Turkmenistan in Eurasian railway geopolitics

Abstract

ABSTRACT Central Asian railways are usually discussed in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, and most studies deal with the main railway line at the heart of this grandiose China-backed project. Turkmenistan represents a somewhat extraordinary example due to the state’s massive investments in railways, which have almost doubled the length of the country’s rail network in recent decades. The building of the new railways was aimed at linking Turkmen regions together with direct internal connections instead of relying on complicated cross-border passages. It was also intended to make Turkmenistan a transport hub of the Eurasian transport system. Based on the landlocked countries concept and using the analysis of available statistics and transport flows along the two main rail corridors passing through Turkmenistan (east–west and north–south), the paper investigates the gap between these ambitious goals and the actual results, including the reasons for these processes. The emergence of strong competition in the form of other (more efficient) routes has signified a setback for the expansion of Turkmenistan’s railway network.