of the rails throughout the Great Siberian Way occurred on October 21 (November 3), 1901, when the builders of the Sino-Eastern Railway, who laid the track from the west and east, met each other. But the regular movement of trains throughout the highway at this time did not exist.

Regular communication between the capital of the empire - St. Petersburg and the Pacific ports of Russia - Vladivostok and Dalniy by rail was established in July 1903, when the Sino-East Railway passing through Manchuria was accepted for permanent (“correct”) operation. The date of July 1 (14), 1903 also marked the commissioning of the Great Siberian Way throughout its entire length, although there was a break on the rail track: trains had to be transferred across Lake Baikal by a special ferry.

A continuous rail track between St. Petersburg and Vladivostok appeared after the beginning of the working movement on the Circum-Baikal Railway on September 18 (October 1), 1904; and a year later, on October 16 (29), 1905, the Circum-Baikal Road, as a segment of the Great Siberian Way, was accepted into constant operation; and regular passenger trains for the first time in history got the opportunity to follow only on rails, without the use of ferries, from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean (from Western Europe) to the shores of the Pacific Ocean (to Vladivostok).

The end of construction on the territory of the Russian Empire: October 5 (18), 1916, with the launch of the bridge over the Amur River near Khabarovsk and the beginning of the movement of trains on this bridge.

The cost of building the Trans-Siberian Railway from 1891 to 1913 amounted to 1.455.413 thousand rubles.

 

 

Modern route

Since 1956, the Trans-Siberian route is as follows: Moscow-Yaroslavskaya-Yaroslavl-Gl. - Danilov –Buy - Sharya - Kirov - Balezino - Perm-2 - Yekaterinburg-Pass - Tyumen - Nazyvaevskaya - Omsk-Pass. - Barabinsk - Novosibirsk-Glavniy - Mariinsk - Achinsk-1 - Krasnoyarsk - Ilanskaya - Tayshet - Nizhneudinsk - Winter - Irkutsk-Pass - Slyudyanka-1 - Ulan-Ude - Petrovsky Plant - Chita-2 - Karymskaya - Chernyshevsk-Zabaykalsky - Mogocha - Skovorodino - Belogorsk - Arkhara – Khabarovsk-1 - Vyazemskaya - Ruzhino - Ussuriysk - Vladivostok. This is the main passenger passage of the Trans-Siberian Railway. It was finally formed by the beginning of the 30s, when the normal operation of the shorter Sino-Eastern Railway became impossible due to military-political reasons, and the South Ural railway was too overloaded due to the industrialization of the USSR that had begun.

Until 1949 in the Baikal region the main course of the Trans-Siberian Railway passed along the Circum-Baikal Road, through Irkutsk - along the Angara coast - Baikal station - along the Baikal coast - to Slyudyanka station, in 1949-56. There were two routes: the old one, along the shore of Lake Baikal, and the new one, a pass. Moreover, the transit route was initially built in a 1-way version (1941-1948), and by 1957 it became a 2-way and main one.

Since June 10, 2001, after the introduction of the new summer schedule of the Ministry of Railways, almost all long-distance trans-Siberian trains were launched along the new route through Vladimir - Nizhny Novgorod with access to the “classic route” in Kotelnich. This move allows to pass trains with a higher route speed. But the mileage of the Trans-Siberian Railway still passes through Yaroslavl-Sharya.

 

 

Historical route

Before the revolution of 1917 and some time after it (until the end of the 20s of the XX century), the main route of the Great Siberian Way passed:

From Moscow, starting in 1904: through Ryazan - Ryazhsk - Penza - Syzran - Samara - Ufa - Chelyabinsk - Kurgan - Petropavlovsk - Omsk - Krasnoyarsk - Irkutsk - Baikal - Mysovaya - Verkhneudinsk - Chita - Manchuria - Harbin - Grodekovo - to Vladivostok. Although there was a short period (1897 - 1903), when Siberian trains from Moscow followed through Tula - Uzlovaya - Ryazhsk; further along the route given above.

From St. Petersburg, starting in 1906: via Cherepovets - Vologda - Bui - Sharya - Vyatka - Perm - Nizhny Tagil - Yekaterinburg - Kyshtym - Chelyabinsk - Omsk, then similarly to Vladivostok. In 1909, this route was straightened - a shorter road through Kungur was built from Perm to Yekaterinburg, and from October 1913 trains from the capital of the empire went along an even shorter route - from Yekaterinburg through Tyumen to Omsk.

Until April 1905, Russia also owned the South Manchu line - from Harbin through Changchun to the port of Dalniy and the naval fortress of Port Arthur.

 

 

Cities, rivers and lakes on the way

The Trans-Siberian Railway passes through the territories of 12 regions, 5 territories, 2 republics, 1 autonomous region and 1 district as part of the region of the Russian Federation and 87 cities are located on it. 

On its way, the Transsib crosses 16 major rivers: the Volga, Vyatka, Kama, Tobol, Irtysh, Ob, Tom, Chulym, Yenisei, Oka, Selenga, Zeya, Bureya, Amur, Khor, Ussuri; over 207 km runs along Lake Baikal and 39 km along the shore of the Amur Bay of the Sea of Japan.