Obtaining concessions for the construction of the railway. Kvzhd - transcript

The main cargo flow from Europe went not by sea, but by rail, which reduced the delivery time of goods by 3 times. In the first third of the XX century. The CER was the main transport artery of the Far East. The road accelerated settlement Amur region and Primorye, the economic growth of the Russian Far East and Northern Manchuria.

Russia received the right to build the CER through the territory of Manchuria in accordance with the Russian-Chinese agreement of May 22, 1896, according to which the right-of-way (about 6 thousand hectares - Harbin, 54.5 hectares - big stations, about 33 ha - sidings; the entire right-of-way - 113,951 ha) was a concession area. On August 17, 1896, the rights to build the CER and operate a concession for a period of 80 years were granted to the Russian-Chinese Bank (since 1910 - the Russian-Asian Bank). For the construction and operation of the road, the CER Society was created, the board of which was in St. Petersburg, and the road management was in Harbin. Favorable tariff and customs regimes were created for Russia on the territory of the concession, the right to transit troops was secured, and a system of territory management was organized according to the Russian model. In the right-of-way, Russian subjects had the right to extraterritoriality. In June 1898, Russia received a concession for the construction of the southern branch of the CER, which was supposed to provide access to the Liaodong Peninsula to the ports of Dalniy (Dalian) and Port Arthur (Luishun), leased under the Russo-Chinese Convention of March 15, 1898.

Road opening

Survey work in Northern Manchuria along the line of the CER was carried out in 1895-97 under the leadership of A.A. Gershova, I.L. Prosinsky, F.S. Girshman, S.N. Kholkova, I.I. Oblomievsky, I.P. Bocharov. Chief Engineer CER - A.I. Yugovich. The construction was carried out in 1897-1903: the western branch of Manchuria-Harbin (1899), the eastern branch of Harbin-Pogranichnaya (1899), the southern branch of Harbin-Kuan-chengzi (1901), additional branches of Jalaynor, Yangai, Harbin-Far, Nangaunling-Port- Arthur, Dafan-shen-Dalianwang, Dashiqiao-Yingkou (1903). Traffic along the CER was opened in 1903.

The length of the western and eastern lines of the road was 1.5 thousand km (single-track), the southern - 950 km, 1,464 bridges were built, 9 tunnels were laid, including the double-track Khingan tunnel. At the end of 1904, 441 million rubles were invested in the construction of the CER, including 71.7 million spent on restoration work after the Yihetuan uprising (Boxer uprising, see below). Chinese campaign), and 11.9 million - for the creation of the sea and river fleet of the CER. After Russo-Japanese War Under the Treaty of Portsmouth of September 5, 1905, the southern section of the Kuanchenzi-Port Arthur and Dalniy road went to Japan, which subsequently formed the independent South Manchurian Railway (SMZhD). Russia has lost property in South Manchuria worth 123 million rubles.

Road after the October Revolution

By 1914, Russia had invested 851.4 million rubles in the economy of Manchuria. By 1917, the volume of capital investments in the Chinese Eastern Railway amounted to 708.5 million rubles. (including the cost of the southern section and government coverage of the road deficit). Significant capital investments made it possible to create a developed transport and social infrastructure, stimulate the development of the forestry, mining and manufacturing industries, accelerate the urbanization of Northern Manchuria, which increased the influx of people from other regions of China and from Russia. According to population censuses, the Russian-speaking population along the lines of the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1907 amounted to 24.8 thousand people, including in Harbin in 1903 - 15.5 thousand, 1913 - 43.5 thousand. 5 thousand Russians. Russians lived compactly along the entire CER right-of-way, but the western branch was most densely populated, as well as border rural areas, including the Trekhrechye region located to the north of the CER. Revolution and affected the right-of-way of the CER: in November 1917, the Harbin Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was formed; acted in 1918 Business office D.L. Croatian ; in 1919 the territory was subject to Russian government admiral A.V. Kolchak ; in 1920-21 was considered by the authorities Far Eastern Republic as part of it.

In the early 1920s Chinese authorities have taken steps to reduce Russian influence on the Chinese Eastern Railway. In 1918, the protection of the CER was transferred from the Russian side to the Chinese, in October 1920 the CER right-of-way was renamed the Special Region of the Eastern Provinces (ORVP) of China. In the early 1920s the management system of the Chinese Eastern Railway was transformed, the court and penitentiary institutions were sinized, the Russian model of territorial administration was abolished, public and city ​​government , subjects of the former Russian Empire devoid of extraterritoriality. The civil war led to mass emigration to Manchuria. The number of the Russian-speaking population in Northern Manchuria was about 200-250 thousand people, including in Harbin in 1920 - 131 thousand, in 1921 - 165 thousand, in 1922 -155 thousand, as a result of which the city became the center of white emigration in China. The establishment of Soviet-Chinese relations in 1924 and the signing of an agreement on the CER with the Peking (May 31, 1924) and Mukden (September 20, 1924) governments provided for the management of the railway on a parity basis, and an equal ratio of Soviet and Chinese personnel was established. In 1925-35, the number of Russians in Northern Manchuria was about 150 thousand people, including 30-35 thousand emigrants in Harbin, 25-27 thousand Soviet citizens, 4-7 thousand who took Chinese citizenship. In 1929, the Chinese side made an attempt to nationalize the Chinese Eastern Railway, which led to a rupture of diplomatic relations and armed conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway (October-November 1929) with the participation of the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army. The conflict was settled during negotiations that ended with the signing of the Khabarovsk Protocol on December 22, 1929, which restored the rights of the USSR in relation to the road.

In 1931-32 Japan occupied Manchuria; The puppet state of Manchukuo was formed. Under the conditions of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, after 2 years of negotiations on March 22, 1935, the USSR was forced to agree to the sale of the CER for 140 million yen (about 70 million rubles) and the payment of benefits to Soviet railway workers in the amount of 30 million yen. The road was renamed the North Manchurian Railway (SMZhD). The sale of the CER led to the liquidation of all Soviet diplomatic, trade and economic organizations operating on the territory of Manchukuo, and the export to the USSR of 21.5 thousand Soviet railway workers and members of their families. The arrivals were distributed by rail Central Asia, the European part of the USSR, the Urals and Siberia. According to operational order The NKVD of the USSR No. 00593 of September 20, 1937, in relation to the so-called Harbin residents who returned from China, the NKVD carried out mass repressions. More than 42,000 people were repressed, including more than 28,000 people sentenced to death. The Soviet citizens who remained on the territory of Manchukuo passed into an emigrant state, the number of Russian emigrants in Harbin in 1936 was 30.6 thousand; 1944 - 34.6 thousand, in 1945 - 29.1 thousand people.

After the end of World War II, the USSR restored its positions in the northeast of China, returning the ARC (which, by agreement of August 14, 1945, entered the joint control of the USSR and China). All lines of the SMZhD and SUMZhD were merged into the Chinese-Changchun Railway (KChZhD), which was under joint management. During on the territory of Manchuria, the bodies of the military counterintelligence "Smersh" of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR arrested about 10 thousand Russian. emigrants who were deported to the USSR and convicted in 1945-48. More than 150,000 emigrants living in China restored their Soviet citizenship, including 29,500 in Harbin.

Transfer of the CER to China

The Soviet-Chinese Treaty of Friendship of February 14, 1950, stipulated the transfer of the CChRW to the PRC. By agreement of February 14, 1952, the USSR transferred the rights to the road to the Chinese side free of charge. The transfer of the road took place on December 31, 1952, after which the road became known as the Harbin Railway. Repatriation of the Soviet population from the territory of Northern Manchuria to the USSR was carried out mainly in 1954-55 and over the years amounted to more than 40 thousand people, while his departure from other regions of the PRC continued until 1961. Repatriates from Northern Manchuria were sent to machine and tractor stations and state farms Southern Urals and Siberia, mainly in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Novosibirsk and Omsk regions.

Lit.: Historical Review of the Chinese Eastern Railway, 1896-1923. Harbin, 1923; Special Region of the Eastern Provinces of the Republic of China: Reference information on the administrative and judicial structure of the region. Harbin, 1927; Sladkovsky M.I. History of trade and economic relations with China until 1917. M., 1974; He is. History of trade and economic relations with China, 1917-1974. M., 1977; Ablova N.E. History of the CER and Russian emigration in China (the first half of the 20th century). Minsk, 1999; Ablazhey N.N. East to East: Russian emigration to China in the first half of the 20th century. Novosibirsk, 2007.

The end of the 19th century can be called a new stage in the history of Russian-Chinese relations. The main distinguishing feature of this stage is the change in Russian Far Eastern policy. From border issues and the development of trade relations, it has shifted towards economic and political penetration into China, obtaining extraterritorial rights, as well as benefits and privileges for Russian entrepreneurs. In fact, this was the way Western European countries, the USA and Japan began to penetrate into China a little earlier. V late XIX v. Korea and Manchuria, territories directly bordering Russia, also became the object of colonial claims by Japan, Great Britain and the United States. This caused serious concern to the Russian government, especially since the Far Eastern possessions of the empire were very weakly connected with the central part of the country, almost economically undeveloped and very vulnerable from a military point of view. Therefore, it was necessary, as one of the main measures, to strengthen the Far Eastern borders of the country and, in general, Russian positions on Far East- start construction railway connecting the center with the Far Eastern outskirts.

In 1891, the question of building such a road - Trans-Siberian Railway- has been resolved. In 1894, when discussing current issues construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, it turned out that in order to shorten the road (straighten the path), it would be advisable to lay part of the railway through the territory of Manchuria. This would significantly reduce material costs and speed up the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The Russian-Chinese negotiations that began at the end of 1895 led to the conclusion in Moscow on May 22, 1896 of a secret agreement on the union and construction of the CER.

Following the union treaty of 1896, a special convention was drawn up for the construction of a road called the Chinese Eastern Railway. After the approval of the Russian and Chinese governments, the "Contract for the construction and operation of the Chinese Eastern Railway" was signed in Berlin on August 27, 1896.

This document, which consisted of 12 articles, provided for the creation by the Russian-Chinese Bank of a special joint-stock company of the Chinese Eastern Railway, whose shareholders could only be Russian or Chinese subjects. The term of the concession was set at 80 years from the beginning of the operation of the line. The contract gave the Society the right to unconditional and exclusive management of its lands, provided Russia with important advantages:

• - customs duties were reduced by a whole third;
• - the board of the Chinese Eastern Railway itself set railway tariffs;
• - the road was exempted from a number of taxes and duties;
• - the railway administration was completely dependent on the CER Society.

The Chinese side also received certain benefits. From the point of view of long-term prospects, the construction of a railway line in Manchuria led to the rapid industrial development of an economically backward region, caused an influx of people into sparsely populated areas, the development of trade and construction, the creation of new cities and towns. Immediately after the construction was completed, the Beijing government received 7.6 million rubles. gold from the CER Society.

The first batches of Russian engineers and workers arrived in Manchuria in the summer of 1897. At that time, there were no maps or topographic surveys of the areas along which it was planned to lay the railway, and the few data available were not true. The work began in the autumn of 1897 and continued throughout the winter, which the prospectors had to spend in the open, with the most severe frosts and strongest winds. Despite the most difficult natural conditions, lack of roads and other difficulties, by March 1898 (only a year later), surveys on the Main Line had advanced so much that it was possible to start creating a construction project. As a result, survey engineers determined the total length of the Main Line at 1,500 km, and the Southern Line at 950 km. Thus, the CER Society needed to build 2,450 km of rail track, bypass and station branches, sidings, auxiliary facilities, station buildings, etc.

The most suitable place in all respects for the administrative center of the road was Harbin. Convenient geographical position Harbin at the intersection of a large waterway and a railway predetermined fast development city, turned it into a large settlement, which became the conductor of Russian culture in Manchuria.

Emergence of Harbin

Chinese Eastern Railway

The Songhua shore, chosen for the construction of Harbin, was a desert swampy plain with small, rarely scattered villages of several fanz.

So, in May 1898, a lively work began to boil on the right bank of the Songhua River. The construction of the city began at two points - at the site of a vodka factory and at the site of a steamboat pier.

The railway administration expanded the right-of-way on the territory of the future city to a significant area of ​​6200 hectares. Three main districts of the city grew very quickly here: Old Harbin (quickly decayed and became a distant outskirts), New town(administrative and bureaucratic part) and Pier (trade-industrial-handicraft area).

Construction took on a particularly rapid scale under the engineer I. I. Oblomievsky, who, in fact, was the creator of the New City. Under him, a huge complex of buildings of the Railway Administration was built on Bolshoy Prospekt, which for a long time was considered the largest in terms of area in the Far East. On the other side of Bolshoi Prospekt, the building of the Railway Assembly (Zhelsob) with beautiful halls and a stage has grown (Zhelsob has long been one of the main centers of Russian culture in the right-of-way.) The buildings of the Commercial Schools of the CER (male and female) were also built here - the first educational institutions in Harbin. At the beginning of 1903, the building of the Russian-Chinese Bank appeared on Vokzalny Prospekt, and the Garrison Assembly was built here (later it housed the Board of the CER Society). All buildings were brick or stone, had central heating and running water. One of the main sights of Harbin and a source of special pride for the people of Harbin is Cathedral Square with the famous St. Nicholas Cathedral in the center.

If the Construction Department of the CER paid maximum attention to the construction of the New City, carrying it out exactly according to the project and under strict control, then the Pier developed exclusively thanks to private initiative and without any building plans. It arose in a natural, original way - from the first settlements of Russian and Chinese workers, and therefore was built up in a very peculiar way: stone two- and three-story houses of wealthy entrepreneurs were adjacent to wooden huts and clay fanzas. The pier quickly turned into a large commercial and industrial settlement, so the Construction Department decided to prevent unauthorized development of the area: it drew up a special plan, laid out streets and quarters, and even introduced police guards. However, the life of this area of ​​Harbin was never able to be brought into a law-abiding channel. One of the clearest examples of the arbitrariness of the inhabitants of the Pier is the emergence of China Street, another attraction of Harbin. In the autumn of 1898, groups of Chinese and Manchus arbitrarily planned out this part of the Quay and divided the sections with pegs. Later, Chinese adobe houses were replaced by solid stone buildings.

The rapid growth of Harbin was noted by contemporaries as a phenomenal phenomenon. The functioning of the road and the rapidly growing population of the city required not only workers and employees, but also various artisans and artisans, merchants, industrialists, teachers, doctors, lawyers, priests, etc. Harbin began to grow into various satellite towns - Nakhalovka, Corps Town and On the outskirts of Harbin, divided into specialties, the less prosperous strata of the population settled: the builders of the Sungari bridge, cab drivers and artisans, etc. And in Modyagou, the Harbin "Tsarskoye Selo", on the contrary, rich people lived. Later, this area will become the epicenter of the Russian part of Harbin.

Speaking about the construction of Harbin, one cannot fail to mention the famous "kavezhedekov" houses for workers and employees of the road. Most of the residential buildings were built in the New City, these were mainly two-story one-story houses and two-story buildings (of 4-6 apartments). Mansions were erected for administrative officials. For workers and employees of the Main Mechanical Workshops, houses, one- and two-story, were built on the Quay and were, as a rule, simpler in design.

The administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway considered it necessary to provide each employee of the railway with a state-owned apartment: in addition to high salaries, this served as an important argument for attracting people to work in distant and harsh Manchuria.

Harbin began to attract the attention of businessmen of various kinds, who rushed to "make money" in the vastness of Manchuria. From all over the Russian Empire, merchants, contractors, stockbrokers, speculators, as well as workers, artisans, and shopkeepers poured in here. Archival documents recorded a massive influx of people from the western provinces of Russia, representatives of various specialties, to the CER. People who were engaged in contracts for the construction of the road, worked in the timber industry and trade grew rich especially quickly.

Life in Manchuria before the First World War was relatively cheap, and labor was paid relatively high. So, an ordinary accountant received 1200-1300 rubles. per year, clerk - 700-1000 rubles. - at the price of bread 4-5 kopecks. pound, bottles of milk - 8-10.

Of course, relative prosperity was observed, firstly, only among the Russian population of Harbin, and the vast majority of the Chinese and some Russian residents of the city were in constant poverty; secondly, this well-being was achieved through significant state investments in the development of the CER and the entire infrastructure of the right-of-way. The administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway invested huge amounts of money in the construction of residential buildings, schools, hospitals, communications, etc., which ensured the material well-being of the inhabitants of the right-of-way.

On May 15, 1903, the first census in its history was carried out in Harbin, showing 15,579 Russian subjects and 28,338 Chinese.

The rapid growth of Harbin led to the fact that by 1917 the number of its inhabitants exceeded 100 thousand people, of which over 40 thousand were Russians.

In 1910, an epidemic of Asian pneumonic plague began. The disease was transmitted by airborne droplets. Mortality among the sick was 100%, i.e. the one who became infected, in a few days necessarily died. The doctors and the administration of the CER were well aware that only strict quarantine measures could save Manchuria from the spread of the epidemic. Harbin was surrounded by troops. The Chinese government has turned to the world community for help. Russian epidemiologists were the first to respond. Doctors headed by Professor Zabolotny left Moscow for Harbin. The Chinese began to flee the city. The harsh restrictive measures taken by the administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway, the competent organization of quarantine measures, and, of course, the courage of doctors led to the fact that the epidemic that raged in Manchuria was stopped by April 1911.

Andrey Vorontsov on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the completion of the CER

The Chinese Eastern Railway, the largest line from Transbaikalia to Vladivostok with a branch to the Dalny and the base of the Russian fleet Port Arthur, was put into operation 110 years ago, on June 14, 1903. According to the Russian-Chinese defensive treaty of 1896, the land under the road was leased to Russia for 80 years. The Chinese Eastern Railway not only crossed the mainland of northeastern China and exited as a separate branch to the Yellow Sea (until 1904), but also had a "right of way" along the road under Russian control. It was guarded by Russian guards (up to 25,000 bayonets and sabers with 26 guns), transformed in 1901 into the Zaamursky district of the border guards.

The wits of that time called Manchuria "Yellow Russia". Jokes are jokes, and the Russian colonization of Manchuria was only a matter of time. The Chinese Eastern Railway, in essence, tightly “attached” it to Russia with two dissecting branches. The residence of the tsar's governor in the Far East had already been transferred to Port Arthur. No wonder the Japanese were in such a hurry to start hostilities in the zone of the southern section of the road (just six months after its opening). The "Russification" of Manchuria proceeded rapidly. Here, along the 2,400-mile route, there were new Russian cities (Qiqihar, Harbin, Changchun, Dalniy, Port Arthur, etc.) with multi-storey buildings and large beautiful churches, sawmills and brick factories, coal mines, shipping companies, marinas, warehouses , depot, offices, shops, hospitals, a district military hospital with 485 beds, schools, 20 railway schools, higher schools, libraries, newspapers, magazines and even ... resorts.

But what happened after 1917 with all this, including 370 steam locomotives, about 2,700 freight and 900 passenger cars, 20 steamships, 1,390 miles of railroad tracks (since 1905), 1,464 railway bridges, 9 tunnels? Where did the many thousands of Russian railway personnel and the many thousands of border guards go?

The CER suffered its first losses in 1905. By the way, it played a more negative than a positive role in the Russo-Japanese War. Commander-in-Chief Adjutant General A.N. Kuropatkin, very much afraid of losing the only railway line connecting our troops with Russia, constantly pressed against the southern branch of the CER, making it difficult for himself to maneuver and making it easier for the enemy to bypass and cover. At the same time, the capacity of the road was not so great as to quickly transfer hundreds of thousands of soldiers with artillery and horse-drawn traction to the theater of operations. This was only possible more than a year after the start of the war. But Port Arthur had already fallen by that time, and the fleet was lost in the Tsushima Strait. According to the Portsmouth Peace Treaty between Russia and Japan, most of the southern branch of the road (the section from Changchun to the south), which ended up in the territory occupied by the Japanese, was transferred to Japan. Yes, and this branch of Russia became unnecessary with the loss of Port Arthur and Dalny.

Broke after 12 years October Revolution. At first, it did not greatly affect the status of the road. Until October 1917, the CER was a joint-stock company with the participation of state capital. And although in December 1917 the Bolsheviks in Petrograd closed the Russian-Asian Bank, through which the settlements of the CER were carried out, and liquidated the Board of the CER Society, legally this Society remained the owner of the road. In addition, the authority of Russia in China was so great that until September 1920, local authorities recognized the rights of the pre-revolutionary Russian railway administration in the “right of way”. As before, there was a Russian court and Russian security troops (already, however, small), subordinate to the Managing Director of the Board of the CER Society, Lieutenant General D.L. Croatian, who played a major role in political career Admiral Kolchak.

When the revolution reached Harbin at the end of 1917, a Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies arose here. On December 13, 1917, he was preparing to seize power. By that time, there was almost nothing left of the powerful border guards, with the exception of six hundred cavalry, since the Zaamurs had gone to the fronts of the First World War. The non-combatant militia squads, created to replace the Amur infantry, were not combat-ready and propagated by the Bolsheviks. But General Horvath, with the help of guard officers and Chinese soldiers who remained loyal to him, disarmed the Red Guards and sent them out of China. It was thanks to the firmness of Horvat that the CER, unlike other Russian railways, retained during the years of the revolution and the civil war normal throughput and “presentation”, it even continued to run international express trains with dining cars, which, of course, in 1917- 1922 and could not be imagined in Russia.

The fall of Kolchak inevitably affected the status of the CER. On March 22, 1920, the Russian guard troops in the "exclusion zone" were replaced by Chinese ones. The “buffer” Far Eastern Republic, which soon arose, claimed rights to the CER, but they did not really listen to it. At the end of 1920, the Board of the Chinese Eastern Railway, in agreement with the Chinese, declared the road an international joint-stock enterprise. In February 1921, the road was taken over by the International Technical Committee headed by engineer B.V. Ostroumov. Unlike his predecessors, he did not have any administrative rights in the "right of way". But Ostroumov was an excellent manager and economist. Under him, the Chinese Eastern Railway from an unprofitable enterprise, which had a deficit of two and a half million gold rubles in 1921, turned into a prosperous one, with a net profit of 6 million rubles (in 1922). Great importance Ostroumov attached appearance roads. Judging by the photographs of the spacious covered platforms of the Harbin railway station of those years, any modern railway station can envy them.

It was Ostroumov who came up with the idea of ​​arranging the now famous climatic resorts in the PRC along the CER line: Imyanpo, Echo, Laoshao-gou, Fulyaerdi, Barim, Khingan and Zhalantun. They even composed a promotional song:

Oh, Zhalantun - what a panorama,
Oh, Zhalantun, what a beauty!

"Kurortnaya Liniya" significantly increased the income of the road.

But, despite the fact that under Ostroumov, predominantly Russian people continued to work on the CER, it no longer served the state interests of Russia - neither "white" nor "red". It was, as they say now, a "transnational corporation". In addition, the days of the independent existence of the International Society of the CER were numbered. The Americans put a lot of pressure on the Chinese to put the tasty and strategically important road under their control.

Under these conditions, the Soviet government showed enviable activity (enviable - in comparison with the foreign economic activity of the current government). Using its influence on the then leadership of the Kuomintang Party and other leftist forces in China, the Soviet Union persistently sought the right to jointly manage the CER with the Chinese, while simultaneously revoking the rights of the International Society. The Americans, in their usual habit, wanted to take everything, so our proposals for the Chinese looked more tempting.

In 1924, the USSR and China signed an agreement on the joint operation and ownership of the road. Now the staff of the CER was supposed to be half Chinese, half Soviet. But in reality, parity did not last long. In China there was Civil War, and the warring parties tried to use the CER in their military interests. This led to the fact that in January 1926 the Soviet manager of the road, Ivanov, even banned transportation for the Chinese.

More than twenty thousand Soviet employees and railway workers arrived at the CER. In the “exclusion zone” a unique situation developed, which had previously existed only in the Far Eastern Republic (1920-1922): the joint peaceful residence of the “Reds” and “Whites” (whose number fluctuated in different years between 70,000 and 200,000 people). This found an original reflection in the poems of the Harbin poet Arseniy Nesmelov (Metropolsky):

At the pink depot building
With scorch marks of soot and dirt,
Behind the farthest rail track,
Where the coupler with a lantern does not climb, -
Skinned and driven to a dead end,
The Kappel, a white armored car, is rusting.

... And next to him - the irony of fate,
Her thunderous laws -
Raising the hammer and sickle coats of arms,
The red wagons are coming to rest...

The Soviet Union, oddly enough, suited this ambiguous position. In words, the Soviet authorities demanded (but not too insistently) from the Chinese to send white émigrés to the USSR, but in reality they did not really want to change the established “status quo”. “You are more needed here,” they confidentially told their former compatriots, according to L.I. Chuguevsky. The political situation in China was extremely unstable, yesterday's ally of the Kuomintang suddenly became an enemy after the coup of Chiang Kai-shek, so the Russian "fifth column" in Manchuria would not interfere with the USSR at all. In addition, the agents of the GPU felt themselves in the "exclusion zone", like a fish in water. It is this that can explain many of the oddities in the attitude of the Bolsheviks towards the Harbin emigrants. For example, the same A. Nesmelov, who fled from the USSR in 1924, was actively published in 1927-1929. in the Soviet magazine Siberian Lights, and the editors did not at all hide from readers where the author lives.

In July 1929, a conflict began between the dictator (Chinese governor) of Manchuria, Zhang Xueliang, and the Soviet administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which turned into full-scale fighting between the Red Army and the Chinese militarists. This local war, which, by the way, significantly exceeded the famous conflict on Damansky Island in terms of the scope of military operations, is now almost forgotten. However, in 1929 the streets of all cities and villages of our country were hung with posters: "Hands off the Chinese Eastern Railway!" But 10 years before that Soviet Russia officially abandoned the CER as a "shameful relic of Russian colonialism"...

Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army under the command of V.K. Blucher crossed the Argun, Amur and Ussuri rivers, defeated the troops of General Zhang Xueliang and took control of the Chinese Eastern Railway. In December 1929, the Chinese were forced to sign in Khabarovsk a protocol on the restoration of Soviet rights to the CER and the normalization of the situation on the border between the USSR and China.

The second stage of Russia's presence on the Chinese Eastern Railway lasted a little over 10 years. In 1931, Manchuria was captured by the Japanese. They decided to create on its territory a puppet state of Manchukuo, headed by Pu Yi, the son of the last Chinese emperor. The legal status of the CER became extremely uncertain. In 1934, the Japanese demanded that the Soviet Union sell them a road. In case of refusal, they would, of course, take it away for free. The Soviet authorities relented - for a small sum of 150 million yen. At the end of March 1935, the evacuation of 24,000 Soviet railroad workers to their homeland began. It continued until June 28; in total, 104 echelons went to the USSR.

A small part of the white emigrants joined the “returnees”, another, also small, left for Australia, Latin America, Europe, but the main part remained in Manchukuo. At first, the Japanese and puppet authorities oppressed the Russian colony in every possible way. But soon the Japanese realized their mistake, because the Chinese for the most part treated them as enemies, and the Russians, by and large, did not care under whose authority they lived in a foreign land - Chinese or Japanese. Normal relations began to be established between the occupation authorities and Russian emigrants. The Japanese, unlike, say, the current governments of the Baltic countries, considered it quite possible to teach in Russian in secondary and high school. They abolished the Shinto oath for Russian employees, generally "warmed up" to Orthodoxy. During the reign of Pu Yi, the number of Orthodox churches in Harbin increased by 3 times. In 1937, our community widely celebrated the centenary of the death of A.S. Pushkin, and next year - the 950th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia.

In September 1945, Japan was utterly defeated in Manchuria by the Red Army. Manchukuo also collapsed. Russia regained all the pre-revolutionary possessions in Manchuria (albeit already as a co-owner): both the CER with the southern branch, and Port Arthur, and Dalny - Stalin, unlike Khrushchev and Gorbachev, was sensitive to any territorial and property losses. But he had a soft spot for Mao Zedong. He even forgave him the revisionist phrase in the CPC Program of 1945: "The CPC is guided in all its work by the ideas of Mao Zedong" (and Khrushchev, by the way, did not forgive him). On the day of his 70th birthday, Stalin took off his watch and gave it to Mao: now, they say, your time has come. This was not the first and not the last metaphor of Stalin in his relations with the younger Chinese comrade: he generally raised Mao in a similar spirit. Despite the honor shown to Mao (he was settled in December 1949 at Stalin's dacha in Kuntsevo), he waited a whole month for a reception from Stalin and during this time did not see him even once, although he lived on the second floor, and Stalin - on the first. Then, according to Mao's recollections, he could not stand it and scandalized: they say, I am the head of the largest country in terms of population and the leader of the world's largest Communist Party, give me Stalin! No sooner said than done: the same evening the meeting with Stalin took place. And in the morning, the waitress, carrying Mao upstairs with coffee, almost dropped the tray when she saw at the stairs, though not a ghost, but not reality - a gray-haired Stalin in the uniform of a generalissimo. He stood looking down at her. And it was at such and such an early hour, although, as you know, he never got up before noon! Then Stalin behaved even more unusually, if not indecently. He suddenly took the tray away from the waitress, saying: “I'll take it myself,” and carried the coffee to Mao Zedong on the second floor - in bed, so to speak.

Mao was so struck by this purely Chinese metaphor that he never again dared to demand anything from Stalin and until his death did not say a single bad word about him. Soon, in February 1950, Stalin gave his favorite a new gift - the CER (actually passed into the hands of the Chinese in 1952-1953). The third (and last) stage of the Russian ownership of the CER was completed.

Russian emigrants began to leave the “exclusion zone” as early as 1946. Many of those who left for the USSR on a patriotic upsurge were arrested here, many voluntarily went to develop virgin lands. The bulk of the "Harbinites" (20,000 people) moved to Australia, where they founded the current fairly large Russian colony. By 1953 there was not a single Russian emigrant in Manchuria. By that time, the last Soviet employees had left the CER. In 1955, our military left Port Arthur and Dalniy. The history of the Russian CER and the "right of way" is over. But it is an integral and highly visible part of our common history.

steam locomotive 2-3-0 of the G series, or, as the railroad workers of that time called it, "iron Manchu". A charismatic steam locomotive - built in Kharkov in 1902-1903, was built like this only for two roads - Vladikavkaz and China-East. He had a drawback - he was too heavy on the axle, and therefore could only walk on trunk lines with a powerful ballast base and heavy rails. But he developed tremendous speed for that time: a modification for the CER - up to 115 km / h! And so he drove mainly high-speed trains, in particular the courier "number one" (Irkutsk - Harbin - Vladivostok). Here he is also standing under some kind of mixed train. The arrow (in the frame on the left) is also interesting. Vladivostok railway station is visible in the distance.

See also:
Red Army on the eve of the Great Patriotic War
On January 20, 1925, the USSR and Japan signed the Beijing Treaty.
"Muromets" against the samurai!

The Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) (Manchurian road (before the coup (revolution) in Russia, since August 1945 - the Chinese Changchun railway, since 1953 - the Harbin railway) - a railway line that passed through the territory of Manchuria and connected Chita with Vladivostok and Port Arthur. Built in 1897-1903 as the southern branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Belonged to Russia and served by its subjects. The construction of the road was a step to increase the influence of the Russian Empire in the Far East, to strengthen the Russian military presence on the banks of yellow sea. This angered the Chinese side. On June 23, 1900, the Chinese attacked the builders and began destroying the railroad tracks and station buildings.

The fate of the party of builders who left Mukden under the command of lieutenant Valevsky and engineer Verkhovsky was tragic. Almost all of them died in unequal battles. Captured Verkhovsky was beheaded in Liaoyang. After the defeat in the war with Japan, it turned out that all efforts to build were in vain.

On October 22, 1928, all Russian employees of the CER were expelled from China. August 21, 1937 was signed by the Soviet-Chinese non-aggression pact. The road was handed over to China on December 31, 1952.
The history of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) was closely intertwined with the history of the Trans-Siberian Railway (Transsib) and had a largely negative impact on the fate of one of the constituent parts of the Trans-Siberian - the Amur Railway.

In connection with the growing activity of Western powers at the end of the 19th century in East Asia and the Far East, the Russian Empire began to show increased concern about the position of a significant part of its territories in Siberia and the Far East, which were actually cut off from the central part of the country. The task was to implement a set of urgent measures to populate the outskirts, which required connecting them with the center by stable and convenient transport communications. In 1891, a decision was made to build the Trans-Siberian Railway. Its construction began simultaneously from Vladivostok and Chelyabinsk, was carried out with public funds and demonstrated unprecedented rates of railway construction until then - 7.5 thousand km of the new railway line were laid in 10 years. On the eastern side, the Trans-Siberian was brought from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk, where construction work was hampered by the need to build a huge bridge across the Amur. From the western side, the railway tracks were brought to Transbaikalia.
On August 28, 1897, in the small border village of Suifenhe in the Sanchakou area, the ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the Chinese Eastern Railway took place.

At the beginning of work on laying the Trans-Siberian Railway, two options for its passage from Transbaikalia to the east were considered. According to the first option, the highway was supposed to run along the Amur coast and the Russian-Chinese border to Khabarovsk, and according to the second option, through Manchuria to the Pacific Ocean. The second option was considered during the design of the Siberian railway, when the possibility of laying it from Irkutsk through Kyakhta to Mongolia, then through China to the Russian Primorye was discussed. S. N. Sviyagin played a prominent role in laying the route and managing the construction of complex sections.

Supporters of the option of passing the Trans-Siberian along the Amur justified it by the subsequent growth of economic and economic opportunities. social development Russian territories Eastern Siberia and the Far East. S. M. Dukhovskoy, who was the Governor-General of the Amur region in the period 1893-1898, stated that even with the accession of Manchuria to the Russian Empire, the importance of the Amur railway for Russia would remain enormous, as well as its “colonization and base building significance”. He emphasized that in no case should the construction of the railway line along the Amur, which was planned earlier, be stopped.

The supporter of the Manchu version was Finance Minister S. Yu. Witte, who believed that the railway would contribute to the peaceful conquest of Manchuria. The increased activity of Japan in the Far East, which threatened the interests of the Russian Empire in China, also played in favor of the Manchurian version. In addition, the Manchurian option made it possible for Russia to enter new markets in the Asia-Pacific region. In the end, the concept of the Minister of Finance for the construction of a railway line, called the Chinese Eastern Railway, through the territory of Manchuria, won. Only the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 demonstrated to the government the fallacy of this decision, which accelerated the construction of the Amur railway.
CER. Excavation development near st. Mashan

When discussing plans for the construction of the CER, it was decided to involve private capital in it, for which the corresponding preparatory work was carried out. In December 1895, the Russian-Chinese Bank was established with an initial capital of 6 million rubles. For its formation, 3/8 of the funds were provided by the St. Petersburg International Bank, and 5/8 came from 4 French banks.


On May 22 (June 3), 1896, a secret Russian-Chinese treaty on the alliance of Russia and China against Japan was signed. On the Russian side, S. Yu. Witte and A. B. Lobanov-Rostovsky signed the agreement, and on the Chinese side, Li Hongzhang. The treaty gave Russia the right to build a railway through the territory of Manchuria. On August 27 (September 8), 1896, the Chinese envoy to the Russian Empire, Xu Zengcheng, signed an agreement with the board of the Russian-Chinese Bank with a validity period of 80 years on granting the bank the right to build a railway through Manchuria.
CER. Heilar Station (Inner Mongolia)

In December 1896, elections were held in St. Petersburg for the board of the CER Society. According to the results of the elections, S. I. Kerbedz became vice-chairman of the board, P. M. Romanov, A. Yu. In January 1897, the Emperor of China issued a decree appointing the former Chinese envoy to St. Petersburg and Berlin, Xu Zengcheng, as the first chairman of the CER Society.
CER. Hailar Mongolian shrine

The selection of specialists for the laying of the CER was personally directed by S. Yu. Witte, on whose recommendation AI Yugovich, the builder of the Ryazan-Ural Railway, was appointed chief engineer of the CER. The location of the Construction Department for the construction of the CER, which was called the Songhua railway settlement, was chosen to be a site on the banks of the Songhuajiang River at the place of its supposed intersection with the railway line, where the city of Harbin subsequently arose. On April 24, 1897, an avant-garde detachment of the Construction Department of the Chinese Eastern Railway, led by engineer A. I. Shidlovsky, arrived on the banks of the Songhua River under the protection of the Kuban fifty foot captain Pavievsky. In order to protect the construction of the CER, a special Security Guard was created, later transformed into the Zaamursky District of a separate border guard corps.
CER. Western line. Khingan. Tunnel development

August 16 (27), 1897 was the day the construction of the CER began. Construction was carried out simultaneously from the location of the Construction Department in three directions and from the three terminal points of the CER - Grodekovo station in Primorye, from Transbaikalia and Port Arthur - in June 1898, Russia received a concession for the construction of the southern branch of the CER (later known as the South Manchurian Railway road), which was supposed to provide access to the CER of the Far (Dalian) and Port Arthur (Luishun), located on the Liaodong Peninsula, leased by the Russian Empire in March 1898 in accordance with the Russo-Chinese Convention of 1898.
Houses of Russian workers on the eastern line of the CER.

In connection with the length of the highway, it was initially decided to break down the construction into separate sections with the appointment of their own managers. The line between Manchuria stations in Transbaikalia and Pogranichnaya in Primorye was divided into 13 construction sections, the line from Harbin to Port Arthur was divided into 8 sections.
CER. Korean workers

In 1899, the Yihetuan uprising (Boxer Rebellion) broke out in the Qing Empire, which lasted until 1901 inclusive, which caused interruptions in the construction of a number of sections of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Nevertheless, on July 5 (18), 1901, temporary train traffic and cargo transportation along the entire length of the CER was opened. In connection with the disappearance of the need to divide the road into construction sites, they began to be merged into associations, and then the posts of department heads were abolished and the entire road was again subordinated directly to the chief engineer.
CER. Chinese workers

Participating in the “Allied Army of Eight Powers” ​​(Great Britain, France, Germany, USA, Russia, Japan, Italy, Austria-Hungary) created to suppress the Yihetuan uprising, the Russian Empire took advantage of this opportunity and occupied the northeastern provinces of China to obtain additional advantages in this region. However, her separate negotiations with the Chinese government after the suppression of the uprising were unsuccessful due to the powerful opposition of other powers. In this regard, the government of the Russian Empire in August 1903 created the Far Eastern Viceroyalty headed by Admiral E.I. Alekseev and instructed him to conduct further negotiations directly with the Qing court.
On June 1 (14), 1903, the Construction Department of the CER handed over the road to the Operational Department, which became the official opening date of the CER. When summing up the results of construction work, the cost of building one verst of the CER amounted to 152 thousand rubles.
In October 1898, the first steam locomotive arrived by the CER at Harbin station.

The completion of the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway immediately increased the dignity of the position of Manchuria, turning this backward territory into an economically developed part of the Qing Empire. By 1908, in less than 7 years, the population of Manchuria had grown from 8.1 to 15.8 million people due to the influx from China proper. The development of Manchuria went at such a rapid pace that in a few years Harbin, Dalny and Port Arthur overtook the Far East in terms of population. Russian cities Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. The excess population in Manchuria led to the fact that in the summer tens of thousands of Chinese annually moved to work in the Russian Primorye, where there was still not enough Russian population, which continued to slow down the development of the region.
The defeat of Russia in the war with Japan also affected future prospects CER. Under the Portsmouth Peace Treaty, most of the southern branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway (the section from Changchun to the south), which ended up in Japanese-occupied territory, was transferred to Japan, forming the South Manchurian Railway (SMZhD). This put an end to the plans of the government of the Russian Empire to use the CER to enter the markets of the Asia-Pacific region, but at the same time had a beneficial effect on the resumption of the construction of the Amur railway.
Luxury Pullman car with outdoor observation deck

In 1908, Tobolsk governor N. L. Gondatti, in a memorandum addressed to V. Plehve, insisted on the construction of the Amur railway and the laying of a second track on the Siberian and Trans-Baikal railways, without which the Amur railway would have only local significance. In 1911, L. N. Gondatti was appointed Governor-General of the Amur Territory, after which he managed to implement plans for connecting the Ussuri railway with the Amur railway with access to the Trans-Baikal railway through the construction of a bridge across the Amur, unique for those times.
In the saloon car of a courier train, 1909

In 1910, the Russian-Chinese Bank (which had the right to the CER) and the Northern Banks merged with the formation of the Russian-Asian Bank with an initial capital of 45 million rubles, of which the Northern Bank provided 26 million rubles, and the Russian-Chinese Bank - 19 million rubles. .

The joint-stock company CER also participated in the equipment of the seaport in Vladivostok and, through the mediation of the Russian East Asian Shipping Company, made voyages to the ports of Japan, Korea and China. By 1903, the CER Society already owned its own fleet of 20 steamships.
CER. Entrance to the Khingan tunnel

On November 29 (December 12), 1917, the Harbin Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies dissolved all organizations and declared itself the sole authority on the CER, and on December 4 (17) removed D. L. Horvat from road management and appointed B. A. Slavin as road commissar .
Khingan tunnel, view with a locomotive leaving the portal, near the station. Khingan, 1903

On December 13 (26), 1917, at the request of D. L. Horvat, Chinese troops entered Harbin under the command of Zhang Zuolin and dispersed the Harbin Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
CER. Western Lin. on the river Yalu.

On March 16, 1920, Chinese troops under the command of Major Lo Bing occupied the Headquarters of the Russian Commander-in-Chief in Harbin and by March 19 completely occupied the right-of-way of the CER. This was the actual end of the existence of the security guards of the CER.
CER. Railway line along the river Mai-he

From April 1921 to October 1924, engineer B.V. Ostroumov was the manager of the CER.
CER. Railway line through Taiga

On May 31, 1924, the USSR and the Republic of China signed the “Agreement on general principles to resolve issues between the USSR and the Republic of China”, according to which diplomatic relations were restored between the two countries, and the government of the USSR renounced “special rights and privileges”, after which Russian concessions in Harbin, Tianjin and Hankou were liquidated, with the obligation of the Chinese government not to transfer these rights and privileges to a third power. The CER remained under the control and maintenance of the Soviet side.
CER. Little shrine by the road

On March 30, 1926, the commander-in-chief of the Chinese troops in Harbin disbanded all elected bodies of public self-government, instead of which a Provisional Committee was formed, which included only the Chinese.
CER. Rocky excavation near St. Jelantun

On July 10, 1929, the Chinese militarists actually seized the CER, arrested over 200 Soviet employees of the railway, 35 of them were deported to the USSR, which was the beginning of the events known in history as the "Conflict on the CER."
Arrested employees of the Soviet consulate. 1929. Harbin

On July 17, 1929, the government of the USSR announced the severance of diplomatic relations with China, in November 1929, the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army carried out an operation to restore control of the CER. On December 22, 1929, in Khabarovsk, the authorized representative of the Republic of China, Cai Yuanshen, and the authorized representative of the USSR, the agent of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs Simanovsky, signed the "Khabarovsk Protocol", according to which the status quo was restored to the Chinese Eastern Railway in accordance with the Beijing and Mukden treaties.
CER. Rocky excavation near St. Xiaolin.

CER. Rocks near Dzhelantun

In September 1931, Japan began the liberation of Manchuria from Chinese rule; on September 18, Japanese troops invaded Northern Manchuria. On February 5, 1932, Japanese troops occupied Harbin and then included it in the state of Manchukuo, the creation of which on March 1, 1932 was proclaimed by the governors assembled by the Japanese in Mukden. A rupture of relations between Manchukuo and the Republic of China follows.
CER. rocky notch

On September 19, 1934, months-long negotiations on the sale by the Soviet side of the CER to the government of Manchukuo ended. The amount of the agreed transaction amounted to 140 million yen, which was conducted by the Consul General of the USSR in Harbin M. Slavutsky. On March 23, 1935, the USSR and Manchukuo signed an agreement on the sale of the CER. It was agreed that in monetary terms Manchukuo would pay 1/3 of the amount, the remaining 2/3 of the amount would be repaid within three years by deliveries from Japanese and Manchurian firms on orders from the USSR in Japan. After signing the deal, Manchukuo immediately contributed 23.3 million yen.
Mountains and railway line beyond Sanshilipu

Under the control of Manchukuo, the line was converted to the European (1435 mm) gauge commonly used on other railways in China.
CER. Southern line. River valley Asan-hae

On August 20, 1945, the troops of the 2nd Far Eastern Front and the ships of the Amur Flotilla, with the support of an airborne assault force, captured Harbin. The Chinese Eastern Railway returned to Soviet control.
CER. Southern line. Bridge on the river Lyakin-Khe

On February 14, 1950, the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance between the USSR and the PRC was signed in Moscow, the agreement on the Chinese Changchun Railway, Port Arthur and Dalny (given free of charge to China), and the agreement on the provision of the USSR to the government of the PRC a long-term economic loan. In 1952, with the transfer of the Chinese Changchun Railway to China Russian history The CER has been completed.


As of 2012, Chinese rail timetables include at least one train running along the entire line of the former CER. Passenger train 4192/4194/4195 covers 1529 km from Manzhouli to Suifenhe in 25 hours. Most of the lines (for example, from Manzhouli to Harbin, or from Harbin to Mudanjiang) also have fast trains.
Border of Manchuria and Russia

General view of the border guard post

Border guard post on the CER line

CER. Border Station. Chinese Bazaar

CER. Pier of the village of Novgorodskaya on the river. Songhua.

Art. Manchuria (Manchukuo-li)

Art. Manchuria - Bazaar. green rows

St Manchuria. Alexandrovsky prospect

CER. Art. Manchuria. Railway station

St Manchuria. Station, view from the station square

CER. Art. Manchuria. Krutitskiy prospect

CER. Art. Manchuria. Kasimovsky prospect.

Buhai Station

CER, Xilinhe Station

CER. Wafandyan Station

CER. Gunzhuling Station

CER. Dandong Station

CER. Handaohezi station. Street behind the station

Loopholes in the village of Sahepu.

Sanshin. the main street

Art. Mulin. The park

Aisadzyan station. August 14, 1904 a minute before the last train left her

Station on the CER. Chinese merchants at the water heater.

CER. Railway management in Harbin

CER. Harbin Station

CER. Harbin. Bridge over the Songhua River

Protection of the bridge over the river. Songhua.

Employees of the American Red Cross at the CER station

Big street in Azhe-Khe

Joss-house in Azhe-Khe

Grave structure in Azhe-Khe

Red Cross in Yingkou

According to the plan for the construction of the Great Siberian Railway, approved in 1892, it was planned to extend the Trans-Baikal line parallel to the Amur from Sretensk to Khabarovsk. But then a new idea was born - to connect the Siberian road with the Ussuri road by a shorter route - through Manchuria. The Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), as this section was called, straightened the Siberian Railway, reducing its length by 514 versts.

The idea of ​​building the CER appeared for the first time after the survey of the route along the Amur, which showed that the planned continuation of the Trans-Siberian Railway from Sretensk along the Amur valley to Khabarovsk is associated with significant technical difficulties. The connection of the Siberian route with Vladivostok by a direct railway route through Manchuria seemed to be more profitable in economic and operational terms.

What was China's international position in the years preceding the construction of the CER? In the second half of the XIX century. increased foreign penetration into China. The imperialists of England, France, Germany, Japan, America and other countries found the situation of the crisis of the Qing dynasty very suitable in order to profit from the fabulous wealth of China: England was firmly entrenched in Hong Kong, France in Indochina. Japan began to show the most aggressive intentions towards China: in 1895, after a series of predatory wars with China, it imposed on the Chinese government the enslaving Treaty of Shimonoseki, according to which China renounced its preemptive rights in Korea in favor of Japan, ceded Formosa (Taiwan) and the Pescador Islands, agreed to the transfer of the “lease” of the Liaodong Peninsula with the cities of Dairen and Port Arthur.

In 1895, after the conclusion of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Russia, by presenting an allied (English-French-Russian) ultimatum to Japan, forced her to abandon the main trophy of the Japanese-Chinese war - the Liaodong Peninsula. Shortly thereafter, Russia provided China with a loan of 400 million francs and organized the Russo-Chinese Bank. In 1896, Russia concluded a military alliance with China and an agreement for the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway. After receiving consent from China for the laying of a rail track, a private joint-stock company was formed - the Board of the CER, the founder of which was the Russian-Chinese (since 1910 - Russian-Asian) Bank in Khabarovsk. It was this bank (and, therefore, the CER Society) that the Chinese government allowed to build and operate the road.

The Company's shares could be purchased by both Chinese and Russian subjects. The Chinese government refused any interference in the financial side of the Society's activities, that is, the income from the operation of the constructed road was exempted from any fees and taxes. But by agreement of the parties, it was envisaged that China could buy the road 36 years after the completion of construction, and 80 years after the start of operation, the transfer to the Chinese side of the CER free of charge.

According to a special agreement on the conditions for the construction of the highway, Russia was not allowed to have its troops on the territory of Northern Manchuria, where it was supposed to build the road, and after the completion of the work, only their transit transportation between stations on Russian territory was allowed and without stopping along the way under any pretext. . The CER Society took upon itself the obligation to keep the future line in working order, to maintain direct communication with the Russian railway network without interruption, observing the same train speed as on the Siberian road.

The management of the Society's activities belonged to the Board, whose chairman was appointed by the Chinese government, since he exercised control over the exact observance of the Society's obligations to the Chinese side and maintained the Society's relationship with the Chinese authorities. The comrade of the chairman was elected by the shareholders, but he was approved by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Empire. The first meeting of the Board of the Society was held in St. Petersburg in December 1896. From 1896 to 1903, S. I. Kerbedz was the Comrade Chairman, from 1903 to 1920 - A. N. Wentzel. The construction department of the CER was headed by A. I. Yugovich, a civil engineer, a well-known specialist in the construction of roads in desert and mountainous regions. (note 1)

2. Construction of the road (1897 - 1903)

The first parties of Russian engineers, headed by the chief builder and surveyor of the CER A. I. Yugovich, arrived in Manchuria in July 1897 and began to conduct detailed surveys in two directions: the northern one - to Qiqihar and the southern one - to Bodune and Ninguta, while preference was given for technical and economic reasons to the northern direction.

Simultaneously with the survey of the route, a number of measures were taken to ensure the delivery of building materials. The conditions for their delivery were very difficult, since it was impossible to approach the place of work either from the west or from the east: the Trans-Baikal railway was not yet in operation, and the most technically difficult part of the line through the Khekhtsirsky pass had not yet been laid on the Ussuriyskaya. For these reasons, it was decided to start construction from Harbin, with the delivery of building materials along the Sungari, Amur and Ussuri, for which it was necessary to create a special river shipping company of the CER. When by the summer of 1900 1,300 km of continuous rail track had been laid along the entire road, the Yihetuan (Boxer) uprising broke out in China. The railway guards and road employees heroically defended the construction sites, but they failed to keep the rebellious elements: about 80% of the railway line was captured by the rebels and was completely destroyed. Less than one third of the laid rail track survived - 400 versts, almost all station buildings and residential premises were burned and destroyed, warehouses of materials were plundered, a significant part of the rolling stock was broken and stolen, the telegraph was damaged, the coal mines of the road were destroyed. However, after the liquidation of the unrest, the laying of the track was carried out at such a rapid pace that the entire length of the road in October 1901 was closed and put into working condition. The CER immediately began transporting passengers and mail.

The construction of the line was carried out by the most progressive methods. The minimum radius of the curves was 440 m (only in mountain conditions 250 m), the maximum rise was not more than 0.015, the thickness of the ballast layer was 45 cm, 24-pound rails were laid. 1464 bridges were built on the road, including the largest one across the Songhua River, 9 tunnels were laid, two of which were more than 3 km long. At the same time, the double-track Khingan tunnel built under the guidance of engineer N. N. Bocharov was unique for those years.

Nearly 200,000 Chinese workers worked for the CER. The Board of the Society provided the builders with free medical care, paid temporary disability benefits, and in the event of the death of workers, benefits to their families. The society had to build hundreds of auxiliary enterprises - coal mines, timber and stone processing factories, brick factories, main mechanical railway workshops and much more.

On July 1, 1903, regular passenger and goods traffic was opened on the CER. Construction in as soon as possible The CER did credit to the skill and courage of Russian engineers and Chinese workers.

Subsequently, the CER Society participated in the equipment of the port in Vladivostok, organized, through the mediation of the Russian East Asian Shipping Company, flights to the ports of Japan, Korea, and China. In 1903, it already owned a fleet of 20 steamers. The society had a telegraph, conducted exploration of minerals in Manchuria. Hospitals, schools, shops, and libraries were opened in cities rapidly growing along the railroad. 20 railway schools were opened. (note 2)

3. Operation of the CER before the revolution (1903 - 1917)

In November 1902, D. L. Horvath was appointed manager of the CER, who on December 6, 1911 was awarded the rank of lieutenant general, his official remuneration per year was 25,000 rubles. plus 10,000 rubles.

D. L. Horvat made a huge contribution to the development of the CER, to its technical equipment, to the construction of station buildings, housing for railway workers, to the organization of local production, including the creation of new industries. Under him, glass, brick, tanneries, as well as pasta factories arose. Developed Agriculture. In 1915, the CER Society owned several sugar, oil mills, gold mines, 15 mills, 30 sea and river steamers, 26 apiaries, 11 agricultural estates, 13 timber industry enterprises, including 5 sawmills for the production of sleepers. Investments of the Board of the road in coal mining in the area of ​​Chzhalaynor (now Dzhalai-Nur) in 1914 were estimated at more than 10 million rubles. Large funds were invested in urban and housing construction, as well as in trade and banking.

In November 1917, the Council of People's Commissars removed Horvat from his post, transferring the management of the CER to the hands of the Harbin Soviet. But with the help of Chinese troops and the White Guards, Horvat overthrew the power of the Soviets in December 1917. He declared himself the “provisional government of Russia”, turning the CER into a white bulwark against Soviet power in the Far East. At the end of 1918, the “Supreme Ruler of Russia”, Admiral Kolchak, appointed General Horvath as governor of the Far East and the CER right-of-way. However, in August 1919, the same “supreme ruler” removed Horvat from the post of “deputy for the Far East” because he refused to suppress the strike of the Far Eastern railway workers. From this period, the active role of D. L. Horvath in the white movement also ceased. In 1922, D. L. Horvath resigned as manager and left for Beijing. Here he entered the service of the Chinese government, became an adviser on the construction and operation of railways.

During the Chinese democratic revolution 1924-1925 V. K. Blyukher suggested that the Council of People's Commissars and the People's Commissariat of Railways use D. L. Horvath as the manager of the CER as a great specialist in communications, moreover, enjoying authority among the Chinese authorities. D. L. Horvath died in Beijing in May 1937, a month before his 78th birthday.

The operation of the CER in the first years of its opening took place in difficult conditions: 1904-1905. were the years of the Russo-Japanese War (according to the Treaty of Portsmouth southern part line from Kuanchengzi (now Changchun) to st. Far (Dalian) was ceded to the Japanese); in 1906 troops were evacuated from Manchuria. Since 1907, the road began to work under normal conditions.

The income from transportation for this period was (by years, respectively) - 7.7; 8.2; 8.4; 10.5 and 12.4 million rubles.

On August 1, 1906, the Ussuri Railway was transferred to the long-term lease of the Chinese Eastern Railway - for 25 years, until January 1, 1931. What caused this? Firstly, the fact that as a result of the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, the CER lost its southern ports: Port Arthur and Dalniy. The road needed access to the ocean, and the choice fell on Vladivostok.

The then all-powerful Minister of Finance, Count S. Yu. Witte, who was in charge of the CER, convinced the tsar that the Ussuri railway should not be left in the same position, because its employees were self-willed, the administration fell under the influence of unreliable persons. Against this background, the CER was in sharp contrast, which during the Russo-Japanese War performed a grandiose job, and after the war, when riots occurred on all roads, it did not stop its activities for one hour, and therefore Witte considered it necessary to lease the Ussuriysk Railway to the Society CER, which will be able to restore the same exemplary order on it as exists on the CER. On the basis of the report of the Minister of Finance, in March 1906, a resolution was issued on the transfer of the Ussuri road for rent to the CER Society. The actual transfer took place on August 1, 1906.

The tsarist government wanted the revolutionary-minded working class of the Ussuri railroad to cool its ardor under the auspices of the CER. Particularly sought the lease of the Ussuriyka by its former head, engineer-colonel N.I. her soldiers of the Ussuri railway battalion, which he then commanded.

So, the management of the Ussuri railway was disbanded and the Ussuri department of the CER was formed. From 1908 to 1917, Stepan Tsetsarevich von Offenberg was the representative of the Council and the head of the department, staffed by the Ministry of Railways, and at the same time the head of the line track department from 1908 to 1917. He was born in 1864. He graduated from the Institute of Communications. In 1897, he headed the service of the track and structures of the Ussuri road, a railway engineer of the 4th class. For labor diligence he was awarded three orders and four medals. In 1915 he was awarded the rank of Major General.

The state of the Ussuri railroad by the time it was leased to the CER did not at all meet the economic needs, especially the needs of developing exports. The maximum capacity set during the construction of the line (seven pairs of military trains) became a brake on the increasing traffic. Of course, such a situation could not suit the CER Society. And since, according to Article 15 of the agreement of the parties, the deficit in the operation of the Ussuri railway was to be reimbursed to the tenant Russian government, the board of the CER did not skimp on the implementation of all those improvements that would enhance the throughput. For this purpose, during the period of a subordinate position (1913-1916), a second track was laid on the Vladivostok-Nikolskoye section, along which export cargoes were transported; a tunnel was built on the Kiparisovo Nadezhdinskoye stretch, thereby softening the Kiparisovsky Pass; three viaducts were built in Vladivostok, thereby softening the profile of the route Vladivostok - Pervaya Rechka; berths and warehouses for transshipment of export cargo were equipped on Egersheld.

All expenses of the CER were made from its own funds, which were then repaid by the government. First world war and the subsequent period, the repayment of payments began to be delayed, the cash allocations for the Ussuri road were reduced to zero, and the latter no longer received anything from the CER except for instructions. (note 3)

In August 1918, a general meeting of employees of Art. Nikolskoye decided to demand the separation of the Ussuri line from the CER. Loans for the maintenance of the road were increasingly reduced, and from January 1920 the release of funds was finally stopped.

On March 20, 1920, the Primorsky Regional Zemstvo Council issued a resolution “On the termination of the 1906 agreement on the lease of the Ussuri railway by the CER Society.” At the same time, the executive bureau of the Council of Railways was formed under the chairmanship of the Bolshevik I. G. Kushnarev and three members, including the head of the Ussuri branch of the traffic service, engineer N. E. Spengler. He was instructed to carry out the separation of the Ussuri road from the CER and form an independent road administration.

On May 12, 1920, the first order was issued for the newly independent road. The final separation took place on July 1, 1920, with the formation of an independent administration headed by engineer Nikolai Eduardovich Spengler. Thus, the lease of the CER of the Ussuri railroad ended prematurely.

For a long time, the Chinese Eastern Railway has been a bone of contention between Russia and Japan. Its huge role in the economy of Manchuria was quickly appreciated by the railroad magnates of America, primarily Harriman. It is no coincidence, therefore, that America took upon itself mediation in the conclusion of a peace treaty between Japan and Russia after the war of 1905. This agreement was signed on September 5, 1905 in the American city of Portsmouth. It significantly limited the interests of both Russia and Japan in China, although Japan still found itself in a more advantageous position: it received the Liaodong Peninsula with the South Manchurian Railway (part of the Chinese Eastern Railway).

In 1909, the United States proclaimed the doctrine of “ open doors” in China, which meant an open robbery of China. Based on this doctrine, America made a proposal to England, Germany, France and Japan to neutralize the railways in Manchuria. Naturally, neither Russia nor Japan could agree with this. Northern part of the CER from st. Otpor to Pogranichnaya still remained the property of Russia. Since 1924, the CER was under the joint control of the USSR and China.

Manchuria, which had long been a tasty morsel for Japan, was captured by the Japanese militarists in 1931. The starting point and base for the annexation of Manchuria was the South Manchurian Railway. The Japanese, who occupied Manchuria, began to interfere with the normal operation of the CER, which was owned by the USSR. Cases of sabotage and accidents became more frequent on the road, Japanese intelligence blackmailed the Soviet railway workers who worked on the road, planted agents among them. Taking into account the tense situation in this area, the Soviet government, in order to preserve peace in the Far East, agreed in 1935 to sell the CER to Japan.

Japan made huge profits from the operation of the railways of Manchuria. In 1938 alone, the concern's net profit amounted to more than 142 million yen. Along with this, the Japanese military made intensive use of the railroad for military transportation: a million-strong Kwantung Army was being assembled, which was to play the role of a shock fist in a future big war with Soviet Union. Manchuria and the Chinese Eastern Railway were assigned the role of a bridgehead in this war. But the vaunted army was forced to capitulate in August 1945 before a powerful Soviet Army who entered Manchuria with a great liberation mission.

Together with victory Soviet people over militaristic Japan, our rights to the CER were also restored. Faithful to the principle of respect for China's sovereignty, the Soviet government renounced the rights of extraterritoriality in China as early as 1917 and managed the CER jointly with China on a parity basis. With the proclamation of the People's Republic in China, the CER became a path of genuine friendship and brotherhood between the Soviet and Chinese peoples.

On February 14, 1950, a historic treaty of friendship, alliance and mutual assistance was signed in Moscow between the governments of the USSR and the People's Republic of China. At the same time, an agreement was concluded under which the Soviet government transferred to China free of charge all its rights to jointly manage the Chinese Changchun (former CER) railway with all its property

Burkova Valentina Fedorovna