In what year was the bam built. Severobaikalsk. Baikal-Amur Mainline. Key stations of BAM

The construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline required the mobilization of huge resources from the entire country. Even before the completion of the highway, many declared the construction pointless and unnecessary. There is still a lot of controversy around the history of the BAM construction. What is the Baikal-Amur Mainline after all? Is this the road to the future or a huge mistake of the Soviet government? Below are quite interesting facts, read and draw conclusions ..

In 1888, the Russian Technical Society discussed a project to build a Pacific railway across the northern tip of Lake Baikal, after which, in July - September 1889, Colonel of the General Staff N. A. Voloshinov overcame a thousand-kilometer space from Ust-Kut to Mui with a small detachment to the places where the BAM route now lies. And he came to the conclusion: "... drawing a line in this direction is certainly impossible due to some technical difficulties, not to mention other considerations." Voloshinov was not a pessimist, but he was soberly aware that at that time Russia had neither the equipment nor the means to carry out grandiose works.

In 1926, the Separate Corps of Railway Troops began topographic reconnaissance of the future BAM route. In 1932, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On the construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway" was issued, according to which design and survey work was launched and construction began. By autumn, it became clear that the main problem of construction was the lack of workers. With the officially established number of employees at 25 thousand people, only 2.5 thousand people were attracted. As a result, on October 25, the second decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was issued, according to which the construction of the BAM was transferred to a special department of the OGPU.

Following this, the construction of three connecting lines from the Trans-Siberian Railway to the planned BAM route continued (mainly by the prisoners of the Baikal-Amur ITL (Bamlag)) construction of three connecting lines from the Trans-Siberian Railway to the planned BAM route: Bam - Tynda, Volochaevka - Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Izvestkovaya - Urgal. In 1937, the general direction of the BAM route was determined: Taishet - Bratsk - the northern tip of Lake Baikal - Tyndinsky - Ust-Niman - Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Sovetskaya Gavan. In 1938, construction began on the western section from Taishet to Bratsk, and in 1939, preparatory work began on the eastern section from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Sovetskaya Gavan. In January 1942, by decision of the State Defense Committee, the Bam-Tynda section built by that time was removed from the track links and bridge trusses for the construction of the Stalingrad-Saratov-Syzran-Ulyanovsk (Volzhskaya Rokada) railway line.

Pictured is a map of the Baikal-Amur Mainline

In June 1947, the construction of the eastern section of Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Urgal continued (mainly by the prisoners of the Amur ITL (Amurlag)) . Before the Amurlag was disbanded (in April 1953), embankments were poured over the entire section, tracks were laid, bridges were built on the Komsomolsk-2 - Berezovy (Postyshevo) section. The section Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Sovetskaya Gavan was put into operation in 1945, and the movement of trains on the Taishet - Bratsk - Ust-Kut (Lena) line was opened in 1950. The map below shows the Baikal-Amur Mainline in green, with the Trans-Siberian Railway in the background.

It is more than likely that BAM would have been built much earlier than the famous Komsomol construction of 1974 began. Indeed, only from 1947 to 1958, the prisoners completed 24 million m3 of earthworks, laid 840 km of main and station tracks, built 55 stations and sidings, 5 locomotive depots, 9 power stations, 19 water supply points, 90 thousand square meters of living space near BAM.

However, as you know, after the death of Stalin, many "cult" projects had to be frozen.

One way or another, July 8, 1974 is considered the official "birthday" of BAM, when the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 561 "On the construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway" was issued.

The smiles on the faces of young people who were leaving Moscow on April 27, 1974 for the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline were the most sincere. Not all of them "lasted" on the BAM for a long time, literally a few returned to Moscow on a no less legendary train that arrived at the Yaroslavsky station on the Tynda-Moscow flight in January 1984.

It was from that moment that the active construction of the highway began in many directions at once by the forces of the Komsomol construction "landing forces" and parts of the Railway Troops. Here it is impossible not to note the traditional nature of the decision: to use soldiers instead of prisoners in the construction.

In 1977, the Bam - Tynda line was put into permanent operation, and in 1979 the Tynda - Berkakit line. The main part of the road was built over 12 years - from April 5, 1972 to October 27, 1984, and on November 1, 1989, the entire new three thousand-kilometer section of the highway was put into permanent operation in the volume of the launch complex. The longest Severo-Muisky tunnel in Russia (15,343 meters), the construction of which began in May 1977, was broken through to the end only in March 2001 and put into permanent operation in December 2003.

The photo shows a large junction railway station in Tynda

Such a large-scale construction was only possible for a great power, with its colossal economic power and resources. 60 sectors of the national economy, hundreds of supplying enterprises, design and scientific organizations participated in providing the construction site with everything necessary. BAM is rightly called the route of friendship and brotherhood. It was built by representatives of 70 nationalities of the USSR.

The General Scheme of the District Planning of the BAM Influence Zone was developed, taking into account the regional features of the route, the specific factors of the economic development of the territories adjacent to it, as well as the multinational features of architectural and planning solutions, the construction art of all the republics participating in the construction of the highway. Tynda, Neryungri, Severobaikalsk - the largest cities along the route - were built exactly according to master plans. As a result, each has its own look, its own special architectural "accents". However, like any new business, the Baikal-Amur Mainline aroused interest in environmental problems. The virgin nature demanded a careful attitude towards itself. After all, a delicate natural organism, balanced for thousands of years, is especially fragile in conditions of permafrost, high seismicity and low temperatures.

It was important to use the powerful equipment that the builders were armed with wisely, carefully and skillfully, so that the industrial power of the BAM was organically combined with the natural landscape, clean air, and the transparency of rivers and lakes. The extreme conditions of the track required new scientific, technical and engineering and production solutions.

Here, for the first time in world practice, a fundamentally new design of foundations for bridge supports was created, a number of new ideas in tunneling were implemented, technologies for backfilling the subgrade and drilling and blasting operations in permafrost conditions were developed, and modern methods of dealing with ice icing appeared. The highway passed through the territory of the region in the northern areas rich in natural resources.

Where previously only a nomadic Evenk hunter on his reindeer traveled, where only occasionally geologists flew in helicopters, the taiga was awakened by the whistle of a diesel locomotive, residential settlements have grown. Previously, the southern regions of the Amur Region were connected with the North by the AYAM highway (Amur-Yakutsk Mainline), running from the Big Never on the Trans-Siberian Railway to Chulman. And this thin transport brook was replaced by a "full-flowing river" named BAM. But, it should be recognized that BAM turned out to be unprofitable. The number of trains and freight traffic did not correspond to the original plans.

The main mistake was the emphasis on the actual laying of the route to the detriment of the development of industrial infrastructure. "Cutting in crutches" became an end in itself and was not sufficiently supported by the use of mineral deposits made available as a result of the construction of the railway line.

The Baikal-Amur Mainline is one of the largest railway lines in the world. The construction of the main part of the railway, which took place in difficult geological and climatic conditions, took more than 12 years, and one of the most difficult sections - the Severo-Muisky tunnel - was put into permanent operation only in 2003.

The Severomuysky ridge was one of the most difficult sections of the BAM. Prior to the opening of the Severomuysky tunnel, trains followed a bypass railway line laid across the ridge.

In 1985 - 1989, a new bypass line 54 km long was built, consisting of numerous steep serpentines, high viaducts and two loop tunnels (the old bypass was subsequently dismantled). The "Devil's Bridge" became famous - a viaduct in a sharp turn on a slope across the valley of the Itykyt River, standing on two-tier supports. The train was forced to maneuver between the hills, moving at a maximum speed of 20 km / h and risking falling under an avalanche. On the rises, it became necessary to push the trains with auxiliary locomotives. The site required large expenses for the maintenance of the track and ensuring traffic safety. Pictured is the Devil's Bridge:

It took more than 25 years to build a tunnel through the ridge. The first train passed through the tunnel on December 21, 2001, but the tunnel was put into permanent operation only on December 5, 2003. The total length of the mine workings of the tunnel is 45 km; along the entire length of the tunnel there is a working of a smaller diameter used for pumping water, placing engineering systems and transporting technical personnel. Ventilation is provided by three vertical shafts. The safety of trains passing through the tunnel is provided, among other things, by seismic and radiation monitoring systems. To maintain the microclimate in the tunnel, special gates are installed on both of its portals, which are opened only for the passage of the train. The engineering systems of the tunnel are controlled by a special automated system developed at the Design and Technological Institute of Computer Engineering of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Along with the tunnel, the Severomuysky bypass is also maintained in working order - it is expected that it can be used in the event of an increase in freight traffic along the BAM. Many trains now run along the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

In 2007, the government approved a plan, according to which it is planned to build "capillary" branches to mineral deposits. Also, earlier it was decided to build a crossing in the form of a Sakhalin tunnel or bridge:

In 2009, the reconstruction of the section Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Sovetskaya Gavan (Far Eastern Railway) began with the construction of a new Kuznetsovsky tunnel, it is planned to be completed in 2016.

Now 8 trains pass through BAM every day, the volume of traffic is 8 million tons of cargo per year. In general, BAM even today is a collection of railway records: the most severe climatic conditions, the longest tunnels, the highest bridges, the most original engineering solutions.

According to the "Strategy-2030", the volume of investments in BAM will be about 400 billion rubles. 13 new railway lines with a total length of about 7,000 kilometers will be built. All these plans for the future and strategies still do not allow BAM to be called a road without a future, and it is no coincidence that the construction of the North-Muya tunnel was not curtailed even in the most difficult times for the Russian economy. Despite everything, the history of the Baikal-Amur Mainline continues...

Photo album about construction and life at a shock Soviet construction site:

Diver on bridge construction

Girls of the Bamovsky village. 1977

The first train at the zero kilometer of BAM. Station "Lena" 1975

Port Vostochny

Tynda. Caption to the photo with a fireplace: “... cozy houses were built for the BAM workers in Tynda. The living room in the house of the master of the path ... ".

Do you hear the time is buzzing - BAM!
R. Rozhdestvensky

BAM- one of the largest railway lines in the world.
The path Taishet - Sovetskaya Gavan is 4287 km long. and was built with long breaks from 1938 to 1984. BAM is currently operating at its capacity limit. The length of the main route Taishet - Sovetskaya Gavan BAM runs to the north of the Trans-Siberian Railway and is 500 km shorter than it. How it was..

The route of the highway runs mainly in mountainous areas, including through the Stanovoye Upland, cutting through seven mountain ranges. The highest point of the route is the Mururinsky Pass (1323 meters above sea level); the steep slopes when entering this pass require the use of dual traction and limiting the weight of trains.

Ten tunnels have been drilled along the route of the road, among them the Severo-Muysky tunnel, the longest in Russia. The longest Severo-Muisky tunnel in Russia (15,343 meters), the construction of which began in May 1977, was broken through to the end only in March 2001 and put into permanent operation in December 2003.

The route of the road crosses 11 large rivers, in total 2230 large and small bridges were built on it. The highway passes through more than 200 railway stations and sidings, more than 60 cities and towns.

The cost of building BAM in 1991 prices amounted to 17.7 billion rubles, thus, BAM became the most expensive infrastructure project in the history of the USSR.

The project was discussed in the Russian Technical Society as early as 1888. Colonel of the General Staff N. A. Voloshinov with a small detachment overcame a thousand-kilometer space from Ust-Kut to Mui, just in the places where the BAM route now ran. And I came to the conclusion that the construction is impossible. At that time, there was no technology.

In Soviet times, intelligence was carried out by the military. In 1926, the Separate Corps of the Railway Troops of the Red Army began to carry out topographic reconnaissance of the future BAM route. In 1932 (April 13), a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On the construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway" was issued. Then the war and it was not up to the road.

In 1967, design and survey work was resumed. In April 1974, BAM was declared an all-Union shock Komsomol construction site. The youth went to BAM. There were jokes about this, like a comic decoding of the acronym BAM - "Brezhnev Deceives the Youth."

And the tough days began! Imported equipment was purchased for the most difficult areas.

It was originally planned to build nine or even eleven giant territorial-industrial complexes along the BAM route, but so far only one has been built - the South Yakutsk coal complex, which includes the Neryungri coal mine.

On September 29, 1984, the brigades of Alexander Bondar and Ivan Varshavsky met at the Balbukhta junction; on October 1, the “golden” link was solemnly laid at the Kuanda station; both parts of the road are connected into a single whole.

In 2007, the government approved a plan to build "capillary" branches to mineral deposits. Also, earlier it was decided to build a crossing in the form of a Sakhalin tunnel or bridge.

The weather there is harsh, I have been to those parts. And he lived and served.

The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), since 1985 - the Baikal-Amur Railway named after Lenin Komsomol - a railway in Eastern Siberia and the Far East, one of the largest railway lines in the world. Since 1997, BAM has been subordinate to the departments of the East Siberian Railway and the Far Eastern Railway.

In this article, I will tell you 25 facts about BAM. So let's go!

1. The Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) is one of the longest railways in the world.

2. The Baikal-Amur Mainline passes through embankments, swamps, permafrost, taiga and mountains.

3. The length of the Baikal-Amur Mainline from the Taishet station to the Sovetskaya Gavan station is 4287 km.

4. "Taishet" from the Kott language means "cold water".

5. The Baikal-Amur Mainline is not a Trans-Siberian Mainline. BAM departs from the Trans-Siberian Railway and passes north of it.

6. During the development of the BAM, the USSR had tense relations with China. Because of this, the BAM was laid as far north as possible, in contrast to the Trans-Siberian Railway, some sections of which are very close to the border with China.

7. The construction of BAM was the most expensive project in the Soviet era.

8. Near the terminus of the Sovetskaya Gavan BAM on the shores of the Tatar Strait, during the reign of Stalin, work began on the construction of a tunnel under the strait to Sakhalin Island, but after the death of the Soviet leader, it was stopped.

9. The project of the Sakhalin tunnel is currently being actively discussed. The tunnel can become a link that will provide a direct channel for goods from Japan to Europe using the shortest route.

10. In the first half of the 19th century, there were projects for the development of transport in Transbaikalia and the Amur Region in the Russian Empire.

11. In 1930, for the first time in the USSR, a promising railway was called the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

12. In 1972, the construction of the BAM began.

13. The construction of BAM was carried out from two opposite directions - east and west.

14. In 1984, at the junction of Balbukhta, a meeting took place between the eastern and western builders of the BAM. The 12-year construction ended with the opening of the entire road of the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

15. There are about 2,000 bridges along the entire Baikal-Amur Mainline.

16. In 2003, the Severomuysky tunnel was opened, passing under the Severomuysky ridge. This is the longest tunnel in Russia - 15,343 m.

17. Earthquakes up to 9-10 points. Permafrost in areas at the beginning and end of the tunnel, areas with unstable rock with large cracks. But the most difficult are the zones of active faults with a width of 5 to 900 meters with an influx of water from them up to several hundred cubic meters per hour at a pressure of 34 atm and a quicksand found in granite. In addition, a high concentration of radioactive radon gas. Such complex work was not carried out anywhere else in the world.

18. To maintain the microclimate in the Severomuysky tunnel, special gates were installed at both entrances, which open only when trains pass. However, in winter, giant icicles form in the tunnel, which must be constantly removed.

19. It was claimed that the BAM became a heavy-duty railway, but in fact the Baikal-Amur Mainline served less than 16 trains per day.

20. There is a hypothesis according to which the BAM was approved simultaneously with another super project - the development of combat railway missile systems, which had previously been transported using conventional trains. Ballistic missiles of the combat complex of only one train can reach targets at a distance of 10 thousand km and produce a series of nuclear explosions equivalent to 1 thousand nuclear explosions in Hiroshima. To date, these complexes are in full combat readiness, which means that they tirelessly move along the railways of Russia, including the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

21. BAM was the most romantic construction site of the Soviet period - several thousand students took part in its construction, who were attracted by the romantic construction of the century: "Our hearts beat BAM ...".

22. During its construction, many songs were written, and even a BAM song festival was held.

23. The railway troops of the Baikal-Amur Mainline also participated in the construction.

24. Today they plan to transfer all freight traffic from the Trans-Siberian Railway to the Baikal-Amur. Thus, the Trans-Siberian Railway will serve only passenger and container traffic.

25. The plans for the development of BAM include a major modernization of the railway. In the immediate vicinity you can find the main construction sites.

If you know any other interesting facts about the Baikal-Amur Mainline, please let us know in the comments and I will update this article!

In the Soviet Union, they knew a lot about “great construction projects” - those that the whole country, in unison, “The Party said: it’s necessary! The people answered: Yes!
Since the end of the 1920s, there has not been a single year, with the possible exception of the most difficult war years, in which dozens and dozens of impressive industrial or infrastructure giants were not built or surrendered by the next Congress of the CPSU or the anniversary of the Great October Revolution.

But even against this background, the object stands out, whose name has become a household name for the generation of the 1970-1980s. Nearly a century passed from the idea to the final implementation of the Baikal-Amur Mainline, and naturally, this long journey had its own exploits and tragedies.
Long road to the taiga.


In the public mind, the Baikal-Amur Mainline is perceived as the main construction site of the Brezhnev era. Indeed, the abbreviation BAM, starting from the mid-1970s and over the next decade and a half, did not leave the pages of Soviet newspapers and TV screens, and in the 1990s this railway began to be equally enthusiastically scolded. In fact, by 1974, when dear Leonid Ilyich called BAM "the most important construction site of the ninth five-year plan", a significant part of the highway was already ready. The builders had to connect these sections, but it was necessary to do this in the most difficult conditions.


For the first time, the construction of a railway to the Far East bypassing Lake Baikal from the north and its further extension to Khabarovsk, which stood on the Amur, was thought about back in the 1880s. However, on sound reflection, having assessed the level of development of science and technology at that time, the option with a northern bypass through practically deserted areas was recognized as unrealistic. The Trans-Siberian Railway, this largest infrastructural construction of the Russian Empire, passed along the southern tip of Lake Baikal. However, the development of the geopolitical situation in the region soon forced us to recall the northern route again.


The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 showed the vulnerability of transport communications in the Far East. Belonging to the Russian Empire, the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) passed through the territory of Manchuria, Chinese territory. The constant threat of its loss forced the government to first build its backup already exclusively on Russian soil - the Amur Mainline, and then think about building an additional railway, which would be located at a certain distance from the country's border.


However, until 1914, only the most initial surveys were carried out on this promising northern bypass of Baikal. Due to the First World War, revolutions, the collapse of the empire and the Civil War, one of the main centers of which was just in the Far East, the future of BAM was forgotten for 12 years, but starting from 1929, the foreign policy situation on the Soviet-Chinese border began to worsen again, and the project of the "second Trans-Siberian Railway", which, unlike the first, would take place in the depths of the territory of the USSR, was reanimated again.


It was in 1930 that the name "Baikal-Amur Mainline" appeared for the first time in the proposal sent to Moscow by the Far Eastern regional authorities, which later became an indispensable attribute of the Soviet media. In the 1930s, the approximate BAM route was determined, which was supposed to start at the Taishet station already existing on the Trans-Siberian Railway in the Irkutsk region, go around Baikal from the north and then go east, ending in Sovetskaya Gavan, a large port located on the coast of the Tatar Strait opposite Sakhalin.


In fact, the BAM was supposed to become a rocade, a special railway line running parallel to the potential (or real) front line and used to supply troops engaged in hostilities. The Trans-Siberian Railway, located close to the border of the USSR, was too unreliable for this task, especially in the context of a brewing conflict with Japan, which had actually occupied Manchuria. In the late 1930s, the Soviet Union had already entered into two local confrontations with the Japanese army in those parts (on Lake Khasan and near the Khalkhin Gol River). The war was brewing, and in this regard, the issue of building the BAM acquired strategic importance.


Initially, it was planned to build it in record time (it was about three years), but even for the Stalinist economy, such Stakhanovite rates turned out to be completely impossible. The Baikal-Amur Mainline was supposed to go through a practically undeveloped, deserted mountain taiga, crossing a number of large ridges and rivers. The route of the future road was not studied, and in such conditions it was necessary to build more than 4,000 kilometers of railway tracks, dozens of large bridges and tunnels. The USSR at that stage and within the specified timeframe simply could not pull this project off, because other large-scale construction projects were being carried out in parallel throughout the country, and the labor force, even taking into account the Gulag system, was not enough for everything in preparation for the coming war.


Nevertheless, a certain (and rather big) amount of work was done before 1941. Three connecting branches were built with the existing Trans-Siberian: the BAM station - Tynda, Izvestkovaya - Urgal and Volochaevka - Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Thus, three new railway junctions appeared on the future Baikal-Amur Mainline (Tynda, Urgal and Komsomolsk-on-Amur). From each of them, in two opposite directions, the parallel construction of six sections of the BAM was supposed to unfold at once. By 1945, these fragments were planned to be combined into a single road, thus forming the intended rocade. Naturally, the Great Patriotic War stopped this process.


Moreover, during the Second World War, the tracks already mounted on the connecting branches to the Trans-Siberian Railway were dismantled and sent to the European part of the country to railway construction sites that were much more needed in combat conditions. The newly launched BAM was actually destroyed. But this does not mean at all that Moscow has forgotten about him. As soon as a radical turning point was outlined in the war, its construction resumed, because the threat of war in the Far East had not disappeared. In 1943, thanks to, among other things, American assistance, the rapid construction of one of the six fragments of the road, the final section of Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Sovetskaya Gavan, began. It was completed just in time for the declaration of war on Japan.
At the same time, in 1945, work began on the opposite, western section of the BAM. There, they managed to stretch the highway from the junction of Taishet on the Trans-Siberian Railway (the starting point of the road) to the city of Ust-Kut. BAM reached the Lena River, the gateway to Yakutia, but further work stopped, and for a long time.
New stage.


After Stalin's death, his former associates promptly froze many of the projects personally patronized by the "leader of the peoples." The Transpolar Highway, the tunnel to Sakhalin, and a number of other large facilities, the need for which was not obvious to the new government, but which sucked huge money out of the country's budget, fell under the distribution. Khrushchev found his own priorities (space race, virgin lands, "big chemistry", hydropower), the situation in the Far East was discharged (temporarily, as it turned out), BAM was forgotten for a while. By that time, the highway consisted of two extreme appendixes, western and eastern (Taishet - Ust-Kut and Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Sovetskaya Gavan). The central, longest and most complex fragment of 3145 kilometers between Ust-Kut and Komsomolsk-on-Amur was still occupied by the "green sea of ​​taiga". In order for the project to be remembered again, it took a combination of two important factors at once.


First, by the end of the 1960s, relations between the USSR and China became extremely aggravated. Chairman Mao began to enthusiastically fight not only against sparrows, but also against "socialist imperialism" and "Soviet revisionism." Brezhnev and the rest of the Politburo, engaged in the policy of "détente" in the West, in turn, were disgusted by the radicalism of the Chinese comrades. The apotheosis of tension between the formerly fraternal countries was the conflict on Damansky Island, where in 1969 a full-fledged Soviet-Chinese war almost began. The PRC at that stage was still very behind in development from the Soviet Union, but there were enough fighters in the People's Liberation Army of China, and the Trans-Siberian Railway still passed close to the border. In the minds of the generals from the Soviet Ministry of Defense, the word "rockade" loomed again.


The second important factor was the desire of the USSR government to begin the development of the vast Trans-Baikal expanses. By the second half of the 1960s, bearded geologists in thick sweaters had already established that almost the entire periodic table was located in the bowels of the region. The richest deposits of coal, iron ore, tin, gold, copper, molybdenum, oil and gas were discovered. At the same time, only bears enjoyed all this wealth: the Union did not have large bases for their development. But there was money.


West Siberian hydrocarbons were regularly exported, their prices were at their peak, the flow of currency into the country seemed inexhaustible. BAM was again remembered not only by the generals, but also by officials from other ministries. The Council of Ministers developed a plan to create nine so-called "territorial production complexes" along its route at once. New deposits, strung on the railroad, were to become the basis for new industry, new combines, plants and factories, and new cities were to be born around them.


Beginning in 1967, work on the BAM resumed. New surveys were carried out, the route was specified, engineering structures were being designed. In the spring of 1974, Brezhnev declared BAM to be “the most important construction site,” a month later, at the Komsomol Congress, it was given the status of “All-Union Komsomol shock”, after which the first construction team went straight from the congress to Transbaikalia. The project, designed for 10 years, was re-launched.


BAM was really built by the whole country. There were not enough youth construction teams and railway troops - one or another republic or region was assigned to most of the sidings, stations, created near-station settlements and towns. Moscow builders built the Tynda hub, Leningraders - Severobaikalsk, Armenians - Kuchelbekerskaya station, Ukrainians - Novy Urgal, Lithuanians - Novy Uoyan. The architecture of these stations and settlements reflected the national characteristics of the "curators". Now Muscovites are surprised to see the familiar series of panel houses in Tynda, and the Armenians enjoy the Kyuchelbekerskaya station from their native volcanic tuff.


The Belarusians also had their own station. The Muyakan station and the village attached to it were to become the area of ​​responsibility. Unfortunately, unlike other national BAM projects, the Belarusian one was never implemented. Muyakan remained just a railway siding, and the project of the station of the failed station, born in the bowels of the Belgosproekt Institute, was preserved only in the form of a model and on the corresponding commemorative badge.


At first, they did not spare money for BAM. More than 10,000 construction trucks alone were purchased, and the contract was signed with the German company Magirus-Deutz. Bought for more than a billion German marks, Magiruses were able to work both in frost down to minus 45 degrees and in 30-degree heat. They turned out to be so reliable that individual copies of this technique continue to plow the expanses of Siberia even today, 40 years after their release.


By today's standards, this sounds strange, but the builders, Komsomol members, and the military practically met the originally announced deadlines. BAM was completed in ten years announced in 1974. On October 1, 1984, at the Kuenga station in the Chita region, in a solemn ceremony, symbolic "golden" links were laid in the roadbed. Of course, the highway was not yet ready, it was being completed for another five years - through traffic began only in 1989, but nevertheless, given the scale of the project and the rapidly developing "crisis phenomena" in the Soviet economy, it was still an outstanding result.


However, the construction of BAM continued further. Only in 2003 was the Severomuysky tunnel, the most difficult object of the road, finally put into operation. It was built under the ridge of the same name, it took a painfully long time, more than a quarter of a century. The fifteen-kilometer giant (the longest railway tunnel in Russia) was built in the most difficult geological conditions, crossed tectonic faults and quicksands, took a lot of lives from tunnellers, and God knows how much money from the state, but still it was completed.


Since 1984, the Severomuysky bypass has been used as a temporary replacement - a series of serpentines and tunnels 64 kilometers long, on which trains sometimes had to be literally pushed. Despite the difficulty of overcoming it, this is the most beautiful section of the highway, and its main and most spectacular object is the famous "Devil's Bridge" - a curved viaduct 35 meters high.


According to some reports, it was BAM that became the most expensive infrastructure project in the entire Soviet history. Its commissioning took place during the collapse of the USSR, difficult years for the history of the highway. The load was much less than expected, the road brought losses year after year, the deposits, for the development of which it was mainly built, turned out to be useless in the 1990s. Neither new factories nor new large industrial cities appeared.


However, the country, for the sake of combating which BAM was reanimated, can become a country for which it exists and develops. Insatiable China demands resources, Russia has them, and the capacity of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which is no longer threatened by anything and no one, is simply not enough. The Baikal-Amur Mainline is an excellent alternative: it is a shorter access to the ports through which it is very convenient to export the same coal. The Russian government is already making plans to expand it, laying a second track, and some work (for example, the construction of the second branch of the Baikal tunnel) is already underway. Perhaps BAM, the “gluttonous senseless protracted construction project” that was cursed in the 1990s, is still destined for the bright future promised to it at the beginning of the last century.