Silk Road: News, Events, Articles

Jumgar Gate, located in the northern spurs of the Tien Shan mountain system, is the most important crossroad of the ancient routes on Eurasian continent. In this very area there runs one of the major transportation arteries of the present days – Trans-Asia trunk-railway, which begins at the Pacific ports. At Jungar Gate, in the very heart of Asia, the trunk-railway branches off into two lines – the Northern corridor and Central Asian corridor.

Central Asian corridor – the "golden section" of the Great Silk Road – runs through the territory of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Turkey to South-Eastern Europe. On the territory of Iran the railway is branched into two lines: the latitudinal line runs in the direction of Europe, while the meridian one runs to the Persian Gulf ports.

Central Asian corridor was put into operation in 1996 – after the completion of the construction of 300-kilometre cross connection which linked the railway network of Central Asia with that of Iran. Millions of tones of various import-export as well as transit cargo are transported through Serahs station annually.

After the collapse of the former Soviet Union Iran began actively to restore the section of the Great Silk Road that crosses its territory and came out with the initiative to become the communication link between the world markets and post-Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus. It is appropriate to mention here that the possibility of westward cargo transit transportation due to the fact that railway network of Iran is connected with the Turkish railway network and thereby with that of the European countries, becomes rather promising. The creation of unified railway network from the border of China through the territory of Central Asia provided the opportunity to link the major industrial centres of Western Europe with the Pacific ports by 1,000-metre railway line. The countries located along the new line – Central Asian corridor of the Silk Road – can benefit much from intensification of exchange. Besides the profit gained from transit of the cargo transported through these territories, the countries get good prospects to further develop their own trade relations with the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea countries, with Pakistan and India.

The new railway corridor is also very promising for the development of passenger transportation. Such an initiative was forwarded by the railway authorities of Kazakhstan. In October 2001 there was signed a memorandum of common understanding between the Railway administrations of Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The document stipulated the opening of a new international passenger route Almaty – Tashkent – Turkmenabad – Serahs – Meshkhed – Tehran.

The length of the route is 3290 km with the traveling time being 68 hours. Already in spring 2002 the first passenger train was launched along the route. Dozens of European and Asian states became aware of the advantages as well as necessity of Iranian transit.

The neighbours of Iran also pay a great attention to the development of transport corridors. For example Turkmenistan, Iran’s nearest neighbour, laid 215-km railway line from the Central Asian corridor, connecting the Turkmenabad railway station with Kerkichi station on the Amu Darya river. There was also built the railroad bridge across the river. This new railway line joined the existing railway network in the south of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and provided for the reduction of cargo and passenger transportation time to the southern regions of the neighbouring countries. Intensive works on reconstruction of the railroad have been executed by Uzbekistan on its section of the Central Asian corridor.

The significance of the new corridor for the Eurasian continent is not limited by solely economic relations. An extremely important role this corridor began to play in the development of tourism on the Great Silk Road.

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