During October 12-13, 2010, Azerbaijan hosts the Internatio-nal Forum “1520 Strategic Partnership” with the participation of countries with a broad gauge railway network. The forum will also hosts the celebration of 130 years of existence of Azerbaijan State Railways. On the occasion, the railway state company Azerbaycan Devlet Demir Yolları (ADDY) will hold different events to celebrate the inauguration of the first railway line on the current territory of Azerbaijan on January 20, 1880.
The first railway line in Azerbaijan was an exclusively freight line that carried oil and linked Baku, Surakhani and Sabunchu on a 20-km distance. This was the first line exclusively designed for the transport of oil in the world and it has been the line with the densest oil traffic worldwide for a long period of time. The decision to build a railway network on the current territory of the West-Caucasian country was made by Russian emperor Alexander the 2nd who issued a decree on June 16, 1878. The reason which set the foundation of the network was the vast oil reserves in Baku area that need to be delivered all across the Russian Empire which used to include Azerbaijan at that time.
The next 20 years witnessed a true avalanche of railway constructions which linked the Port of Baku and Caspica to important cities all over the Caucasus and even further in Asia Minor. Connections to the Black Sea were thus established, a first line on Baku-Tbilisi-Batumi route being launched in 1883, line Bilajari-Derbent in 1890 and line Baku-Tixoretskaya in 1900. This last line provided access to the entire Russian network available in that period. The freight lines were the backbone of the future corridor which connected the Caucasian countries, the Transcaucasian, one of the longest railway lines which crosses one of the most hostile environments in the world. Had it been an independent state, at the beginning of the 20th century, Azerbaijan would have had one of the vastest railway freight networks in the world, compared to the country’s surface and population. The economic crisis that hit the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century echoed in Azerbaijan’s railway sector and the new Bolshevik leaders didn’t carry on the construction of new railways in the Caucasus region at the same pace as their predecessors.
World War II brought traffic relaunch when significant part of the Soviet war effort relied on Azerbaijan’s oil. According to historians, the oil that came from the fields around Baku brought the end of the anti-fascist war closer. During 1941-1945, over 75 million tonnes of oil products were supplied to the Soviet army in its fight against Hitler’s army. The amount represented 80% of the total oil products used by the USSR in World War II. As Heydar Aliyev, one of Azerbaijan’s most important leaders, used to say “the Soviet Union’s victory would not have been possible without Azerbaijan’s oil”. Moreover, the railways carried raw materials towards the Soviet weapon factories. The war affected Azerbaijan’s railway network. The post-war period was almost entirely dedicated to the reconstruction of the lines damaged or destroyed in war. The freight traffic recovered and record volumes of freight were carried in the 70s and the 80s. The peak was attained in 1987 when over 44.5 million tonnes of freight were shipped on rails, 12.9 million tonnes of which were oil products.
by Alin Lupulescu
Share on:
