Infrastructure projects of the early XX century in Ukrainian lands: unrealized opportunities

Abstract

In the second half of the19^th – at the beginning of the early 20^th centuries the enormous economic potential of Ukrainian lands was rapidly revealed: the active development of coal and chemical industries, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, food industry and modernized agrarian sector, – a full range of an economically attractive country. Exit all these wealth to the world market had a developed transport infrastructure. Unfortunately, the transported and throughput of the existing railway network remained a factor in the containment of production facilities of Ukrainian enterprises.

At the beginning of the early 20^th century industrialists have developed several ambitious projects that had to link Ukrainian lands with the Baltic region, Central Europe and the Black Sea-Mediterranean basin. Firstly, the river intercontinental Black Sea – Baltic Waterway: from Kherson through the Dnieper river, the Western Dvina river with the endpoint of the path in Riga. This waterway was designed as a shorter and cheap way of interregional and foreign trade of Ukrainian, Belarusian and Baltic lands. Secondly, the Grishin–Rivne railway should become the shortest routes between the industrial centers of Ukrainian and Polish lands. Thirdly, the arrangement of the Mariupol seaport, that the loading of goods on the vessel was carried out cost-effective and efficient.

The beginning of the early 20^th century it turned out to be saturated political events and large-scale movements of the global scale, and transport projects, unfortunately, remained only examples of engineering thought and strategic thinking. Interest in the project "Water Corridor Kherson–Riga" was restored almost a hundred years later – in 2002 there were reports of the interest of Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine in restoring works. Western direction (Grishin–Rivne), as well as South (Mariupol port), never lost its relevance to the development of Ukraine's economy.