The building of the Bering Strait tunnel project will require large-scale infrastructure development and will be this century’s technological milestone, Elena Perminova, First Deputy Chair of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, told TASS. “The implementation of the ambitious Bering Strait tunnel concept will be, without exaggeration, a major technological milestone of the 21st century,” Perminova stated.
She points to the transportation corridors required to reach the Bering Strait: “for this megaproject to operate at full capacity, we must accelerate our own land infrastructure development.” A great connection cannot connect to nowhere: “it must be connected to a powerful, high-tech railway.”
What she is calling for is a line from Nizhny Bestyakh in Yakutia—the present eastern railhead—to Uelen, the easternmost settlement in Chukotka, on the strait itself. She proposes making it a national undertaking on the model of the Baikal-Amur Mainline, the Soviet Union’s own “construction project of the century.”
This project has the potential to reshape the entire global economy, she said, adding that it will require hundreds of billions of dollars in investments, could reorient 3% to 5% of global trade toward Russia, and will “open up incredible prospects for transcontinental tourism.”
“The Far Eastern railway breakthrough from Nizhny Bestyakh to Uelen will not just be an access route” to the Bering Strait crossing, “but a solid foundation for Russia’s technological and economic leadership in the 21st century, and the beginning of a new chapter of cooperation with the United States,” Perminova said.
This artery would resolve the transport isolation of Siberia’s northern regions, create tens of thousands of high-paying jobs, and provide a massive boost to domestic industry, Perminova noted.
“Laying thousands of kilometers of track in extreme permafrost and a harsh Arctic climate is a tremendous challenge for engineers,” she emphasized. “This is precisely where synergy must work: combining Russia’s unique construction experience with advanced technologies.”
Kirill Dmitriev, Special Presidential Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation and CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) who has been a leading proponent of the project, recently commented that China could also be involved as well.
None of this is new to readers of this news service. The Bering Strait tunnel has been a major element of the World Land-Bridge program EIR has published for four decades.
