The Trans-Siberian railroad was an enormous feat for Russia when it was built. The 5000 miles of railroad stretched across the tundra of Russia to connect one end of the largest country in the world with the other. It opened up new trading possibilities and was a way to transport goods that before were unreachable. Stalin tried to expand this railroad during his rule.

The BAM or Baikal-Amur Mainline started construction under Stalin, but did not finish until 1991 with the fall of the Soviet Union. The mainline was a secondary railway that sprouts off the Trans-Siberian railroad and extends for two thousand miles. The BAM is north of the Tran-Siberian railroad. The mainline is known to be very scenic as the writer Finn-Olaf Jones attested. She is awed by the tundra of the Siberia as the train travels. She said that she “couldn’t imagine another place in the world that could be more pristine.”

The Baikal-Amur Mainline progressed well through the first years of its construction, but with the death of Stalin the amount of funding and work that was put into it dwindled. The project was not restarted until Brezhnev took power in 1974. The mainline was completed only 10 years later, though not all of the railroad was functional. The plans that Brezhnev had for the mainline were revolutionary with an electrified double track, though it was sized down to a single track due to funding. The labor and environmental costs were staggering.

The pollution that the construction of the BAM caused to the terrain of the forest and Lake Baikal were irreversible. Lake Baikal was the largest clean body of water that the world had known, until the pollution from construction waste turned the water murky. The construction of the city, Severobaikalsk, caused environmental problems. This city was mainly used to house personnel that were working on the mainline.

Earlier in the year, Putin promised to brighten the future for the railway. This month, Putin is looking to reinvesting in the BAM. The government would be investing $14.3 billion to upgrade the BAM with the hope of doubling the cargo capacity of the trains by 2020. This investment would be one of the biggest projects that Russia has seen in the past 10 years. The upgrade would cover, as the article stated “4,324 kilometers.”

Work Cited:
http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1980bam&Year=1980&navi=byYear
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/travel/the-other-siberian-railroad.html?_r=0
http://www.baikalcomplex.com/bam.html
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/putins-vows-bright-future-for-siberias-baikal-amur-mainline-rail-link/
http://siberiantimes.com/business/investment/news/pressure-grows-for-boost-for-the-construction-project-of-the-century-from-32-billion-transport-wish-list/
http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1980baikal&Year=1980&navi=byYear
http://www.irkutsk.org/baikal/

After the death of Stalin, the Soviet Union did not know what to do. The years of repression and cleansing left the population of Russia fearful and questioning the new leadership. There was something that came out of the death of Stalin: The age of the Thaw began.

The Thaw started in 1953. With the publication of “Il’ia Ehrenburg’s THE THAW,” a new age started in the Russian population. This time period from 1953 until 1964 was known as the Khrushchev thaw. This was a time a fewer repressions and a more liberal political life (though still very strict). These were the first steps in an effort to change the Stalinist tendencies that formed during the beginning of the Soviet Union.

With the death of Stalin arose many new anti-communist movements which began during this period. The Communist Party handled these protests with just as much force as before. The destalinist movement was leading to more political liberalization than they wanted to see. The party became actively resistant to this movement though the continued tightening down of the Soviet Union.

The irony of all of this, it that the book that sparked this thaw was largely written to “honor the tenets of Stalinist culture,” according to von Geldern. Though the book did not show Soviet culture in the same magnificent light as many other publications, it was not written to degrade the benefits of soviet society. The Soviet culture flourished through the time of the thaw. There were romantic films and music made. This thaw was irreversible.

There was another ironic thing that happened during the Thaw. The political regime did not change at all. Though the partial destalinization was a step towards a better life, many did not see it. The repressions of the intelligensia continued as well as the destruction of churches. The Thaw was just a new era that the people of Russia saw which sparked hope for a life with more freedoms. Many thought that the death of Stalin would bring more change, but the Communist Party still had their hold on the Soviet Union.

Work Cited:

http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1954thaw&Year=1954
http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.lib.vt.edu:8080/search/simple/doc?art=0&id=13845638
http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=article&ArticleID=1954thaw1&SubjectID=1954thaw&Year=1954
http://territoryterror.org.ua/en/history/1953-1964/
http://eng.sovr.ru/expo/e14/