Introduction .................................................... 5
1 The historical sea gates of Russia ........................... 6
2 The problems of the necessity to use foreign ports after
the disintegration of the Soviet Union ....................... 9
3 Own port developments and transit corridors as
infrastructure development reactions to the challenges of
the national and the global economy ......................... 13
3.1 The necessity of exporting crude oil and raw material
stock of strategic importance through domestic ports ... 13
3.2 "The opening up" - the allocation of new port
capacities in some coastal areas of Russia ............. 14
3.2.1 The concentration of ports in the Gulf of
Finland and the exclave of Kaliningrad .......... 16
3.2.2 A compromise-based development strategy on the
southern shores (the development problems of
the "remaining ports" of Black Sea and Azov
Sea) ............................................ 20
3.2.3 Barents Sea and White Sea ports in peripheral
position ........................................ 21
3.2.4 Port developments in the Far Eastern coast of
Russia .......................................... 22
3.2.5 The losers of Russian port developments in the
post-soviet countries ........................... 24
3.2.6 The reducing transit services of Finnish ports
used for Russian foreign trade purposes
4 The Trans-Eurasian corridors as infrastructure improving
Russia's global and macro-regional role ..................... 28
4.1 The Transsib and its potential competitors in the
East-West inter-ocean transport ........................ 28
4.1.1 The Trans-Siberian mega railway's functional
changes and its present role in the freight
and passenger traffic between Europe and
Eastern Asia .................................... 28
4.1.2 The 'New Silk Route" Trans-Asian Corridor as
a weak potential alternative of Transsib ........ 34
4.1.3 The Arctic Ocean (Peri-Asian) route ............. 37
4.1.4 The potential consequences of the extension
of Panama Canal for the land bridge role of
Russia and on the traffic of the Arctic Sea ..... 41
4.2 The North-South Corridor and the Caspian Sea ........... 42
4.3 Trans-Eurasian terrestrial or Peri-Asian sea route?
Passing through or bypassing Russia? (The
perspectives of the freight transport route
competition between Europe and Eastern Asia) ........... 43
5 An Overview ................................................. 48
References .................................................. 49
List of figures
Figure 1 The shaping of sea shore and the prevalence of ice
in winter on the Eastern, Barents and White Seas ...... 7
Figure 2 The major harbours of the Russian Federation and of
the independent former states of the Soviet Union .... 10
Figure 3 The communication linkages between the Russian
Exclave Kaliningrad and Russia's main territory ...... 11
Figure 4 The location of Kerch Strait and of the disputed
Tusla Islands ........................................ 12
Figure 5 New Russian ports in the Gulf of Finland ............. 17
Figure 6 The harbours of the independent Baltic Countries ..... 26
Figure 7 The Transsib with other Trans-Eurasian corridors
and the North-South corridor ......................... 31
Figure 8 The Trans-Eurasian semi-global multi-modal
transportation route as proposed by Zholy ............ 35
Figure 9 The New Silk Route (TRACECA) project, the
alternatives of China-Central-Asia-East-Europe
route ................................................ 36
Figure 10 The position of the Arctic Ocean's navigation route
against the alternative routes bypassing Asia from
the South and crossing through the Panama Canal ...... 39
Figure 11 The major ports of the coastal navigation routes of
the Arctic Ocean and their connections with
Siberian navigable rivers ............................ 40
Figure 12 The major routes of China's Sea trade transport ...... 45
Figure 13 The longer route to be shortened by the Kra Channel
crossing the Malakka Strait .......................... 47
List of tables
Table 1 The division of Russia's total sea trade by sea in
year 2005 on the basis of the total traffic of sea
ports ................................................. 15
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