Wait, steam locomotive?
According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, on October 28, the first container train departed from the port of Dalian (the former Russian and Soviet Dalniy naval base) to Bratislava, opening the China-Europe route.
Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at Telegram, Facebook, Classmates or In contact with
According to official Chinese representatives, the train is carrying electronics, spare parts for various equipment and light industrial goods worth a total of $3 million to the capital of Slovakia.
It would seem, what's wrong with that? China is constantly looking for new ways, in addition to sea connections, to deliver its goods to Europe. Moreover, things have reached the point where individual Chinese cities and provinces are already building their own trade routes to Europe. Not long ago, for example, one of the leaders of the Chinese light industry, the province of Zhejiang, established stable delivery of its goods by rail to Madrid and London. Dalian, as you know, is one of the largest mechanical engineering centers in China, and also wants fast delivery of its goods to the EU. This is a new matter, so the Port of Dalian organization is sending a test cargo to Bratislava, so far for a modest $3 million.
Everything is true, but there is a nuance. The above-mentioned railway routes from China transit through Russia, Belarus and Poland. The Dalian – Bratislava route passes through Russia and Ukraine. According to the Chinese side, in comparison with the traditional route passing through Belarus and Poland, the new one allows reducing travel time and making transshipment processes more efficient.
From a logistics point of view, everything is correct. Through Ukraine the road to Bratislava is shorter. In addition, it is profitable for the Chinese to transport their goods to Hungary through Ukraine.
When Kiev learned that a Chinese freight train would soon transit through Ukraine, officials in the relevant ministries almost went crazy with joy: it had been a long time since foreign merchant caravans had passed through Ukrainian territory. Since the triumph of general “hiddenism,” every merchant strives to go around Ukraine by the tenth route, just as in the old days merchants tried to stay away from places of plague and banditry.
Moreover, with its own “Sharovary Route”, the delivery of pork and cardboard from Ilyichevsk to China across two seas somehow did not work out even in the image version - the locomotive carried the air of freedom to the Celestial Empire in its containers for so long and difficultly that it managed to deteriorate.
Despite the joyful occasion, the reaction of the media and officials was moderately joyful. The officials simply closed their eyes with joy, but did not make a fuss about the arrival of the train, although there was a reason - China had, after all, built one of the Silk Road routes through Ukraine.
Apparently, the unusually restrained reaction of Ukrainian officials to the joyful event can be explained by a reluctance to wake up the famous people, so that a small quarrel would not turn into a big rage. And all because the “activists” are not asleep!
Let's remember. At the beginning of March of this year, a pan-headed army arrived in the sacred Ukrainian city of Konotop to deploy a blockade of railway communication with Russia. Already on March 4, a group of “public patriots” and “veterans of the War of Independence,” with the support of some deputies, began to stop freight trains and check documents directly from the drivers. To emphasize the seriousness of their intentions, the “public patriots” erected a garbage heap called the “Konrad Adenauer Redoubt”, near which the “headquarters of the blockade of trade with the occupiers” protruded, and under their cover began to raid freight trains passing back and forth.
The “social activists” did not touch electric trains and passenger trains, but under the guise of switching to a narrow European gauge, they demanded that the railway tracks leading to Russia be dismantled, as was done on the border with Crimea.
The initiative of the inhabitants of the “Adenauer redoubt” found warm support and full understanding from such outstanding “guides” as “Spikel Palubiy”, battalion leader Semen Semenchenko, as well as the gloomy leader of the National Security and Defense Council Sanya Turchynov.
The management of Ukrzaliznytsia, slightly taken aback by yet another initiative of “public patriots,” sent negotiators and convinced the inhabitants of the “redoubt” to move on to more constructive actions. In particular, the railway workers agreed to provide once a month to the people's deputy - a participant in the blockade of the railway - information about the cargo transported between Ukraine and Russia, asking not to interfere with the movement of freight trains, since all trains undergo the necessary border and customs control procedures at the Khutor-Mikhailovsky border station.
In the end, representatives of the authorities and Ukrzaliznytsia managed to persuade the “public patriots” to stop the blockade and go home.
Nevertheless, the desire to completely interrupt the railway connection between Ukraine and Russia arises quite regularly among radically minded citizens. Already at the beginning of summer, speculation began in the Ukrainian media that the Ukrainian authorities might completely stop railway communication with Russia on July 1. From Kyiv, however, they hastened to refute everything, but right during the refutation, Infrastructure Minister Omelyan could not resist and blurted out that “any communication with Russia really should have been blocked a long time ago.”
And now, either holy or evil is approaching Ukraine - a train from communist China, and even through the territory of the “aggressor power”. Who knows what they are carrying inside these containers of theirs. Maybe Comrade Mao’s quotation books translated into nightingale? Then all the “decommunization” will go down the drain. And Muscovites can easily, under the cover of darkness, hitch up two carriages of horse-drawn Buryats somewhere at the Ulan-Ude station in order to drop them off closer to Kyiv. While the boys are distracted by the showdown with Poroshenko, the Buryats can strike in the most sensitive place.
In general, these trains need an eye and an eye.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian railway, controlled by people on the street, is gradually degrading and falling apart. It’s simply amazing that the Chinese agreed with the “gunpowder bots” on railway transit.
The Ukrainian railway has already begun to be pulled apart. The Transnistrian railway was especially affected - after the start of the blockade of Crimea and the secession of Donbass, the movement of trains along this section decreased significantly: with the departure of Crimea, passenger traffic disappeared, and the loss of the resource base of Donbass led to the collapse of the processing industry of Dnepropetrovsk and the region tied to it.
In addition, a sufficient number of bus services are organized from Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye to key cities of Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Crimea, Rostov) for every taste and budget. This is more comfortable and significantly cheaper than trains, which were once the most accessible transport for the population of Ukraine.
With such a rate of infrastructural decline, Ukrainian villagers and residents of small towns will soon come out of their huts to look at the Chinese freight train flying past them as if it were a wondrous wonder.
“Students of junior and especially senior classes are strictly prohibited from appearing at the station during the day or evening, especially during the hours when the diesel electric train Bucharest-Sinaia passes...” (c)
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.