The original plans and funding for construction of the Trans-Siberian railway to connect the capital, St. Petersburg, with the Pacific Ocean port of Vladivostok, were approved by the Czar Alexander II in St. Petersburg. His son, the Czar Alexander III supervised the construction; the Czar personally appointed Sergei Witte Director of Railway Affairs in 1889. The Imperial State Budget spent 1.455 billion rubles from 1891 to 1913 on the railway construction, an expenditure record which was surpassed only by the military budget in World War I.
Full-time construction on the Trans-Siberian Railway began in 1891 and was put into execution and overseen by Sergei Witte, who was then Finance Minister. Russian soldiers, as well as convict labourers from Sakhalin and other places were pressed into railway-building service.
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Crossing the "Wild East"
Yes, the aim was to link European Russia with the Far East.
5,000 Miles
harriet Tubman
The Canadian Railroad Trilogy is a long, wonderful piece of music about the building of the railroad across Canada, written and sung by Gordon Lightfoot.