Expansion of the Soviet merchant fleet began in earnest in the mid-1950s and accelerated rapidly. Since that time the Soviets have built and purchased from abroad more than 10 million deadweight tons of merchant shipping, and their fleet now ranks as sixth largest in the world.
Notwithstanding the rapid growth in the merchant fleet, the heavy orientation of the Soviet economy toward overland freight shipping for domestic use has continued. It is clear, therefore, that the decision of Soviet planners to acquire a large and modern merchant fleet sprang more from a desire to strengthen the country’s external economic position than to facilitate domestic transport.
Development of the Soviet Transport System
While generally ocean shipping occupies a minor position in the Soviet domestic transportation system, it is of crucial importance to certain northern and far-eastern regions of the country that are not adequately served by other means of transport. Geographic and climatic conditions have been the principal factors in defining the role of ocean shipping in the Soviet economy, but the economic policies of the Soviet government also have exerted a discernible influence.
The great expanse of the Soviet Union and the severe continental climate that prevails throughout most of the country provide strict impediments to efficient, low-cost transportation. It is nearly 7,000 miles from the westernmost border of the U.S.S.R. near Kaliningrad, on the Baltic Sea, to Cape Dezhnev, on the Bering Strait. The total land mass of the U.S.S.R. covers nearly eight and one-half million square miles, or almost one-sixth of the land area of the world outside the Antarctic, and nearly three times the land area of the continental United States.
The maritime boundaries of the U.S.S.R. extend for nearly 23,000 miles, and are the longest of any country in the world. But most of that coastline has little use for transport purposes since it is located in the far north and northern Pacific, and much of it is characterized by frozen seas and low marshy shores.
The seas adjacent to the western and southwestern parts of the country are separated by formidable land barriers, which add to the difficulty of intercoastal shipments. Soviet ports on the Baltic Sea are separated from those on the White Sea by the Scandinavian Peninsula, and from the Black Sea by the rest of Europe, though a well-developed system of canals integrates the major inland water routes in the western part of the Soviet Union and permits through-passage of large river craft between the Black, Caspian, Baltic, and White Seas.
Ocean shipments between Soviet European ports and those in the Far East are discouraged by the immense distances involved. The one-way voyage distance from the Black Sea to the major ports in the Soviet Far East is about 11,600 miles via the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. With the Canal closed, as it has been since 1967, the voyage around the Cape of Good Hope is nearly 5,000 miles longer. The Northern Sea Route, connecting the White Sea with the Pacific, offers a much shorter passage between European Russia and the Far East, but it is open for only about three months each year, and even then the voyage is difficult and slow. Consequently, the annual volume of shipments over this route remains low.
The large river systems that drain the Soviet land mass were important transport routes in earlier periods of Russian history, but their relative significance declined during the Soviet era. The location and direction of flow of most Soviet rivers make them ill-suited to serve as major transport arteries. Moreover, most Soviet rivers freeze in winter and are closed to navigation for periods ranging up to nine months.
While the physical geography and the climate of the Soviet Union are not conducive to the extensive development of water transportation, the economic geography of the country places heavy demands on the domestic transport system. Generally speaking, industrial, agricultural and energy resources are widely dispersed, and exchanges between different sectors of the economy require large expenditures for transportation. Only in the eastern Ukraine are the basic resource inputs necessary for a modern economy found in close proximity to each other. The shipment of coking coal from the Kuznets Basin westward for a distance of 1,400 miles to the steel center at Magnitogorsk is but one example of the long-distance freight hauls that are frequently necessary to bring together Soviet fuel and mineral resources. Agricultural production in the U.S.S.R. takes place over a vast area, extending from the western borders of the country eastward to the Yenisey River in central Siberia. The extensive nature of Soviet agriculture places heavy demands on the domestic transport system. Further complications are introduced by the wide seasonal variations in those demands, which reach their peak in the fall harvest season.
The Soviet population also is fairly widely dispersed, but urbanization is growing steadily. Of a total population of 242 million, 44% was classified as rural under the 1970 Soviet census as compared with 67% in 1940 and 52% in 1959. Only about 15% of Soviet citizens lived in cities with populations of 500,000 or more in 1970, and about 8% were residents of the 10 Soviet cities of more than one million inhabitants. There is, however, a notable concentration of population in the European area of the U.S.S.R., where just under 70% of the total population still lives.
The absence of a maritime orientation in the Soviet economy is reflected by the fact that less than 20% of the population lives in oblasts with sea borders, including those surrounding the Caspian Sea. The 1970 Soviet census data show 33 cities with populations exceeding 500,000. Of these, only five are port cities, and only two of these port cities, Leningrad and Baku, rank among the 10 largest Soviet cities. Many of the major cities in the U.S.S.R. are located on rivers, however, since rivers served as major avenues of communication and commerce during the early development of the country.
From the inception of the five-year-plan period in the late 1920s, Soviet economic planners pursued rapid rates of economic growth and sought a high degree of economic self-sufficiency, both of which had great significance for the development of domestic transportation. The emphasis on economic growth, and particularly the priority given to the development of heavy industry, meant that large amounts of bulky raw materials and fuels had to be shipped. The new industrial enterprises has [sic] first claim on investment resources, and industrial output grew faster than transport capacity, resulting in very intensive use of the existing transport facilities.
The stress on economic self-sufficiency led to reduced foreign trade, and reoriented the emphasis in the transportation network away from the old routes between the interior of the country and the coastal cities to new ones between production and consumption centers within the country. Because the main rivers are not especially well suited to this kind of traffic, emphasis was placed on the development of railways. As foreign trade shipping declined in importance, coastal shipping was encouraged, but it grew much more slowly than rail transport. The ton-kilometers of freight haulage on Soviet railroads increased by 282% from 1928 to 1940, for example, while that of maritime shipping, which at that time was largely domestic, increased by 149%. An additional outgrowth of the Soviet penchant for economic self-sufficiency was that trade between the far eastern regions of the U.S.S.R. and China and Japan was disrupted, forcing a somewhat unnatural reliance on long transport connections with the European regions of the country.
Soviet Transport Today
By 1960, overland transport accounted for nearly 88% of the total freight turnover in the Soviet Union (measured in ton-kilometers), and the railroads alone for just under 80% (see Table I). During the 1950s and the 1960s, the relative importance of the railroads declined somewhat, but in 1970 they still handled nearly two-thirds of total Soviet freight turnover. As illustrated in Table I, freight shipments by sea, pipeline, and truck all increased in relative importance, while the share of river shipments declined. The greatest changes in truck and pipeline traffic occurred during the 1950s, while transport by sea experienced its most rapid growth after 1960.
Most of the increase in ocean shipping was in foreign trade, however. Foreign trade shipping accounted for only 7% of the freight turnover of the Soviet merchant fleet in 1940, and 42% in 1950, but it has increased to more than 90% at present. With foreign trade shipping omitted, sea transport accounts for only about 2% of total Soviet freight turnover.
Railroads
The Soviet regime inherited a substantial railroad network from its Tsarist predecessors. Rail lines connecting the major cities of European Russia were fairly well established before the 1917 Revolution, and the Trans-Siberian Railway, stretching for more than 5,000 miles from the Urals to the Pacific, had been in operation since 1902.
[Map of the Soviet Union showing major transportation networks]
The Soviets developed rail and other transport facilities to meet at least the minimal needs of a growing economy, but investments in transportation were viewed as supplementary to, rather than as a precondition for, industrial and agricultural growth. Thus, rather than construct new transportation facilities to stimulate future economic development, as commonly occurred in the United States during the last half of the 19th century, the Soviets have invested in transport only when and to the extent necessary to support agricultural and industrial development programs already underway. This has meant that Soviet railroads continuously have been in the position of running to catch up with the rising demand for their services. In striving to meet these demands, they have, in the aggregate, accumulated an impressive record of accomplishment.
In spite of their low-priority claim on new investment resources, the output of the railroads has grown more rapidly than that of the Soviet economy generally. In a recent analysis of Soviet transport experience, Holland Hunter has shown that the increase in output of Soviet railroad was 2.2 times that of Soviet GNP from 1928 to 1940 and 1.4 times GNP growth in 1950-65. The increased output in railroading, resulted partly from the devotion of more resources to that activity and partly to more efficient use of those resources. Hunter’s analysis shows that the output of Soviet railroads has risen much more rapidly than the inputs of capital and labor. In other words, the productivity of these inputs has grown markedly over the years. Hunter’s findings are consistent with official Soviet data which show a decline in ruble costs per ton-kilometer of freight and passenger traffic of just over 50% from 1950 to 1969, and an increase of 22% in such traffic per man-year of labor employed in railroad “operating” positions.
The increased efficiency in Soviet railroading resulted both from technological improvements and from more intensive use of track and rolling stock. In 1940, the traffic density of Soviet railroads averaged 5.3 million ton-kilometers of freight and passengers per kilometer of track. This index increased to 6 million ton-kilometers in 1950, 13.5 million in 1960, and 19.7 million in 1969. Comparisons with U. S. performance show that with only about 40% as much track mileage as U. S. rail lines, Soviet railroads handle nearly twice as much traffic, in ton-mile terms.
A technological transformation has occurred in Soviet railroading since the mid-1950s. Probably greatest change has taken place in the area of motive power. In 1955, steam locomotives moved 86% of the freight and passenger traffic on Soviet railroads (in ton-kilometers), and electric and diesel locomotives handled only 8% and 6%, respectively, of that traffic. Fifteen years later, in 1970, steam locomotives accounted for only 3.5% of the turnover in freight and passenger traffic, while the share moved by electric locomotives increased to 48.7% and that of diesel locomotives to 47.8%. Electrified rail lines comprise only about 25% of the total track mileage in the U.S.S.R., but they include the routes with the greatest traffic densities, that is, the main-line routes and branch lines serving the major industrial and mining centers, and interurban lines connecting the larger cities. The Trans-Siberian line, which is the most important single rail line in the U.S.S.R., is electrified as far east as Slyudyanka, on the southern tip of Lake Baikal. Diesel locomotives are employed largely on routes where traffic densities are low or where electric power costs are high.
The geographic pattern of Soviet rail lines closely follows the distribution of population and economic activity, and is thus concentrated in the more developed areas from the Urals west. The Trans-Siberian Railway, which is double-tracked throughout its length, forms the main transport link between the European and Asiatic areas of the U.S.S.R. The Trans-Siberian line has a number of branches including the Central Siberian Railway and the South Siberian Railway, which extend generally in a southeasterly direction from the southern Urals through Kazakhstan and other Central Asian republics before turning north to rejoin the main Trans-Siberian route. Vast areas in the northeastern parts of the Soviet Union are still without rail service, but construction has begun on the North Siberian Railway which will extend from Tyumen northeastward to Tobolsk and Surgut and then eastward across Siberia to the Pacific, a total of some 4,000 miles.
Table I
Share of Different Modes of Transport in
Total Freight Turnover of U.S.S.R.
(in percentage of total ton-kilometers)
| Rail | Sea | River | Pipeline | Truck |
1940 | 85.1 | 4.9 | 7.4 | 0.8 | 1.8 |
1950 | 84.4 | 5.6 | 6.5 | 0.7 | 2.8 |
1960 | 79.8 | 7.0 | 5.3 | 2.7 | 5.2 |
1965 | 70.5 | 14.1 | 4.9 | 5.3 | 5.2 |
1968 | 66.4 | 17.2 | 4.6 | 6.3 | 5.5 |
1970 | 65.2 | 17.1 | 4.5 | 7.4 | 5.7 |
Source: K. S. Lyakov and N. K. Medvedev, Ekonomika. organizatsiya i planirovaniye raboty flota (Economics, Organization and Planning the Work of the Fleet) (Moscow: Transport, 1970) p. 11 for years through 1968, 1970 data from Tsentral’noye Statisticheskoye Upravleniye pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, SSSR v tsifrakh v 1970 gody (The U.S.S.R. in Figures, 1970) (Moscow: Statistika, 1971), p. 144. Air transport, which accounted for less than 0.1% of total in 1970, excluded.
Table II shows the distribution of rail tracks among the economic regions of the U.S.S.R. in 1966. The areas of greatest track density (expressed in kilometers of rail track per 1,000 square kilometers of territory) are seen to be the highly developed regions to the south and west of Moscow and in the Baltic republics, while the lowest densities are in Siberia and the Far East.
As might be expected, fuel and raw materials make up most of the freight carried on Soviet railroads. The Soviet economy has been relatively slow in converting from coal to petroleum and natural gas as the main source of fuel and energy, and while coal no longer predominates in the country’s fuel and energy balance, it still accounts for more ton-kilometers of rail transport than any other commodity. Since coal requires about twice as much transport (in ton-kilometers) per unit of heat energy as petroleum and natural gas, the slow conversion from coal has placed an extra burden on the railroads.
Table II
Operating Rail Trackage in the U.S.S.R. by Region—1966
(in kilometers)
Economic Region | Total | Electrified | Density per |
Northwest | 11,318 | 1,139 | 6.8 |
Central | 12,775 | 3,872 | 26.3 |
Volga-Vyatka | 3,401 | 1,089 | 13.0 |
Central Black Earth | 4,453 | 1,167 | 26.6 |
Volga | 8,942 | 1,832 | 13.2 |
North Caucasus | 5,800 | 1,480 | 16.3 |
Urals | 10,269 | 3,675 | 15.1 |
West Siberia | 5,752 | 2,623 | 2.4 |
East Siberia | 6,779 | 3,018 | 1.6 |
Far East | 5,599 | 300 | 0.9 |
Donets-Dnieper | 8,989 | 2,635 | 40.8 |
Southwest (Ukraine) | 9,932 | 1,225 | 36.8 |
South (Ukraine) | 2,904 | — | 26.2 |
Baltic | 6,873 | 218 | 36.3 |
Transcaucasus | 3,722 | 2,140 | 20.0 |
Central Asian | 5,533 | — | 4.3 |
Kazakhstan | 13,072 | 654 | 4.8 |
Belorussia | 5,354 | 78 | 25.8 |
Moldavia | 1,029 | — | 30.5 |
Total U.S.S.R. | 132,526 | 27,045 | 5.9 |
Source: N. N. Kazanskii, (ed.) Geografya putyei soobshcheniya (Geography of Communications) (Moscow: Transport, 1969), p. 232.
Table III shows the freight turnover on Soviet railroads by type of freight for various years since 1940.
Table III
Freight Turnover of Soviet Railroads by
Type of Freight, Selected Years
(billions of ton-kilometers)
| 1940 | 1950 | 1960 | 1965 | 1969 |
Total | 415.0 | 602.3 | 1,504.3 | 1,950.2 | 2367.1 |
Hard coal | 100.8 | 168.0 | 318.9 | 374.4 | 414.6 |
Coke | 6.1 | 10.2 | 15.0 | 22.5 | 22.7 |
Petroleum | 36.4 | 52.0 | 205.4 | 250.4 | 342.8 |
Ferrous metals | 22.6 | 38.7 | 92.5 | 140.8 | 190.9 |
Wood | 49.5 | 76.8 | 229.7 | 263.0 | 263.7 |
Grain | 34.0 | 30.9 | 93.8 | 83.7 | 118.9 |
Ores | 21.5 | 27.8 | 70.1 | 109.4 | 153.1 |
Mineral construction material | 28.2 | 46.5 | 157.1 | 226.5 | 272.3 |
Mineral fertilizers | 6.2 | 7.6 | 24.2 | 46.5 | 62.6 |
Other freight | 109.7 | 143.8 | 297.6 | 403.0 | 525.5 |
Source: Tsentral’noye Statisticheskoye Upravleniye pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, Narodnoye khozyaistvo sssr v 1969 g. (National Economy of the U.S.S.R. in 1969) (Moscow: Statistika, 1970), p. 445.
As the Table illustrates, while there was a decline in the importance of coal relative to other fuels and to total freight carried, the increase in petroleum traffic offset that decline, and the combined volume of fuel shipments still accounted for about one-third of all rail freight traffic in 1969.
The railroads are still the major means of passenger travel in the Soviet Union. In 1969, the total passenger traffic of the railroads exceeded that of buses by 43%, and in intercity passenger travel by 350% (in passenger-kilometers). Soviet airlines are second to the railroads in long-distance travel, and growing much more rapidly. (See also Table IV).
Passenger traffic constitutes a significant portion of the total operations of the Soviet rail network. Under the Soviet system of equating one passenger-kilometer to one ton-kilometer of freight, passenger traffic accounted for about 10% of the total freight and passenger turnover of the Soviet railroads in 1970.
Truck Transport
The automobile revolution came late to the Soviet Union and while the production and use of motor vehicles has expanded considerably in recent years, this form of transportation has not developed to the levels attained in the industrialized countries of the West. Passenger cars are still comparatively rare (especially private ones), and trucks dominate the motor vehicle park. Of the 844,000 motor vehicles produced in the U.S.S.R. in 1969, more than 500,000 were trucks, and 46,000 were buses. Passenger cars thus accounted for only about 35% of the industry’s output, compared with a little over 80% in the United States.
The lack of adequate roads has hampered the development of Soviet truck transportation. Except for a few major interurban routes, roads with all-weather (concrete and asphalt) surfaces are infrequent outside of metropolitan areas. For the most part, the rural areas are still served by roads that are not passable in the wet periods of spring and fall and are frequently closed by snow in winter. Thus, truck traffic on these roads is highly seasonal. In 1932, there were only about 300 miles of hard-surfaced roads in the whole country. New construction increased that mileage to 118 thousand by 1969, which was less than 10% of that in the United States in the same year, and equal to that of the United States in early 1920s.
Soviet truck traffic has grown rapidly in recent years but it is still small compared to that of the railroads. The volume of truck shipments grew by 357% in straight tonnage terms from 1950 to 1960, and by 67% from 1960 to 1970. Because of gradual increases in the average length of haul in trucking, freight turnover measured in ton-kilometers grew even more rapidly during those years; by 392% in 1950-60, and by 121% in 1960-70. Trucks carry far more freight in straight tonnage terms than do the railroads, but because the average length of haul in trucking is only about nine miles, as opposed to more than 500 miles on the railroads, the freight turnover in trucking in only about 8% of that of the railroads.
Because trucks are at once more economical and more flexible than rail carriers for short-haul traffic, Soviet planners have sought to use trucks in that role to the maximum extent. But the railroads still handle a significant portion of short-haul freight. For example, in 1970, 11% of all rail shipments moved no farther than 30 miles and 7% of the tonnage shipped was for distances less than 20 miles.
Long-distance trucking is common only in the less-developed regions not reached by railroads. These are mainly in Siberia, the Far East and Central Asia. There, many of the remote mining, lumbering and agricultural settlements depend heavily on trucks, and a number of roads have been established to serve them. The Kolyma Highway is a prominent example of such a road. From Magadan on the Sea of Okhotsk, it runs north for about 180 miles and then west to Arkagala (with a branch to Ust-Never), Khandyga, and finally Yakutsk, on the Lena River. In connecting the Sea with the river, it serves also the gold-producing region of the Upper Kolyma and Indigirka basins. The Amur-Yakutsk highway, running from Never, on the Trans-Siberian Railway northward to Yakutsk, forms another important overland route.
Highway construction and maintenance are very difficult in most of the areas traversed by these roads. Poor soil conditions and permafrost in the north and northeastern half of the country make for extremely unstable roadbeds, and the long, severe winters, marked with frequent storms and high winds, further complicate highway work.
Although shipment by truck is the chief means of moving freight in many of the sparsely settled parts of the U.S.S.R., most truck traffic, like rail traffic, is generated where population and economic activity are concentrated. The European regions of the U.S.S.R. account for three-fourths of the total freight tonnage carried in Soviet trucks, and three of the country’s 19 economic regions (Urals, Central and Donets-Dnieper) produce one-third of it.
Table IV shows the distribution of roads among the economic regions of the U.S.S.R., and the road density within these regions.
Table IV
Road Mileage in the U.S.S.R. by Economic Region—1968
Economic Region | Total | Surfaced Roads | Density per |
Northwest | 72.6 | 23.7 | 14.5 |
Central | 105.9 | 30.7 | 63.5 |
Volga-Vyatka | 58.2 | 12.7 | 48.4 |
Central Black Earth | 48.8 | 5.5 | 32.9 |
Volga | 106.0 | 21.2 | 31.0 |
North Caucasus | 55.8 | 26.7 | 74.7 |
Urals | 101.6 | 17.4 | 25.6 |
West Siberia | 79.4 | 8.8 | 3.6 |
East Siberia | 64.9 | 15.6 | 3.8 |
Far East | 46.6 | 11.2 | 1.8 |
Donets-Dnieper | 26.0 | 18.6 | 84.2 |
Southwest (Ukraine) | 127.1 | 42.2 | 156.8 |
South (Ukraine) | 33.0 | 11.0 | 99.5 |
Baltic | 86.2 | 42.3 | 223.0 |
Transcaucasus | 47.8 | 31.0 | 167.0 |
Central Asia | 66.4 | 33.7 | 76.4 |
Kazakhstan | 108.9 | 27.4 | 10.5 |
Belorussia | 65.5 | 20.2 | 97.7 |
Moldavia | 12.6 | 5.7 | 169.0 |
Total U.S.S.R. | 1,363.6 | 405.6 | 14.8 |
Source: N. N. Kazanskii, (ed.) Geografiya putyei soobshcheniya (Geography of Communication) (Moscow: Transport, 1969), p. 232.
Pipelines
The pipeline system has grown rapidly in recent years and now challenges the railroads as the main conveyor of domestic petroleum shipments. The first Russian pipelines were established in the Baku area in the 1880s, but they developed slowly. In 1950, the Soviet pipeline network comprised only about 3,300 miles of crude oil and product lines and 1,400 miles of natural gas lines. By 1969, however, the crude oil and product lines had been expanded to nearly 23,000 miles and the natural gas lines to 39,000 miles.
The newer pipelines have followed the center of Soviet petroleum production from the Transcaucasus region eastward to the Volga Basin and western Siberia. The main lines connect these producing areas with consumption and refinery centers both to the west and the east. The pipeline system extends westward to the Soviet borders where it connects with lines supplying the Communist countries of east Europe. By 1969, the eastern extension of the pipelines had reached Angarsk, on the Angara River near Lake Baikal.
Table V shows the distribution of Soviet petroleum shipments (in ton-kilometers) among the principal modes of transportation in 1969. The railroads and pipelines together accounted for more than 90% of the country’s domestic petroleum shipments in that year, and pipeline shipments were just over 70% as large as petroleum shipments by rail. Ten years earlier, pipeline shipments accounted for only about 25% of rail shipments of petroleum.
Table V
Soviet Domestic Petroleum Shipments
by Type of Carrier—1969
| Ton-Kilometers | Percentage of |
Railroads | 343 | 54 |
Pipelines | 245 | 38 |
River | 34 | 5 |
Coastal | 20 | 3 |
Total | 642 | 100 |
Source: Tsentral’noye Statisticheskoye Upravleniye pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR. Narodnoye Khozyaistvo sssr v 1969 g. (National Economy of the U.S.S.R. in 1969) (Moscow: Statistika, 1970), pp. 443 and 468 for railroads and pipelines; river and coastal shipments estimated. Comparable figures for the shipment of oil and oil products in the United States are: Rail, 1.68%; pipeline, 46.47%; water, 23.09%; and truck, 28.76%. If one examined crude oil alone, he would find about three-quarters of it went by pipeline and most of the rest by water.
Air Transport
Air transport in the Soviet Union as elsewhere, is devoted largely to passenger traffic. Cargo shipments by air are important only in isolated areas not served by land or water routes and for high-priority cargoes.
Aeroflot, the Soviet state airline, operates scheduled flights over routes that parallel roughly the major rail routes, and in addition, serves remote regions of the country not reached by the railroads. In many of these areas, the airline is the chief mode of long-distance passenger travel. Aeroflot also maintains scheduled service to many foreign cities, including New York and Tokyo as well as major European centers.
Air travel is still secondary to rail travel in the U.S.S.R., both in terms of the number of passengers carried and in passenger-kilometers, but it is growing far more rapidly. Table VI shows the rapid changes that have occurred in long-distance passenger travel in the Soviet Union in recent years. Scheduled air service began in 1923, between Moscow and Gorki, but as the Table indicates, the volume of traffic was still meager in 1950. Since then, air travel has grown rapidly. Two decades ago, passenger traffic on Soviet airlines (in passenger-kilometers) was less than one percent of that of the railroads in long-distance travel, but by 1969, the airlines accounted for 37% as many long-distance passenger kilometers as the railroads. Given the immense proportions of the Soviet Union, and the high priority that the Soviet government grants to the development of air transport and the aircraft industry, this trend will very likely continue.
Table VI
Passenger Travel on Soviet Railroads and Airlines
Selected Years
| 1950 | 1960 | 1965 | 1970 |
Railroads* |
|
|
|
|
Number of passengers | 209 | 237 | 252 | 311 |
Passenger-kilometers | 67 | 130 | 150 | 193 |
Airlines |
|
|
|
|
Number of passengers | 1.5 | 16 | 42 | 68 |
Passenger-kilometers | 1.2 | 12 | 62 | 71 |
* Excludes intracity and suburban rail travel.
Source: Tsentral’noye Statisticheskoye upravleniye pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, Narodnoye khozyaistvo sssr v 1969 g. (National Economy of the U.S.S.R. in 1969) (Moscow: Statistika, 1970), pp. 446, 486.
Inland Waterways
The rivers, canals, lakes, and reservoirs of the Soviet Union comprise more than 85,000 miles of navigable waterways. They are, despite the unhelpful direction most rivers take, an important element in the Soviet transportation system, serving principally in conjunction with the railroads in long-distance shipments of bulky, raw and crude materials and in supplying remote areas not served by rail or truck routes. Inland water transport has been greatly improved by several canals which tie together the major rivers of European Russia and make possible through shipments of bulk cargoes between the various seas that border the country.
The main rivers of the U.S.S.R. rank among the largest in the world. As the first major transportation routes in Russia, these rivers were of great importance in the early development of the economy. The relatively flat topography in European Russia and western Siberia made portages between rivers easy, and the initial rail lines followed these portage routes.
Soviet rivers have certain deficiencies, however, that limit their usefulness as modern transportation routes. The basic problem is that nearly all of them run at right angles to the main flow of traffic, hence, they do not connect the major areas of economic activity. They generally follow either a southerly course to the Black and Caspian Seas, or a northerly course to the Baltic and Arctic Seas, while the main traffic movements are in an east-west direction.
The climate further impedes river transport, and the rivers are frozen for periods of from two to nine month each year, depending on the area. River shipping thus has a distinctly seasonal character, which lessens its attractiveness to shippers. The slow speed at which river shipments move, compared with railroad traffic, adds an extra cost burden, since goods in transit represent dormant capital investment. River traffic thus tends to be limited to low-value products and those, such as grain, that are produced in seasonal cycles and stored for later consumption.
The average costs of freight shipments on Soviet rivers were slightly lower per ton-kilometer than on the railroads before 1965, when they became approximately equal. But the differences in ton-kilometer costs were generally offset by longer route distances in river shipping. For some highly efficient product routes, such as petroleum shipments on the Volga, however, river traffic has been very economical.
Soviet transport planners, in efforts to relieve the overburdened railroads, have sought to attract cargoes to river shipments by employing discriminatory freight schedules. Thus, on rivers with competing rail routes, tariffs were reduced well below cost levels for products that were generally moved by rail, such as coal and ore, and set above costs for timber and petroleum cargoes that were better suited to river shipment. The apparent outcome of this policy was not the intended one of reducing overall rail traffic in favor of river transport, but to direct petroleum and timber cargoes from the rivers to the railroads, and coal and ore freight from the railroads to the rivers, which resulted in a less efficient division of freight traffic than had existed previously.
River traffic has increased steadily, but in recent years more slowly than transport modes. In 1960, only the railroads produced more ton-kilometers of freight turnover than river transport. But by 1969, river transport accounted for less than 5% of the total ton-kilometers in Soviet transport, and was surpassed by both trucking and pipelines. River transport has greater significance where other means of moving bulk freight are not present, however, than its share of total freight traffic would indicate.
The share of total river shipments accounted for by mineral construction materials is high and has increased sharply in recent years, reaching just under 50% in 1969. Though still high, shipments of timber have declined in relative importance, and, since 1965, in absolute terms as well. This decline has been due mainly to reduced rafting of logs resulting from hydroelectric developments. Between them, mineral construction material and timber now make up more than 75% of the tonnage of Soviet river shipments, and together with a few other bulk commodities, for about 95%.
Shipments of timber predominate on rivers in the northern sections of the country while mineral construction materials figure heavily in river shipments in all regions. Significant quantities of petroleum are shipped by river only in the Volga-Kama Basin. Shipments of coal are concentrated on the Don, Dnieper, Northern Donets, and Pechora Rivers. The Bug and Dnieper are the most important Soviet rivers for ore traffic.
Passenger traffic presents an interesting, if minor, aspect of Soviet river transport. Such traffic is small compared with that of the major carriers—about 2% of that of the railroads, for example, but it continues to grow. Travel by river is mostly on intracity and suburban routes, and the average trip-length is only about 25 miles. There is some intercity traffic, however, much of it on the Volga and its tributaries. Hydrofoils, capable of 40 knots or more, carry passengers between Gorki and Kazan, and the experimental use of air-cushion craft for passenger transport has been initiated.
Soviet river traffic is highly concentrated geographically as well as with respect to the commodities carried. The rivers in the European sector of the country carry the largest volume of shipments. The Volga Basin, which includes, in addition to the Volga, such rivers as the Kama, Oka, Moskva, Vyatka and Belaya, accounts for a disproportionate share of that traffic. In 1965, the freight turnover on these rivers comprised 55% of that produced in all Soviet river transport.
The Volga, which is nearly 2,300 miles long and navigable for more than 2,000 miles from well north of Moscow to the Caspian, is not only the country’s most heavily used inland waterway, but also, not surprisingly, the scene of its most efficient river shipping operations. Average shipping costs per ton-kilometers on the Volga are only a little more than one-half the costs of railroad shipments over parallel routes.
Completion of the Volga-Don Canal in 1952 opened a water route from the Volga and the Caspian Sea to Don River and the Black Sea, thus permitting water shipments of bulk cargoes between, on the one hand, Volga Basin, the Urals, and Central economic regions and, on the other, the Northern Caucasus and the Ukraine. The Volga-Don Canal has greatly enhanced the importance of the Don as a water-shipping route. The stretch below Kalach-Na-Donu, where the Canal joins the river accounts for most of the freight traffic on the Don, and most of those shipments come from, or are bound for, the Volga system. But the Don carries considerable traffic that is independent of the canal, much of it to and from the highly industrialized Donets Basin.
In 1964, the Volga-Baltic Canal was opened, completing the water link between the Black, Baltic, and White seas. This canal connects the Rybinsk Reservoir, about 160 miles north of Moscow, with Lake Onega, which lies between Lake Ladoga and the White Sea. Access from Lake Onega to the Baltic is gained through the Baltic Sea Waterway, which extends eastward from Leningrad, on the Gulf of Finland. The White Sea Waterway permits passage from Lake Onega to the White Sea. The Volga-Baltic Canal thus makes possible through-shipments between the Caspian and Black seas in the south and the Baltic and White seas in the north. River shipments between Moscow and the Volga system go by way of the Moscow River and the Moscow-Volga Canal, which carries the greatest volume of freight traffic of any canal in the Soviet Union.
The Dnieper system forms the principal inland water route in the Ukrainian and Belorussian regions of the U.S.S.R. A series of dams on the lower reaches of the river has created a chain of reservoirs that permit navigation by river vessels drawing as much as 11 feet for more than 200 miles from the Black Sea to the confluence with the Pripyat River. More limited navigation is possible for an additional 550 miles on the upper part of the river. The Dnieper system connects with the Baltic Sea through the Pripyat River which joins the Bug River and the Polish inland waterways. This route is characterized by poor navigation conditions, especially on the Bug River, and its use is limited to small, shallow-draft vessels and small-scale, local shipments. The extension of the Dnieper system to allow deep-draft river vessels to pass between the Baltic and Black Seas has been planned for some time. A series of dams on the Pripyat and Neman Rivers is contemplated, both to assure a uniform water depth of 3.65 meters along the route and to control flooding. Completion of this project appears to be many years away, however.
The large rivers east of the Ural Mountains carry less freight than the major rivers in the European parts of the Soviet Union, but they are important as they provide the only means for long-distance shipping of bulk cargoes in wide areas of northern and northeastern Siberia, they are important.
The Ob and Irtysh Rivers, together with their tributaries, form the most important inland water transport system in Soviet Asia. Ports on the middle and upper stretches of these rivers where they were crossed by rail lines, and river shipments move in both directions from these rail junctions. River craft serving the mining and metallurgical industries of the Altay region and the agricultural areas of northeastern Kazakhstan are prominent on the Irtysh, upstream from Omsk. Downstream from that point, traffic to and from the petroleum producing centers in Tyumen Oblast is important. The major rail terminals at Novosibirsk and Barnaul generate considerable traffic on the upper Ob, much of it consisting of construction materials, coal, grain, timber and salt. In the lower Ob between its confluence with the Irtysh and its mouth on the Kara Sea, timber shipments predominate.
River transport is uniquely important in eastern Siberia, since there are no highways or railways in most of that region. The Yenisei, Angara and Lena Rivers, the most important water shipping routes in the area, join with east-west rail lines in their upper, or southern, reaches, and ocean vessels plying the Northern Sea Route, serve the port cities of Dudinka and Igarka, on the lower Yenisei, and Tiksi, on the Lena delta. Shipments to various points along these rivers generally move upstream from the Northern Sea ports and downstream from the rail junctions. Outbound shipments of timber, mining and agricultural products in some cases move upstream to the rail terminals, but for the most part they are sent downstream for transshipment by sea.
In the Far East, the Amur River and its principal tributaries, the Zeya and the Ussuri; in northeastern Siberia, the Kolyma River; and in Central Asia, the Amu Darya River-Aral Sea system are less prominent shipping routes than the others in Soviet Asia in terms of traffic volume, but they are of great importance locally. River shipping accounts for a greater share of total freight turnover in the Soviet Far East, for example, than in any other economic region of the country, except for the Volga and Volga-Vyatka regions. Table VII, which shows the relative importance of different modes of transport in Soviet domestic freight shipments by economic region for 1965, illustrates this point.
Improvements in the river fleet have greatly increased the efficiency of water transport in recent years. Diesel-powered vessels now predominate over steam, and steel barges have replaced wooden ones. A number of new types of river ships, barges, and tugs, as shown below, have been introduced since 1960, including some designed for combined river and sea voyages.
Volga-Don class of 5,000-ton dry bulk carriers. Placed in series construction in 1960, they are designed for the Volga-Kama and Volga-Don systems.
Velikii class of 5,000-ton tankers. Intended for use between the Volga-Kama system and the Baltic Sea via the Volga-Baltic waterway, they are capable of rough weather passages through Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga.
Baltic class of 2,000-ton dry bulk carriers. Series construction began in 1962. They are used between Arkhangelsk and Kaliningrad through the White Sea-Baltic Waterway, and on the Amur River in the Soviet Far East.
Professor Kerichev class of 2,700-ton dry bulk carriers. Designed to carry cargoes between the Caspian and Baltic Seas, they have a rough-weather capability for Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga.
A sectional barge train consisting of two barges of 3,750 tons capacity each, pushed by a Dunaiskii-class tug of 1,340 h.p., used for through-shipments of bulk cargoes on the Volga-Kama and Don systems.
XXIII Congress of the CPSU class barge train of 10,000-ton capacity, made up of a 5,000-ton capacity dumb barge pushed by a Volga-Don-class dry bulk carrier. This system, introduced in 1966, provides the lowest-cost transport in the Soviet river fleet.
Coastal Shipping
The geographic and climatic influences on coastal shipping in the U.S.S.R. are much the same as encountered by river shipping. As with the major rivers, the littoral seas of the U.S.S.R. are not well situated to facilitate east-west cargo flows, and the severe winter climate imposes a distinct seasonal pattern on most coastal shipping operations.
Over short distances, coastal shipping is less economical than rail shipping distances, and hence, it is used mainly where rail service is inadequate or where the direct sea route is sufficiently shorter than the rail route to offset higher ton-kilometer shipping costs. Such routes, generally involving mixed rail-ocean shipments are found in the Black Sea-Azov and Caspian basins. As is well known, for long distances, costs per kilometer are lower for ocean shipping than for railroads. Therefore, intercoastal shipments frequently can be made at lower cost than rail shipments, even though much greater distances are involved. Even though the distance from Moscow to Nakhodka by the mixed rail-ocean route (via Suez) is more than 90% greater than by the direct rail route, shipping costs per ton of cargo are lower on the mixed rail-ocean route. No information is available on the comparative cost of shipping around Africa, as has been necessary since 1967.
Transport planners have endeavored, but without much success, to increase the share of long-distance freight traffice [sic] moving by sea. They have given considerable attention, in particular, to developing commercial traffic on the Northern Sea Route, which greatly shortens the distance for ocean shipments between the European and Far Eastern regions of the country.
Ocean shipping as a whole has grown more rapidly than any other mode of transport except pipelines in the U.S.S.R. in recent years, but most of that growth has been in foreign-trade shipping. Coastal shipping has continued to grow in absolute terms, but at slower rates than either foreign trade shipping or other modes of domestic transport. Consequently, the relative importance of coastal shipping has declined.
In 1940, for example, coastal shipping accounted for 97% of the cargo tonnage carried by the Soviet merchant fleet. By 1960, that share had declined to 71%, and by 1970, to 43%. Because the average length of haul in Soviet coastal shipping is much shorter than in foreign trade, the decline in terms of ton-kilometers performance was even greater. Measured in ton-kilometers, coastal shipping produced 94% of the cargo turnover of the Soviet merchant fleet in 1940, but only 29% in 1960, and 9% in 1970. There has been a concomitant decline in the share of coastal shipping in the combined freight turnover of all modes of transport. In 1970, coastal shipping accounted for only 1.5% of that total, down from 4.5% in 1940.
Petroleum cargoes, heavily concentrated in the Black Sea-Azov and Caspian basins, account for just under one-half of the tonnage in Soviet coastal shipping. Mineral construction materials make up about one-third of the tonnage of dry cargo shipments, coal and ore an additional one-third, and the remaining third is distributed largely among such bulk products as timber, grain, salt, and chemical fertilizers. Shipments of construction materials and coal are dispersed fairly widely among the different sea basins of the Soviet Union, but ore shipments are confined largely to the Black Sea. The Northern and Baltic Sea basins account for most of the timber shipments.
Table VII
Soviet Domestic Freight Turnover by Mode of Transport and Economic Region—1965
(percentage of total ton-kilometers)
Economic Region | Railroads | River | Coastal | Pipelines | Automotive |
Northwest | 80.0 | 9.1 | 1.9 | 2.5 | 6.5 |
Central | 70.6 | 5.5 | — | 15.2 | 8.7 |
Volga-Vyatka | 64.0 | 14.7 | — | 16.7 | 4.6 |
Central-Black Earth | 70.5 | 0.2 | — | 24.3 | 5.0 |
Volga | 53.0 | 12.3 | — | 29.8 | 4.9 |
North Caucasus | 69.3 | 4.2 | 3.7 | 16.3 | 6.5 |
Urals | 76.8 | 7.1 | — | 10.6 | 5.5 |
West Siberia | 76.4 | 4.4 | — | 12.2 | 7.0 |
East Siberia | 76.2 | 4.0 | 0.5 | 14.3 | 5.0 |
Far East | 64.0 | 12.0 | 14.0 | 1.5 | 8.5 |
Donets-Dnieper | 87.5 | 2.2 | 1.6 | — | 8.7 |
Southwest (Ukraine) | 82.5 | 0.5 | — | 7.0 | 10.0 |
South (Ukraine) | 62.0 | 0.2 | 20.8 | — | 17.0 |
Baltic | 66.0 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 17.5 | 14.7 |
Transcaucasus | 59.0 | — | 10.1 | 15.8 | 15.1 |
Central Asian | 57.5 | 0.8 | 6.3 | 12.4 | 23.0 |
Kazakhstan | 83.6 | 0.7 | 1.0 | 6.4 | 8.3 |
Belorussia | 53.2 | 1.8 | — | 34.8 | 10.2 |
Moldavia | 65.0 | 1.3 | — | — | 33.7 |
Total U.S.S.R. | 72.0 | 5.4 | 1.5 | 13.5 | 7.6 |
Source: N. N. Kazanskii, (ed.) Geografiya putyei soobscheniya (Geography of Communications) (Moscow: Transport, 1969), p. 233.
Table VIII shows the commodity composition of Soviet domestic sea transport. The pattern of these shipments is seen to have held fairly constant in recent years. Petroleum shipments accounted for 44% of the cargo tonnage in 1960 and 46% in 1970, for example, and the major dry bulk products have retained approximately the same shares of total tonnage.
Table VIII
Commodity Structure of Soviet Domestic
Shipping, 1960, 1963, and 1970
(millions of metric tons)
| 1960 | 1965 | 1970 |
Dry cargo | 29.5 | 34.4 | 38.0 |
Hard coal | 5.7 | 5.1 | Na |
Timber and wood | 2.2 | 1.9 | Na |
Ores | 5.7 | 6.4 | Na |
Mineral construction | 9.3 | 11.8 | Na |
Metal and metal scrap | 0.6 | 1.0 | Na |
Grain | 1.4 | 1.4 | Na |
Salt | 0.2 | 0.3 | Na |
Fish and fish products | 0.09 | 0.2 | Na |
Machinery and equipment | 0.5 | 0.6 | Na |
Other | |||
Petroleum | 24.0 | 25.5 | 32.0 |
Total | 54.0 | 59.5 | 70.0 |
Source: Tsentral’noye Statisticheskoye upravleniye pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, Narodnoye Khozyaistva sssr v 1969 g (National Economy of the U.S.S.R. in 1969) (Moscow: Statistika, 1970) p. 456; for dry cargo shipments in 1965; Morskoy lot [sic] (Maritime Fleet) Nov. 1970, pp. 3-4 for dry cargo and petroleum shipment in 1970 and petroleum shipments in 1965; V. G. Bakayev, and S. M. Bayev (ed.) Transport sssr: morskoy transport (Transportation U.S.S.R.: Maritime Transport) (Moscow: Transport, 1961) p. 10 for petroleum shipments in 1960.
The Black Sea is the center of merchant shipping activity in the Soviet Union. As Table IX shows, the Black Sea-Azov basin carries a greater tonnage of domestic shipping than any other Soviet sea basin, and the same is true for foreign trade shipping. The areas adjacent to the Black Sea-Azov basin contain a number of large industrial centers as well as some of the most important raw material-producing regions in the Soviet Union. The coastal areas of the basin are well served by land transport and the Volga-Don canal allows access to the country’s principal inland water routes. These factors have contributed significantly to the growth of ocean shipping in the area by creating favorable conditions for its combination with other forms of transport. Climatic conditions are more favorable to ocean shipping in the Black Sea-Azov basin than anywhere else in the U.S.S.R. Navigation is possible year-around. Ice forms in some of the northern areas in especially cold winters, but icebreakers generally are able to keep ports open without much difficulty. Shallow waters in much of the northern and northwestern parts of the Black Sea, and throughout the Sea of Azov, as well as strong winter winds, impede navigation somewhat, however.
Petroleum, mineral construction materials, ore, and coal are the most important products shipped in the coastal trades in the Black Sea-Azov basin. Petroleum shipments move from ports in the Caucasus such as Novorossiisk, Batumi, and Tuapse to Odessa and Feodosia on the Black Sea and then by intercoastal shipments to various ports in other sea basins. Soviet petroleum exports also originate largely from these Black Sea ports.
Coal is shipped from Zhdanov on the Sea of Azov to Poti and Odessa, and during the winter months from Novorossiisk. Manganese and iron ore are shipped in large quantities from Poti to Zhdanov, Novorossiisk and Feodosia. Soviet exports of coal and ore move from Soviet Black Sea ports, largely to eastern European countries via the Danube.
Balabanovka is the origin of much of the traffic if mineral construction materials, which is destined largely for Odessa, Nikolaev, and Kherson. Grain, salt, and timber are also shipped, though in lesser quantities, in the Black Sea-Azov basin. Timber figures more prominently in intercoastal traffic between the Black Sea and other sea basins.
Passenger traffic is significant on the Black Sea. Much of it is associated with cruises from resort centers such as Yalta and Sochi, but regular passenger service between major ports is maintained as well.
Table IX
Distribution of Soviet Coastal Shipping by Sea Basin—1962
(in percentage of total)
| In Tonnage | In Ton-Kilometers |
Northern | 4.5 | 5.7 |
Baltic | 3.3 | 2.6 |
Black Sea-Azov | 38.3 | 28.7 |
Far Eastern | 15.7 | 34.9 |
Caspian | 38.2 | 28.1 |
Source: Ye. D. Rodin “Voprosy rayonirovaniya i ratsionalizatsii morskikh soobscheniya.” (Problems in Regionalization and Rationalization of Maritime Communications) in V. S. Bondarenko et. al. (ed.) Ekonomika morskogo transporta morskoy transport v sisteme yedinoy transportnoy seti sssr (Moscow Transport, 1965), p. 36.
The Caspian Sea, in spite of its very difficult navigation conditions, is second only to the Black Sea in terms of cargo tonnage in Soviet coastal shipping. The water level of the Caspian has been declining for more than 75 years, and since 1930 it has dropped by more than eight feet. The northern half of the Caspian now averages only about 13 feet in depth, and navigation in that area is limited to shallow-draft vessels. The Caspian is connected to the Black Sea and Soviet inland waterways through the Volga. But access to the Volga is limited to ships drawing no more than four meters. For larger ships, cargoes must be transloaded in the open roadstead approximately 110 miles south of the port of Astrakhan, on the Volga delta. Shallow-draft vessels move from the roadstead to Astrakhan and the Volga through a sea canal. Severe icing closes the northern Caspian to navigation for about four months each winter, from December through March.
The southern half of the Caspian is much deeper and is ice-free the year around, but it is subject to frequent winter storms, with winds often reaching hurricane force. Shipping activity is heaviest in the south-central area. Petroleum shipments from Baku east to Krasnovodsk and north to Makhachkala, Astrakhan and Guryev predominate, accounting for as much as 90% of the cargo volume.
Grain and grain products are prominent among the dry cargoes shipped on the Caspian. Grain move [sic] from Krasnovodsk to the west and flour from Baku to the east. Timber moves down the Volga to Astrakhan and then to such Caspian ports as Baku and Guryev. Large quantities of salt are shipped from the southeastern Caspian, and construction materials account for much of the short-haul traffic around major ports. A railroad ferry from Krasnovodsk to Baku began service in 1962 and carries a growing volume of traffic between the Central Asian republics and the Caucasus.
Soviet shipping on the Baltic Sea is restricted largely to foreign trade. Poor navigation conditions and the highly developed network of railroads and other modes of inland transport in the coastal regions have limited coastal shipping. The eastern Baltic is subject to severe icing for long periods. For example, the Gulf of Finland is frozen for about 180 days each year, and the Gulf of Riga for 80 to 90 days. Though much less hampered by ice, the southern and central Baltic have about 60 days of fog each year.
Coastal shipping on the Baltic consists largely of supplying pulpwood to paper mills and local movements of construction materials. Transport of these commodities has declined in recent years in favor of river transport.
The Northern Sea Basin extends from the Kola Peninsula in the west across the Arctic coast of the U.S.S.R. to Bering Strait. Severe icing, frequent storms with high winds, and dense fogs characterize this region. But conditions vary considerably with respect to area and from year to year. The southeast part of the Barents Sea which is warmed by the Gulf Stream, is open to shipping all year, though the nearby White Sea remains frozen from November to May. The Northern Sea Route, running eastward from the Barents Sea through the Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas, is passable for only about three months each year, and then only with difficulty.
Merchant ships designed to ply the Northern Sea Route have reinforced hulls for protection against ice. Ships move in convoys, guided by local pilots, and escorted through difficult passages by icebreakers. They are supported by aerial reconnaissance, a variety of navigational aids, and a series of bunkering stations and other port facilities along the route. Ships must proceed over the Northern Sea Route at relatively low speeds, perhaps only two-thirds or half their normal speeds, and delays are common while improved ice conditions are awaited. The extra services required on the Northern Sea Route increase shipping costs by 40 to 50%, but the higher costs are offset by savings in voyage-distance for shipments to the Soviet Far East. The distance from Leningrad to Vladivostok is 5,000 miles shorter over the Northern Sea Route than over the southern route, via the Suez Canal, for example. Moreover, the Northern Sea Route permits voyages from the European areas of the Soviet Union to the Far East entirely through Soviet territorial waters, a point that Soviet writers frequently stress.
Merchant shipping in the Northern Sea Basin is heaviest in the Barents and White Seas. Timber, coal, iron ore, and apatite shipments from Murmansk figure heavily in this traffic. Timber, which is brought down the Northern Dvina and other rivers to coastal points such as Arkhangelsk and then shipped by sea, is the most important product carried on the White Sea. Major ports on the Northern Sea Route east of the White and Barents Seas frequently are located at or near the mouths of the large Siberian rivers. Industrial products and supplies of various kinds are shipped to these ports, often for transshipment by river to inland points, and raw and semi-processed products and shipped out. These shipments are comparatively small in volume, but they are important because the Northern Sea Route provides the only means of shipping bulk cargoes east or west from those enormous northern Siberian areas not accessible by rail or highways.
Dudinka and Igarka, both on the Yenisei, are among the chief ports along the Northern Sea Route. Dudinka serves as the port for Norilsk, with its large copper-nickel combine, and Igarka is a major timber port 370 miles from the sea. Tiksi, on the Lena delta, serves as the transshipping point for cargoes bound for inland points along the river, and for other ports along the Arctic coast. Ambarchik, at the mouth of the Kolyma River, Amderma on the Kara Sea, Nordvik on the Laptev Sea, and Pevek on the East Siberian Sea are additional ports of call along the Northern Sea Route.
Unlike the rest of the country, coastal shipping has great importance for the regional economy of the Soviet Far East. Nearly all points on the extensive Pacific coast of the mainland, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Sakhalin Island depend solely on ships for their connections with the rest of the country.
___________________________________________________________________________
SOURCES
Theodore Shabad, Geography of the U.S.S.R.: A Regional Survey, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), p. 3.
Holland Hunter, Soviet Transportation Experience: Its Lesson for Other Countries (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1968) Chapters 1 and 2 contain excellent summaries of the development of the Soviet transportation system and the factors that influenced that development.
Tsentral’noye Statisticheskoye Upravleniye pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, Narodnoye khozyaistvo sssr v 1969 g. (National Economy of the U.S.S.R. in 1969) (Moscow: Statistika, 1969), p. 11.
Tsentral’noye Statisticheskoye Upravleniye pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, Transport i svyaz’ sssr statisticheskii sbornik (Transport and Communications in the U.S.S.R., a Statistical Handbook) (Moscow: Statistika, 1967), p. 26.
N. N. Kazanskii (ed.) Geografiya putyei soobshcheniye (Geography of Communication) (Moscow: Transport, 1969), p. 233 shows 1.5% for 1965.
Tsentral’noye Statisticheskoye Upravleniye pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, SSSR v tsifrakh v 1970 gody (The U.S.S.R. in Figures in 1970) (Moscow: Statistika, 1971), p. 145.
Yuri Sukhanov, From the Urals to the Pacific (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), p. 99.
U. S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1970 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1970), p. 543. Data are for 1968.
U. S. Department of Transportation, Highway Statistics, 1969 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1970), p. 183.
Zheleznodorozhnyy transport (Railway Transport), May 1971, pp. 5-13.
J. N. Westwood, A History of Russian Railways, (London: Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1964) p. 286.
K. S. Lyakhov and N. K. Medvedyev, Ekonomika, organizatsiya i planirovaniya roboty flota (Economic Organization, and Planning the Work of the Fleet, (Moscow: Transport, 1970) pp. 36-7.
Victor P. Petrov, “Soviet Canals,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, July 1967, p. 38.
V. G. Bakayev, Exspluatatsiya morskogo flota (Operation of the Maritime Fleet) (Moscow: Transport, 1965), p. 48.
V. G. Bakayev and S. M. Bayev (ed.) Transport sssr morskoy transport (U.S.S.R. Transportation Maritime Transport) (Moscow: Transport, 1961), pp. 7-10 for 1940 and 1960; Morskoy flot (Maritime Fleet) November 1970, pp. 3-4, and March 1971, p. 6.
A. A. Briliant, Geografiya morskikh putyei (Geography of the Seaways) (Moscow: Transport, 1966), p. 37.
T. J. Laforest “Strategic Significance of the Northern Sea Route” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1967, pp. 56-57.
Ekonomicheskaya gazeta (Economic Gazette) No. 19, May 1971. Transportnoye stroitel’stvo (Transport Construction), May 1971.
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But in most of the Soviet Far East, extremely low temperatures and frequent storms in winter restrict coastal shipping to the summer, and even then it is often hindered by dense fog. Generally, the Bering and Okhotsk Seas are ice-bound in winter, but some navigation is maintained with the aid of icebreakers. Icing up in October, these seas stay frozen until June in some areas. The Tatar Strait, between the Sea of Japan and the Okhotsk, freezes in November, and the ice on the Soviet coast extends as far south as the Korean border. The Soya, or La Perouse, Strait, between Sakhalin and Hokkaido, has drift ice in midwinter. Vladivostok and Nakhoda [sic], the largest ports in the Soviet Far East, are open to shipping all year. Vladivostok is the central port for coastal freight and passenger traffic, while Nakhodka is the main foreign-trade port.
The cargoes carried in the coastal trade in the Far East include a higher percentage of general cargo and supplies than elsewhere in the U.S.S.R., and a correspondingly lower share of bulk freights. Scheduled coastal passenger traffic is also of more importance in the Far East than elsewhere in the Soviet Union.
Coal, timber, ores and petroleum are prominent among the bulk cargoes. Coal moves from Sakhalin and the port of Nakhodka to various coastal points. Timber is shipped down the Amur River and from Kamchatka either for consumption within the region or for export. Small amounts of petroleum are produced on Sakhalin and consumed in the Far East, but most of the area’s petroleum supplies are brought in by the Trans-Siberian Railway and by tankers all the way from the Black Sea.
Domestic Transport in the Ninth Five-year Plan
The current five-year plan (1971-75) indicates that the basic trends in the development of the Soviet transportation system outlined above will continue at least through the mid-1970s. The railroads will carry a continually declining share of freight traffic, but they will retain their dominant position; shipments by truck and pipeline and passenger movement by air will continue to grow rapidly; and the importance of domestic water transport will continue to decline.
Efforts are being made to relieve the overburdened rail system both by increasing the operating capacity of the railroads by adding new rolling stock and trackage, and by directing a larger share of total traffic to the other modes of transport. Consequently, the freight turnover of the Soviet railroads is scheduled to increase by only 22% during the plan period in comparison with 32 to 35% for transportation as a whole.
Both trucking and pipelines are slated for significantly expanded roles in Soviet freight transport under the current economic plan. In addition to a general expansion and improvement in trucking, such as an approximate doubling of container shipments and the building of some 80,000 miles of hard-surfaced-roads, the plan encourages greater diversity of trucking operations, including more intensive use of light trucks in short-haul traffic. The mileage of Soviet petroleum pipelines will be increased by more than 50% from 1971 to 1975, and that of gas pipelines will be tripled. Among the new pipelines built will be a 1,200-mile line from Ust-Balyk through Kurgan and Ufa to Al’mat’evsk, and a 900-mile line eastward from Anzhero-Sudzhensk toward Irkutsk.
Soviet air transport will continue to expand rapidly. The five-year plan envisages an increase of 70% in passenger traffic by 1975, as compared with 1970. Included in the new equipment to be introduced during the plan period will be a 300-seat air bus with carry-on luggage facilities, and the TU-144, the Soviet SST.
The new five-year plan calls for continued expansion of domestic water transport, but at relatively low rates. River transport will grow by 24% during the plan period, a little faster than shipments by rail but significantly below the rate of increase for all transport. Freight turnover in merchant shipping is expected to be 35% higher in 1975 than in 1970, but most of the growth will be in foreign trade shipping. The volume of cargo carried in domestic shipments is scheduled to increase by only 12%. It is thus evident that waterborne shipments will account for a smaller share of Soviet domestic freight traffic as time passes.
But it is equally clear that large areas of the Soviet Union, chiefly on the Pacific and in the Arctic, will continue to rely on shipping for their main transport links with the rest of the country and with the outside world.
[signed] Robert E. Athay