Siberian Transport Communications in the Second Half of the 19th Century: Geopolitical Economy

Abstract

The article covers the attempts to create a Trans-Siberian waterway, which were made by the government and individual persons in the second half of the 19th century. The ideas on the possibility of connecting Siberian river systems were suggested back in the middle of the 18th century, but due to a number of circumstances these attempts failed to be realized, despite the evident government interest in this issue. Local Siberian merchants came up with an initiative to improve river traffic on Siberian rivers in the middle of the 19th century, but the government did not see a pressing need for it and did not consider it expedient to participate in financing of this and other similar projects that came later. The issue of possible creation of a river route through the whole of Siberia is considered in the article from the perspective of geopolitical economy, which makes it possible to include in the analysis the topic of state authorities’ interest formation in the Siberian river communications. Such an approach is useful for discovering the reasons that prompted the state in the second half of the 19th century to pay attention to the urgency of pulling the space of Siberia and Russia into a single whole, using the Siberian rivers for this purpose. Despite the main disadvantage of these transport arteries - the seasonality, the freight transportation along them could be started rather quickly at minimal cost (compared to the construction of railways or overland tracts). The purpose of this article is to identify the cause-and-effect relationship between the decision of the state on the need for urgent transport development of Siberia and the Far East and the complication of the geopolitical situation in Asia, related to the activity of the main political actors in this region.