2020-11-10
Other articles >
BAM: road to the future
You can call the project of developing the expanses of Eastern Siberia and the Far East 'the road to the future' for various reasons. The main thing in this case is the huge untapped potential of the territory, where innumerable natural resources lie. Coal, gas, Nickel, copper, zinc, tin, silver, gold-generous natural gifts are waiting for their investors and heroes who can take them. And the key link in their development is a means of communication in the form of a railway.
The territory occupied by the Baikal-Amur mainline is geographically and historically extremely interesting. It has no analogues in the world. After all, this is where the future comes from: here the day begins, and the sunlight first illuminates the still sleepy Earth. Thanks to the development of the BAM attraction zone, which runs through the territory of Irkutsk, Chita, Amur regions, Yakutia, Buryatia, and Khabarovsk territory, more than 60 cities and towns were built here.
The future of the highway hides absolutely fantastic potential. Today, trade and economic ties with the Asia-Pacific region are of strategic importance. It is the Baikal-Amur mainline that is able to connect the countries of the Asia-Pacific region with the European States that stand modestly on the sidelines.
If the project is to be implemented to the maximum, it would be logical to connect the mainland with Sakhalin island by a tunnel. In this case, the entire huge flow of transit cargo going through Japan to Europe will pass through the BAM railway tracks.
It is difficult to realize the far-reaching prospects of BAM. This project is not a cheap one-day trip that promises profits in the near future. BAM-the road to the future. This is a program that may not yet have the appropriate technologies to implement. Only the human factor - labor feat, courage and perseverance in achieving the goal.
It is thanks to these qualities that the first builders of the Baikal-Amur mainline managed to achieve success. And as a result, among the endless taiga, at first timid stitches of the railway track appeared.
And now-the Davan pass and the 350-kilometer North-MUI ridge have been mastered, hundreds and thousands of kilometers of the way have been recaptured from nature. The eternal places of exile revealed their amazing beauty, which now appeared in a completely different, positive light.
Siberian expanses attracted the attention of researchers in the 19th century. It was in the 1880s that the Russian technical society discussed the construction of a railway through the Northern tip of lake Baikal further to the East. The built TRANS-Siberian railway, of course, connected St. Petersburg and Vladivostok. However, trains had to be ferried across lake Baikal on a special ferry.
Construction here began exactly a century later, in the Soviet state. In 1974, the Central Committee of the CPSU issued a Resolution 'on the construction of the Baikal-Amur railway'. After that, thousands of volunteers began to gather in the taiga forests under the motto 'from Baikal to Amur, we will build a highway'.
In 1975, the USSR Post issued mark, which clearly outlined the goal of the construction of the century: 'To put the huge natural resources of Siberia and the Far East at the service of the people'.
Exactly 10 years later (or just two five-year plans), the construction of The main BAM road was completed. On October 1, 1984, the 'Golden' links were laid, which joined the Western and Eastern branches of the tracks under construction. A rally was held in Tynda, where through traffic was officially opened on the route 'Ust-Kut-Tynda-Komsomolsk-on-Amur'. What was dedicated to another postage stamp of the USSR.
Two commemorative coins of the Bank of Russia issued in 2014 are dedicated to the significant start of the construction of the BAM. The silver one shows the working days of the trailblazers, and below it is a diagram of the highway and a list of cities through which it passes. The gold coin contains 7.78 g of pure precious metal. It shows the profiles of Komsomol members and Komsomol members-brave builders of the Baikal-Amur mainline. Coins were released in a limited edition (1000 and 750 copies, respectively) and will adorn any
Japanese Kato cranes and German Magirus-Deutz dump trucks, Chinese bananas and Vietnamese apples in rice husks, French blue chickens ('birds of happiness') and birch juice on half - empty counters, permafrost and the first snow in September-this was the life of the pioneers of BAM.
But no one complained, on the contrary, BAM statistics show the incredible efforts and greatest achievements of the highway builders, who continued to work and produce results in harsh climatic conditions and unsettled life. More than 25 km of tunnels, 142 bridges, 4,300 km of railway tracks, laid among the harsh ridges in the vast expanses of Siberia, can not lead 'to nowhere'.
I perfectly remember our house in Severobaikalsk, standing on stilts (because in permafrost conditions it is impossible to dig even a two-meter Foundation), where on frosty Baikal nights the walls froze and frost appeared in the corners, a cozy and bright kindergarten 'Gulliver' with fantastic toys, pines, fragrant bagulnik and larch growing right among the courtyards, snowdrifts under the roof, and numerous long trains rumbling along the track and day and night past our Windows...
Trains driven by passenger and freight heat and electric locomotives, postage stamps with images of which are in my collection, rattled over them. TEP-75, VL-82m, TEM-7, VL-80T are shown here against the background of taiga hills and tunnels.
Today's BAM is different from the one I knew. The dreaded word 'unprofitability' hung over the highway like a sword of Damocles. However, the true purpose and huge potential of the Baikal-Amur Mainline is still waiting for its users. And the time is not far off.
Save your collection for the future coins, brands, banknotes, postcards, images using the program HOBBYKEEPER ONLINE. After all, digitized copies are not subject to time and force majeure. You can access them from any mobile device thanks to the adapted version programs.
Take your favorite collection with you and travel the world with Hobby Keeper!
Irina I.
