Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye railway bridge (Amur River Bridge) is an international Sino-Russian railroad bridge linking Nizhneleninskoye (in

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: Нижнеленинское) in the

Jewish Autonomous Oblast The Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO; russian: Евре́йская автоно́мная о́бласть, (ЕАО); yi, ייִדישע אװטאָנאָמע געגנט, ; )In standard Yiddish: , ''Yidishe Oytonome Gegnt'' is a federal subject ...

with Tongjiang (in

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

: 同江) in

Heilongjiang Province Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost provinc ...

Projected uses

A major use of the bridge will be to transport iron ore from the Kimkan open-pit mine in the

that is owned by

IRC Limited IRC Limited (IRC; ) () is a Hong Kong-based business that is focused on exploring for, developing, and operating industrial commodity projects, particularly in the mining sector. Its operations are centred in the Far East of Russia and in China's ...

, which is partly owned by Petropavlovsk plc. Petropavlovsk plc will participate in financing the bridge's construction. The bridge is expected to transport more than 3 million metric tons of cargo and 1.5 million passengers per year.

History

In 1995, China and Russia signed an agreement to build a bridge across the

Amur The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China ( Inner Manchuria). The Amur proper is long, ...

and

Ussuri The Ussuri or Wusuli (russian: Уссури; ) is a river that runs through Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krais, Russia and the southeast region of Northeast China. It rises in the Sikhote-Alin mountain range, flowing north and forming part of the ...

rivers. The bridge was first proposed in 2007 by

Valery Solomonovich Gurevich Valery Solomonovich Gurevich, a Russian politicianis the vice-governor of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Leadership in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast Gurevich both organized, and participated in, the 2004 70th anniversary celebrations of the Jewish A ...

, the vice-chairman of the

. Gurevich said that the proposal to construct a bridge across the river was first suggested by the Russian side, in view of growing cargo transportation demands. In 2013, the transport ministries of Russia and China signed a general construction agreement. During President Putin's visit to China in May 2014, another agreement about the construction of the bridge was signed by Russian and Chinese officials. In September 2014, Russia and China founded a joint company which will control the process of building the bridge. In November 2014, the local Russian media reported that a significant amount of the construction work had been carried out on the Chinese part of the bridge, but hardly anything had been done on the Russian part. In June 2016, the Russian government selected SK Most Group, a well-connected private Russian company led by Ruslan Baisarov, to work on the project. By July 2016, the Chinese portion of the bridge was finished but work had not started on the much shorter Russian portion. In December 2016, work began on the Russian portion of the bridge. Completion of structural link between the two sides of the bridge was completed in March 2019. Opening to rail traffic has been repeatedly delayed, with the December 2019 estimate being "the end of 2020", and then 3rd quarter of 2021. The bridge was finally completed on August 17, 2021.

Design

The bridge was designed by Russia's Giprostroymost institute, satisfying both Russian and Chinese standards. In 2014, it was reported that the main structure over the Amur River runs north-south and will consist of 20 110-meter steel through-truss spans. The bridge will have both a standard gauge (1435 mm) track and a

Russian gauge Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: * Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries * Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and p ...

(1520 mm) track. However, the two tracks will be offset by only 800 mm, so that only one track can be used at any given time.

Projected uses

History

Design

References

See also