By 1984, the western and eastern sections
of the BAM were connected, though the line
was only open to the Soviet military at that
time. Finally, in 1991, the BAM’s track was
declared available for civilian use. The BAM
had cost Moscow US $14 billion to build.
According to Finn-Olaf Jones in a New
York Times article (Aug. 12, 2012), the BAM
is much less touristy and far less plush than
the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The line serves a
mainly utilitarian purpose—it was primarily
built for freight and people who have business in the Siberian wilderness. When Jones
rode the BAM for a week through the Siberian countryside, he found that many of the
people on the train were workers and managers going to Siberia’s lumber camps and oil
and gas fields. Others were people working
Many people have heard of the famous
on the train line itself.
Trans-Siberian Railway, a line that runs the
The scenery from the BAM, however, can
length of southern Russia, but few know the
be spectacular. The railway ascends into the
more northern alternative, the Bakal-Amur
Kodar Mountains, which at about 9,000 feet
Mainline. The BAM, as it is known, runs
(2,743 m) are called “the Siberian Alps,” and
through few towns and near fewer paved
passes by Lake Baikal’s northern unpopuroads. It provides an undeniably scenic expelated and undeveloped shore. Much of the
rience of the Russia’s Siberia.
countryside through
The Trans-Sibewhich the BAM
rian Railway, compasses is pristine
pleted in 1916, is a
and
uninhabited,
Source: http://www.waytorussia.net/TransSiberian/Route.html
5,000-mile- (8,047BAM route
says Jones.
km) long rail line
© 2012
ARCTIC OCEAN
Trans-Siberian Route
The BAM is a quithat stretches from
Other routes
eter substitute for
Moscow to the RusN O R W AY
the Trans-Siberian
sian port city of
SWEDEN
0
500 mi
Railroad. While the
Vladivostok on the
Murmansk
FINLAND
BAM’s very exisSea of Japan.
0
500 km
tence is almost a
The BAM departs
miracle given its hisfrom the Trans-SiSt. Petersburg
tory, it is a valuable
RUSSIA
berian line west of
Moscow
R.
asset to Russia. As
Lake Baikal, crosses
Kirov
the Asian demand
the Amur River and
R.
for Siberian lumber,
ends at the deepwaa
n
e
Sovetskaya
Ekaterinburg
Volgograd
gas and oil increaster port of SovetsTynda
Gavan
(Stalingrad)
Samara
Tyumen
es, the Russian govkaya Gavan on the
Tayshet
ernment continues
Pacific Ocean. At
Khabarovsk
Omsk
Am
LAKE
to refine the BAM to
2,678 miles (4,324
u r R.
Novosibirsk
BAIKAL
EA
meet that demand,
Kharbin
km) long, it runs
SEA
K A Z A K H S TA N
Ulan-Ude
h
OF
thus making the rail
parallel to and about
Vladivostok
R.
JAPAN
line indispensable.
380-480 miles (610MONGOLIA
NORTH JAPAN
Although
per770 km) north of the
KOREA
Ulanbataar
Almaty
Beijing
ceived
military
Trans-Siberian RailSOUTH
threats from China
way. The line has 21
KOREA
N
have largely ditunnels with a total
CHINA
minished, the BAM
length of 29 miles
Geography in the News 9/28/12
M. Shears
continues to be a
(47 km) and more
strategic
second
than 4,200 bridges,
transportation link for Russia to the Pacific.
complete the BAM “with clean hands,” withwith a total length of more than 260 miles
And that is Geography in the News™. Sepout the use of forced labor.
(400 km).
tember 2, 2012.
Brezhnev enlisted the help of students, enThe BAM’s current route was first progineers, artists and workers to finish what he
posed in the 1880s as an eastern option for
Co-authors are Neal
termed “the construction project of the centhe Trans-Siberian Railway. Joseph Stalin
Lineback,
Appalachian
tury.” Many were volunteers from the Young
envisioned building the BAM to protect the
State University Professor
Communist League. The Soviet government
Soviet Union from an attack on the Trans-SiEmeritus of Geography,
built settlements to house the workers near
berian Railway by the Chinese.
and Geographer Mandy
the central section of the rail line to be comStalin began construction on the BAM in
Lineback
Gritzner.
pleted.
the 1930s, completing the section from TayUniversity News Director
BAM…SIBERIA’S
NORTHERN
RAILWAY
shet to Bratsk during those years. To build the
railway, Stalin used mostly forced labor from
the Soviet Gulag system, a network of forced
labor camps during the Soviet era that held
mostly political dissidents and prisoners of
war (POWs).
When the easternmost section of the BAM
was constructed from 1944-1946, many of the
gulag laborers were German and Japanese
prisoners of World War II. Estimates show
that only 10 percent of those POWs working
on the BAM returned home and as many as
150,000 might have died of starvation and
overwork while constructing the rail line.
When Joseph Stalin died in 1953, almost all
construction on the BAM ceased. It was not
initiated again until 1974 under the direction
of Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev.
Brezhnev felt it was imperative to finish the
BAM as relations between China and the
U.S.S.R were strained at the time. The Soviet
government feared that any Chinese attack
on the Trans-Siberian railway would have
dire consequences, halting all transportation
to the Russian Far East. Brezhnev vowed to
Irt y
s
CAS
PIAN
S
Ob
.
Yenise i R
L
Trans-Siberan Railways
Sources: Jones, Finn-Olaf, “The Other Siberian Railroad,” New York Times, Aug. 12, 2012;
and http://www.geographia.com/russia/trasib01.htm
Jane Nicholson serves as
technical editor.