This news is simply catastrophic. Everything has been lost, drunk away, and stolen. Every geography textbook talks about “Russia’s unique geographic position.” How could they have managed to lose even that? But they did. They puffed themselves up, quarreled with old allies, lied about new ones—but never actually made any. And they lost that too.
The first train dispatched as part of the international New Silk Road project has arrived in Georgia from China. The transit train carrying containerized cargo will soon continue on to Turkey via the Trans-Asian-Caucasus transport corridor, Georgia Online reports. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili met the train at Tbilisi Central station. “I am pleased that, symbolically, our train is decorated with the flags of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kazakhstan, and the EU. In an unprecedentedly short time—8 to 10 days—we can receive cargo in Georgia, and then within 3 to 5 days deliver it to various countries in Europe,” the prime minister said. Garibashvili noted that until now, cargo from China to Europe had been transported by sea. That took about 40 days. According to him, shipments will become significantly faster and cheaper thanks to cooperation among the countries located along the Silk Road. This refers to a route through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, bypassing Russia. http://www.rbc.ru/business/13/12/2015/566d50109a79472274a8feec?from=main
Kirill Rogov put it so well about this news that I won’t add anything at all—I’ll just quote him in full:
This is without politics, without judgments about Crimea, the war in Ukraine, or other geopolitical contortions. Just a matter-of-fact technical observation. It so happens that in recent years Vladimir Putin has become a genuine economic disaster for Russia. We had the opportunity to make use of the country’s transit position. There will be no transit (see below). There were plans to capitalize on the possibilities of a single economic space and economic union—but it will not bring us dividends; quite the opposite, because of the asymmetry in the current trade regimes with the outside world of Belarus and Kazakhstan on the one hand, and the Russian Federation on the other. We will not even have a decent resource-based economy, because the technological lag in the oil sector (due to lack of investment and technology sanctions) and Russia’s unreliability as a gas supplier are pushing us to the margins of energy markets. Our advantage in education cannot be realized, because our educated and scientific personnel are leaving the country in droves. As for everything else, let’s not even get into it. Of course, everyone knows all this, but this is simply a patriot’s cry in response to this piece of news. Think about it, read it carefully. What is at stake is the formation of an integrated economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific—and Russia has no place in it.