A history of Russian Railroad in the materials of the Presidential Library

The year of 2016 for the Russian railroads is remarkable with two dates at once: 180 years ago, a construction of the first in the country railroad had begun in the Tsarskoye Selo, and 125 years ago  a building of the Great Siberian Railway (the other name is the Trans-Siberian Railway) was launched. The Presidential Library on its website features a large collection of rare materials dedicated to the development of this means of public transportations in Russia. Apart from the electronic copies of rare editions, the historical documents and photographs, it also includes video lectures and documentaries on that subject.  

The beginning of construction of the first Russian railroad was in the 1836. From video lectures In the middle of nowhere the train speeds along: the beginning of railroad construction in Russia, which is in open access on the Presidential Library website, we will learn that the idea of development in the country of the new means of transportations has met a great resistance. There was a strong opposition, believing that the necessity of this step has to be calculated, and a case was not only with the expensive locomotives and rail tracks. “Most of the statesmen of the time viewed the railroads as something revolutionary, which is able to impoverish the people's well-being by a violation of the existing order of specialization of labor and the abolition of certain branches of earnings, but moreover, to shatter the independent statehood,”  we can read in the rare edition in 1898 entitled A historical outline of the railroads development in Russia since its inception to the 1897 inclusive. Vol. 1.

It is noteworthy that by this time an experience in the railroad construction has already existed in the country, even though, they appeared not in the central part of the empire, but in the Ural factories, according to the video lectures.

The first public railroad connecting St. Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo became the starting point to the beginning of large-scale railroad construction, although at first it was considered nothing more than an entertainment. “The opening of the road took place only on October 30, 1837, and very solemnly, in the presence of the higher ranks and the masses of the people, and after the prayer service the first train consisting of eight cars was sent. From the first day the public started taking the train with a pleasure, however the train with the help of steam engines first went between St. Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo only on Sundays and public holidays. On January 30, 1838, the daily departures of trains to Tsarskoye Selo on horseback began, and on April 4, 1838, exclusively by means of steam haulage,” A historical sketch of railways development in Russia explains.

The rapid development of the railroads network has changed the economy of Russia, and indeed dramatically affected the social life: a number of people working in the new field was quickly growing. Well-organized literate residents with strong political position formed a new socio-professional category of the population, which could affect the country’s life. 

From 1865 to 1875 the average annual growth of Russian railroads amounted to one and a half thousand kilometers. But in the Index of Russian railways, released in 1887, already 61 railroad destinations connected Moscow and St. Petersburg with an extensive network of the Russian but also the foreign cities were listed.

A construction of Trans-Siberian Railway, a great way from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean, began in 1891. The electronic copy of the rare edition of the Guide to the Great Siberian Railway (1900) there is the text of the Emperor's message to Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich during heir’s oriental journey: “Ordered now to start building a solid Railway across Siberia, aimed to combine the plentiful gifts of nature of the Siberian regions with internal railroad network, I entrust you with declaring such my will upon your back entry on Russian land after the sightseeing in the foreign Eastern countries. Along with this I assign you to lay the foundation in Vladivostok the permitted construction of Ussuriysk segment of the Great Siberian rail track.”

On the 19th (31) of May 1891, in Vladivostok, the future Tsar “kindly in person put a ground into specially prepared wheelbarrow and brought it up to the bed of Ussuriysk road under construction, as well as laid down the first stone of the Great Siberian Way.”

The imperial family as a whole, starting with Nicholas I, actively supported the construction of the railway network in Russia. So, for example, Alexander II led Railway Committee, and Nicholas II was the chairman of the Committee on the Construction of the Siberian Railway, he personally participated in foundation of the key stations. Fatefully, the way of the royal family into exile passed through the places firsthand familiar to Nicholas II. In addition, he signed his abdication on the railroad; there are some photographs of a rail car interior, where this life-changing for the country event took place, on the Presidential Library website .

The digitized copies of books related to the railways in wartime are also available in the library stock: A brief outline of the activities of Russian railroads during the second patriotic war in two parts of 1916 by P. P. Dmytrenko, A work of railroads in the wartime of 1931 by L. N. Punin. “The Railroads better protect the country than the fortress,”  we can read from the book of Punin, in which the author analyses the railroads as a strategic objects in the history of the world wars.

To get acquainted with a history of the development the railways of Russia and its regions is possible reading such digitized rarities as Siberia and the Great Siberian Railway: with enclosed map of Siberia of 1893, The first Russian railway in Central Asia and its importance for the Russian-Central Asian industry and trade of 1891, The British Railway in Balaklava in the epoch of the Crimean War of 1931, The Northern Manchuria and the Chinese Eastern Railroad of 1922, The back bone of Russia (Trans-Siberian project and the development of Siberia) video lectures, and many other interesting materials.

In addition, in the nearest future the Presidential Library’s visitors will get a chance to see “The West Siberian Railroad” multimedia exhibition, dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the construction of this section of the Great Siberian Way.