The Romanovs and the Trans-Siberian Railway: Empire on Track

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how the Trans-Siberian Railway became both a symbol of Romanov ambition and a strategic tool for empire. They trace its construction from the 1891 groundbreaking in Vladivostok, through the swamps of Eastern Siberia and the permafrost of the Amur region, to the completion of the Great Siberian Route in 1916. They discuss the role of Sergei Witte as finance minister, the use of convict labor and Chinese workers, the engineering challenges of Lake Baikal (including the ice-breaking ferry Baikal and the Circum-Baikal Railway), and the railway's impact on the Russo-Japanese War and the resettlement of millions of peasants. The conversation also touches on the contrasting visions of Tsar Alexander III and his son Nicholas II, the infamous Amur Cart Road, and the railway's legacy as a double-edged sword that connected Russia but also drained its treasury. #TransSiberianRailway #SergeiWitte #AlexanderIII #NicholasII #Vladivostok #LakeBaikal #CircumBaikalRailway #RussoJapaneseWar #GreatSiberianRoute #AmurRiver #Chelyabinsk #Omsk #Krasnoyarsk #Irkutsk #Khabarovsk #RussianEmpire #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo