The time has come, as in that joke, to answer the question: is it far from Tallinn? - No, not far-oh!
The national railway company of Estonia is Eesti Raudtee. It is a railway network with a total track length of 1,320 kilometers. Of these, electrified - only 132 kilometers. Almost the same picture as in Lithuania.
Estonia - population 1,311,759. This is slightly more than the population of the most depressed region of Ukraine - Kherson (1,065,303 people), almost like Ivano-Frankivsk (1,381,798 people). Since 2010, the population of Estonia has ceased to decrease, there has been an increase. What does the population of this republic drive around their maakondas (districts)?
Let's steal from the pedivic room such a cartograph -
Both the rolling stock of the Estonian Railways themselves (Eesti Raudtee) and others - all sorts of subsidiaries and private enterprises operate on these highways.
There is an JSC "Elektriraudtee" (Electric Railways), the so-called Elron. This Elron, at the Pääsküla depot, uses exclusively Stadler FLIRT (EMU) electric trains, which they have four-digit numbers and have their own names -
1311, Estonia, Tallinn, section Tallinn-Balti - Järve.
This one was poetically named - Riesenberg. There is also Koit, Apelsin and others -
There are twelve three-car electric trains in total.
As far as I understand, the first digit of the number means the type of rolling stock (1 - electric train), the second - the number of cars in the train, and the third and fourth - just a serial number.
Look here: the same Stadler FLIRT as shown above, but for four cars - 1401 "Kegel" -
Estonia, Tallinn, Pääsküla station.
Of these, for four cars, six trains were purchased -
Let's move on to the second type of suburban trains. These are already diesel trains, on the same platform - Stadler FLIRT (DMU). The numbering tells us that there are options for two, three and four cars -
First, let's look at the shortest - 2233 "Lembitu" -
Estonia, Tartumaa, Tartu-Kärkna stretch.
Train No. 321 Tartu - Jõgeva
Please note that a module with a diesel generator is switched on between the cars. You don't even need to search and study the technical characteristics of Stadler FLIRT - DMU and EMU to understand: the degree of unification of diesel trains and electric trains is very high. It should be very convenient to operate in a single (single) depot.
By the way, our Russian diesel train DP-M-001, which was created at Metrovagonmash together with the Swiss company Stadler Rail, is also based on a similar solution - modularity. It was covered in the topic.
Now, for the sake of interest, let's look at Aunt Joanna's sweet buns, a three-car 2315 "Johanna" -
Estonia, Tallinn, station Tallinn-Väike.
Good infection!
In the variant with four wagons, we will not see anything fundamentally new, but let's look at 2432 "Balti Ekspress" -
Estonia, Ida-Virumaa, Narva station.
Please note: Estonia operates American mainline freight bonnet locomotives built by GE Transportation, a subsidiary of General Electric. We will not dwell on them in detail. This is material for a separate topic.
In the past, the Pääsküla multiple unit depot operated conventional Soviet ER1 and ER2 -
By 2004, 9 trains were decommissioned. It is unlikely that they now exist physically.
Newer electric trains passed the KVR and somewhat changed their exterior -
ER2-802, Estonia, Harjumaa, Paldiski - Klooga stretch. Date: May 20, 2011
Operated until 2013, until they switched to Stadler FLIRT.
Their further fate is interesting: 12 trains, with a different number of cars, were transferred somewhere. What was found on some of them - some have already ended up in Azerbaijan, in the PM-1 "Baku-Passenger". They were simply bought by Holdinga Kompānija Felix Ltd (Riga), repaired at the Riga Carriage Works and sold to Azerbaijan Railways.
On the way to a new home
ER2-1027, Russia, Volgograd region, station named after Maxim Gorky.
Date: September 19, 2015
Interesting: did the Ukrainian Nazi junta beg for the remains of old electric trains in Estonia too? Maybe they asked, such shameful ones. Be that as it may, the Estonians acted wisely: they earned something with their Latvian neighbors by supplying electric trains to Azerbaijan. Anything is better than just giving it to some Bandera rogue temporary workers.
To the Azerbaijan Railways, to the Baku-Passenger PM-1! -
ER2-1293, Latvia, Riga, electric train maintenance shop at Zasulauks depot.
The former Estonian electric train passed the Kyrgyz Republic at the RVZ. It is being adjusted in the depot.
On this we will finish with Elron (Pääsküla).
There is also the slowly empty depot Tallinn-Väike (Edelaraudtee) -
It contains only non-working (indicated in yellow) old Soviet diesel trains DR1A.
In 2014, we still traveled on routes. They even visited us
DR1A-274, Russia, Leningrad region, Milling - Gatchina-Tovarnaya-Baltic stage.
Some trains are still listed as non-working, while others have already been transferred (sold or leased) to safe hands.
Diesel trains Estonians merged into another prosperous country, to Kazakhstan.
Snapshot from July 16, 2016 -
DR1A-239, DR1A-251, Kazakhstan, Almaty region, Medeu station. Carrier "Soluxexpress".
Suburban train on route No. 7202 "Alma-Ata-I - Kapchagay".
What a beautiful Kyrgyz ridge! These are not some rainy Carpathians for you, with cut down forests.) Such warm diesel cars passed by the ukrohunta. And it would be possible to beg them from their European brothers. They are brothers! They are Europeans too! Could not for self-interest, and so give, for nothing! Send as galoshes to help the remnants of the country that has covered all of Europe with the breasts of its Ukrainian soldier - an alcoholic marauder. But, not cool! Pragmatic Estonians did not appreciate the drunken courage of the Ukrainian Nazis.
So the Ukronazis don’t care, they don’t go by diesel trains to squeeze the crops to their farmers. And the citizens of the remnants of Ukraine suffer as they can.
And could, if Estonians were a little kinder and compassionate, in such salons to drive around all sorts of Bukovels, right in embroidered shirts and yellow lace underpants -
Salon of the 2nd class car of the diesel train DR1A-241.6 (DR1BJ-4770).
Nothing, the Kazakhs also love the blue color. The diesel train works on the Kazakhstan railways, in TC-22 "Protection". And his one car 03 (3720) was sold to Tajikistan in August of this year.
The private carrier A/S GoRail has two DR1A diesel trains. They are equipped as regional express trains, they were used on the international route of train No. 810 "Tallinn - St. Petersburg" -
DR1A-228, Russia, St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg-Vitebsky station.
If I'm not mistaken, they were in use until the spring of 2014, when the train was canceled. Now marked as disabled. Perhaps right now they are being washed, tinted and prepared for the solemn transfer to their European brothers in Ukraine.)
"The whole world is with us!", "Foreigners will help us!" etc. and so on.
So we reviewed the entire suburban multiple unit rolling stock (MVPS) of Estonia. The same as in Lithuania - not very thick, prim and decorative.
Childhood illnesses are a common occurrence in new rolling stock.
-Gatchina. In the same year, this section was connected to the Petersburg–Warsaw Railway. The Baltic Railway Society lengthened the line in 1870 from Gatchina to Tosno, resulting in a connection to the Nikolaevskaya Railway.
In 1877, the Tapa-Dorpt railway line opened, which was extended in 1897 to Valga, where it was connected to the Pskov-Rizhskaya railway under construction, which was followed by trains two years later. In 1896, the construction of the first narrow-gauge (750 mm) Valga-Pärnu railway was completed, in 1897 a railway line was opened from Mõizaküla to Viljandi, and from there to Paide and the port in Reval. Constant traffic between these cities arose in 1901.
The independent Estonian Railway (ER) was established on November 15, 1918 on the basis of the North-Western Railway, the First Transportation Line Society and sections of the naval and military field railway.
In 1931, the construction of the Tartu–Pechory broad gauge railway was completed, and Estonia received a direct connection to the central regions of Russia and Ukraine.
In 1940, when EZhD was included in the USSR railway network, the length of Estonian public railway lines was 1,447 km, of which 772 km were broad gauge and 675 km narrow gauge.
In 1991, after the restoration of the independence of the Republic of Estonia, the previously paramilitary organization acquired the economic functions of a transit channel. The state enterprise Estonian Railways was established on January 1, 1992. In the same year, the membership of the Estonian Railways in the International Union of Railways and the Organization for Cooperation between Railways was established.
In 1997, the company was transformed into the joint-stock company "Eesti Raudtee".
In 1998, an international competition was announced with the aim of establishing a joint-stock company and an investor for organizing international passenger transportation. In 2000, by decision of the government, the Estonian Privatization Agency (EPA) announced an international tender for the privatization of 66% of the shares of JSC Eesti Raudtee, which took place in two stages.
In 2001, the Director General of Baltic Rail Services (BRS) entered into an agreement for the privatization of 66% of AS Eesti Raudtee.
In 2007, the Republic of Estonia bought back 66% of the shares for 2.35 billion kroons. The reason is inflated tariffs for the transportation of goods and lobbying for the interests of American manufacturers of railway vehicles that are not adapted to work in the EU and CIS countries.
In 2009, the division of JSC Eesti Raudtee was registered in the commercial register, during which two subsidiaries were created: AS EVR Infra, an infrastructure management and maintenance company, and AS EVR Cargo, a freight forwarding company.
The wise Estonian geography, which (together with history) was devoted to, leaves its mark on transport, with a review of which I continue the story about Estonia as a whole. The transport system here is perhaps the best in the former USSR, and is developed in all 4 types.
One of the main features of intra-Estonian transport, which is unusual for me, is the almost complete absence of cash desks. In suburban trains - conductors, buses are equipped with ticket machines for printing tickets, tickets for ferries either via the Internet, or when boarding. Most of the stations are closed, there are full-fledged bus stations only in serious cities, but in general, ticket offices are not needed here - transport runs frequently and was late only once in my memory, and there are usually enough places for everyone. A characteristic element is such round stands with a timetable on poles, such as in the town of Kunda near Rakvere:
Although in the last part I showed Estonian primers, wide and impeccably rolled, after all, most of the roads here are asphalt. Moreover, they are even and ideally marked out, both outside the city and in cities. I would say that Estonia has the best roads in the entire former USSR, and traveling here by car is easy and pleasant:
The platform of the Tallinn bus station, in general, is not very different from the bus stations in the province. Buses in Estonia look basically the same as the ones in the frame (although they themselves are international, possibly from St. Petersburg) - large, new and usually half empty. There are also minibuses, but rarely - I remember them in Kohtla-Jarve (which is actually a dozen small towns) and Setomaa.
A fairly common phenomenon at Estonian bus stations (I observed at least in Tartu and Pärnu) are children selling newspapers, running in flocks among passengers and periodically running away to the buffet. Why they are here and how juvenile justice looks at it, I have no idea - but it is unlikely that this is poverty and the exploitation of child labor. Reminds me of capitalist America in the first half of the 20th century:
5. right there, by the way, you can also see a ticket machine under glass - however, this is also in Latvia.
By the way, there are also bus stations of that era in Estonia - I saw them in Tallinn (now closed) and the small town of Abya-Paluoja in the south, I also heard about the pre-war bus station in Loksa. Well, the closest relative of the Estonians is the Finns, and Finland built bus stations very actively in the interwar period (including the oldest in Russia - and).
There are several archaic buses in Tallinn, in which ITBuss computer repair shops are located - they are unlikely to be related to modern transport, but they complement the picture great, like monument locomotives at train stations:
But do not think that Estonia is an exclusively bus country! For the first time, she heard a locomotive whistle in 1870, when the Baltic Railway was launched, connecting St. Petersburg with the military Baltic Port (now Paldiski) through Gatchina (an offshoot of St. Petersburg-Warsaw), Narva and Revel. In 1877, a branch was extended from it to Derpt, 20 years later extended to Valka - now it was possible to leave the future Estonia by train not only to St. Petersburg, but also to Riga. In 1931, Tartu was connected to Petseri (as the Estonian-owned Pechory was then called), opening a direct route to Moscow ... but Narva remained the main railway entrance to the country, through which even the Moscow train runs to Tallinn. The Baltic Station in Tallinn was probably conceived as the most architecturally dull in the world:
And 9/10 busy with "Selver" supermarket (the most popular chain in Estonia) and all sorts of other stuff. The waiting room, also known as the ticket office, now looks like this, and although at two local ticket offices you can theoretically get a ticket for an electric train, they are mostly for long-distance trains ... of which there are only two in Estonia - to Moscow and St. Petersburg, so that there are rarely queues here:
The length of the Estonian railways is 1320 kilometers (of which only 10% are electrified), which is almost half as much as in neighboring Latvia, and in addition they are divided between either two ("Eesti Raudtee" and "Elron"), or three (more "Edelaraudtee" / "South Western Railway") railway companies - the first owns freight, the second - electric trains, the third - diesels (and it seems that the last two have now merged). Actually, "Eesti Raudtee" is the original here, and all the rest of it stood out in the 1990s. There are (and were) other companies - say, a joint venture with Russian Railways "GoRail", which oversees trains to Russia, or purely freight " Põlevkivi raudtee"(" Shale railway "), serving the mines of Kohtla-Järve, or the mysterious "Haapsalu raudtee", in 1995 bought the Royzipiri-Haapsalu branch (where passenger traffic had stopped the day before), and by 2004 had not come up with anything better than to dismantle this branch - this whole system is described in more detail by Sergey Bolashenko... In general, at first it seemed to me that the Estonian railways were in a state of withering ... until I saw their suburban trains:
In the "zero" years, the railway companies returned to state control, and in 2009-13, the Estonian railways underwent a major reconstruction "according to all EU standards" (except for the gauge, which remained 1520 mm). The most notable innovation is the Swiss trains Stadler FLIRT (Fast Light Innovative Regional Train, that is, the Fast Light Innovative Suburban Train - BLIPP), first electric trains, and in 2014, that is, literally on the eve of my arrival - and diesels. They say that now the same trains run along the Belarusian Chyguncha, but as I understand it, if there are a dozen of them in Belarus so far, then the Estonian Railway is 100% equipped with them. still ordinary RVRs, but something like our railbuses. At the same time, "Flirty" is also low-floor, therefore, platforms of a "half" height, unusual for post-Soviet railways, were also distributed throughout Estonia:
Inside the car there is a toilet, a platform for standing passengers and bicycles, tables between the seats at the ends of the car with built-in trash cans, sockets, and the cabin has an unusual "profile" - lower in the middle and higher at the ends of the car. There are, however, only one pair of doors per car:
Conductor at work:
I never found data on their speed - it feels like they pick it up very quickly and travel noticeably faster than our trains ... but Flirt overcomes 185 kilometers to Tartu with all the stops in the usual 3.5 hours, accelerated in 2 with a little - that is, really, if there is a gain in speed, then not at times.
But a couple of years ago, Estonian trains were like that ... I saw an old diesel engine on the go only once - after the Song Festival, that is, most likely it was additional for those leaving the capital for home. But the trains with the logo of the "South-Western Railway" sadly stand in the back of the station in Tartu:
The only old trains from Estonia go to Russia (but there is nothing between Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius yet) - this is a diesel to St. Petersburg () and a long-distance train to Moscow. The latter is probably the most useless train in the former USSR: there is no reserved seat in it, and the compartment price is absolutely inadequate for the condition of the car and the travel time: it’s usually cheaper to fly by plane, and the easiest option is a train to St. Petersburg or Pskov + bus. Behind the locomotive - "Eesti Raudtee" office:
Freight trains here are also quite old, and if the cars are quite ordinary Soviet ones (with tanks of Russian oil unchanged in the Baltics), then the locomotives here are already more interesting. Take a closer look - they are not ours:
Made in USA! Diesel locomotives C36 were produced by General Elekrtic in 1978-89 and went mainly to the then developing countries, first of all (4/5 of all produced) to China. In 2003, the then private "Eesti Raudtee" bought 65 used American locomotives ... which, in general, became the reason for its civilized (through the purchase of a controlling stake) nationalization: the authorities considered that the deal was lobbied, and these cars (especially sharpened under "Stephenson" gauge) are not suitable for Estonian conditions (US railways are arranged according to slightly different principles than in the Old World):
Not only trains were reconstructed in Estonia, but also stations - but by the way, here I am no longer sure that this is progress and not regression, because the stations were replaced by just canopies over the platforms, although they are quite elegant in appearance:
Both of these shots were taken on the outskirts of Tallinn - but this is how stations look all over Estonia, even in the rural outback, even in cities. And the climate in Estonia is by no means southern - rains and winds, and frosts in winter, so it’s better to wait for the train in a heated room:
But the vast majority of stations, except for the most important cities (from what I saw - Tallinn and Tartu, but with a stretch of Narva) are now closed and often abandoned, and the dimensions have also changed - the train passes somehow too close to their facades:
Stations here are of various eras, there are somehow unexpectedly few from the First Republic - Bolashenko has the most beautiful photographs, but I managed to photograph only train stations in the Nymme district of Tallinn:
Even in Estonia, there are many wooden stations like nowhere else, and often quite large ones (Tartu, Haapsalu, Paldiski), but here is an ordinary train station somewhere between Tallinn and Tartu:
In general, there is no dominant era in the local railway station architecture - there are enough pre-revolutionary buildings, stalinok, and late Soviet "sheds" most likely on the site of burned-out wooden stations:
In addition, a separate layer was the narrow-gauge system, which originated even before the revolution and expanded in the 1920s and 30s - in 1940 they accounted for slightly less than half of the entire length of Estonian railways (675 kilometers against 772 broad gauge), but in 1960- In the 70s, the vast majority of them were closed or altered to a regular gauge. Nevertheless, many former railway stations remain, and their great importance for old Estonia is evidenced by the fact that the narrow-gauge museum in Lavassaare appeared here two years earlier than in Pereslavl-Zalessky:
It seems that the track here was 750 mm (that is, as on the UZhD of Russia, not Germany), and the equipment was partly purchased in Germany, partly produced in Estonia under a German license. Here is a narrow-gauge locomotive-monument in Pärnu:
And yet the most interesting transport in Estonia is sea transport. Both domestic (9% of the territory on the islands is a lot!), And international. Here is a panorama of the Tallinn Passenger Port from the Oliviste church tower:
The current Tallinn is almost the largest passenger port in the Baltic, and the Baltic, in turn, is one of the largest areas of modern passenger navigation, connecting all these Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen like night trains. And the Estonian economic miracle can be considered the Tallink company, founded in 1989 and now turned into the largest passenger shipping company in the Baltic with an annual turnover of almost a billion euros. Its fleet consists of 21 ships plying between Tallinn, Riga, Stockholm and Helsinki. The most active ferries go exactly along Talsinki (as Tallinn and Helsinki are jokingly called in a pair), on average every two hours.
And simply, looking at the sea from the shores and towers of Tallinn, you will not be bored, the movement does not stop for a minute:
Apparently, a small cruise ship - they can be distinguished from ferries, including by the balconies along the covered decks. There is also such a variety of ships as "alco-ferries", which leave for the night in neutral waters, where alcohol can be sold without duties, and plunge into trash and waste. Yes, and they get drunk on ordinary night ferries: someone told me about a drunken Finn who tried to pester me to talk, who turned out to be not just anyone, but a minister, and someone warned that professional robbers, "shoeing "drunk. In general, you will not get bored in the Baltic:
A pilot boat leads past the "Tallinksky" ferry ...
The ferry company "Ekeryo", serving the Åland Islands - the line Tallinn-Marienhavan:
But the guest from St. Petersburg, the company "St. Peter Line" - did not know that they have flights to Tallinn:
Boarding a ferry is like boarding a plane, only without paranoid inspections - first you issue an electronic ticket (although I’m sure there are ticket offices somewhere), then you get a boarding pass in the terminal, but I don’t even remember if anyone checks these passes. I will make a separate post about the Tallinn-Helsinki crossing ... not soon, since it was at the end of the trip. But in addition to pathos international lines, there is also inland shipping in Estonia - much simpler and colorful in its own way. As you might guess, ships go to the islands, and most of their routes are served by their own operator "Tuule" - three crossings (from the mainland to Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, and between the islands) and two boat lines to the island of Ruhnu from Saaremaa and from Pärnu. Here is the provincial port of Roomasaare near Kuresaare, the capital of Saaremaa. Private water transport in Estonia is also unmeasured:
The boat "Rune" (the Swedish name for the island of Ruhnu) is in the port of Pärnu - the port, I must say, is not at all a passenger port, and if you arrive long before departure, there will even be nowhere to sit here. The boat is either Norwegian, or of its own construction, and brand new - 2012:
He is on the other side at the Ruhnus quay. In summer, he goes twice a week, and manages to serve both lines from the island:
A cozy salon, which was half empty on the Pärnu-Ruhnu line, and from Ruhnu to Saaremaa the boat was taking me alone. I issued an electronic ticket, printed a piece of paper with a barcode on a printer, and in the "buffet" on the left the code is read.
The boat is very fast, but 90 kilometers to Ruhnu, mostly on the open sea, takes 3 hours. So that passengers do not get bored - in the cabin there is a screen with a constantly updated map and information about coordinates, direction, depth under the keel, wind speed and much more, and a circle showing the overview, allowing you to evaluate what exactly you see along the way:
Most of all, however, on the boat I was surprised by the gangway, which is retractable with the help of a manipulator - and in reality, manually dragging it would have been faster.
But the boat "Abre" in the port of Roomasaare - small islands off the coast are served by their operators, I know for sure about the lines Pärnu-Kihnu, Roomasaare-Abruk, Tallinn-Naisaar, Rohukulä (Hapsalu port) - the island of Vormsi. but I didn't get to use any of them.
Of the three ferry crossings, I tried two - "unlucky" only Kuivasta-Virtsu, connecting Muhu and Saaremaa with the mainland (they are connected by a dam), because I arrived in Saaremaa from Pärnu through Ruhna. But Triigi-Syru, connecting Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, is quiet and provincial. The ferry runs 2 times a day, it takes about an hour, and in the foreground a fishing motorboat unloads algae:
The ferry is small and not new, but there is a working buffet on the upper deck, apparently so that if someone gets hungry in an hour's journey, they won't get a moral injury, according to EU standards. The stern of this ferry is on the title frame:
The Heimtali-Rohukulä crossing leading from the island of Hiiumaa to the mainland looks completely different. For cars - a checkpoint as at the entrance to a toll road, and for those who bought electronic tickets and for those who came themselves, the queues are different.
The ferry here is uncommonly more capacious, and we also got to a full house - people went en masse to the Song Festival, so the ferry went with a full load.
He has two or three decks for cars, and you should hear them thunder overhead:
This is not a buffet, but a whole cafe overlooking the sea - and again for an hour's journey:
On the mainland - the second ferry, apparently, goes to Vormsi, although it seems to be too big for an island with several hundred inhabitants:
There are also short-range airlines in Estonia - both to Helsinki and to the islands (to Rukhna - only in winter) from Tallinn. Alas, I didn’t have a chance to fly by plane, I just shot a couple over Old Tallinn - the one with propellers most likely flew to Helsinki or Stockholm, and the plane from the bottom half of the frame, I think, is private:
Ruhnu island airfield:
And in general, everything shows that in Estonia transport is not a means of making a profit, but of delivering passengers from point A to point B. Estonia fully justifies its reputation as the most developed and civilized of the post-Soviet countries. But nothing is given for free - in the past, this transport system also had an obvious, only timely stop, degradation of railways, and the catastrophe of the ferry "Estonia" that claimed hundreds of lives.
But about the realities - in the next part.
ESTONIA-2014
" ". Overview and table of contents.
Estonia and its holidays.
.
. Past.
Estonian transport.
people and realities. Modernity.
Song Festival. Procession in Tallinn.
Song Festival. On the Singing Field.
Dance holiday.
Virumaa
Narva. Lock.
Narva. Old city.
Narva. Joaorg and Krenholm.
Kohtla-Jarve. City and waterfall Vallaste.
Kohtla-Jarve. Kohtla-Nymme.
Kohtla-Jarve. Jõhvi and Pyhtitsy.
Kunda.
Rakvere. Castle and city.
How far is Tallinn? Kiyu, Jagala, Jõelähtme.
Tallinn.
South Estonia.
Islands.
Western Estonia.
Finland, Helsinki.
P.S.
And forget about the "Estonian speed" in my series - everything is fine there with the speed of both people and equipment. To be honest, the whole trip I puzzled over where this stereotype came from.
Mihail Korb, Member of the Riigikogu, Center Faction writes: Either it happened historically, or the insidious machinations of spring, but April is becoming an unkind harbinger for our extremely important sector of the economy - transit. In 2007, after the April events, cargo transportation from Russia began to slowly but surely “shrink”. And the other day, a new misfortune fell on the transit sector - a message came that Russia was reducing the daily number of train pairs from 12 to 6.
Against this background, the figures for 2006 at 32 trains per day seem to be the pinnacle of railway prosperity, and not only railway prosperity, because not only those connected with the “piece of iron” received work, but also our ports with all the infrastructure they needed. Employees had quite a decent salary, and firms pleasing the tax authorities with income.
A month and a half ago, when the specter of bad news was already looming on the horizon, I, on behalf of the Center Faction, submitted a request to the Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure Kristen Michal, in which I also recalled last year's losses of state-owned companies Eesti Raudtee and AS EVR Cargo of 9 and 3 million euros, respectively , and about the drop in the volume of transported goods by a quarter, and about the fact that already last year, in terms of traffic volume of 28 million tons, Estonia reached a historical “bottom” in this service since the restoration of the country's independence.
Not malicious politicized enemies, but quite decent auditors from the international firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers have calculated that the Estonian transit corridor is the most expensive compared to competitors Latvia and Finland, which means that the owner of the railway, represented by the state, has no clear and flexible transit policy. We did not hear a substantive answer from the minister in the parliament hall, only discussions on the topic of changing the methodology for paying for the transportation of various types of goods from the end of 2017, and the calculation of potential losses - last year it was 6.5 million euros, of which 5 million was compensated from the state budget, and this year the losses of 8.5 million euros have already been included in the budget. And this is instead of diligently replenishing the state treasury! After the news about the reduction in the number of trains, transport workers' unions were seriously worried, as this threatens to lay off both the railway and the ports of Tallinn and Sillamäe, and we are talking about hundreds of jobs.
Indeed, as Sillamäe port development director Andrey Birov noted, “we are sitting on a golden bag - this is our geographical position, but we do not use it.” Unfortunately, in the minister's response to a request about the future of transit, not a word was said about the main value of all times and peoples - human communication.
For example, our neighbors - Latvians, on the eve of the largest international transport forum "TransRussia 2016", did not stint on it - not only the Chairman of the Board of the Latvian Railway, but also the State Secretary of the Ministry of Transport and the Minister of Transport of Latvia visited Moscow.
The Estonian government was represented at such a high level for the last time exactly ten years ago. The new EZD director Sulev Loo, who is conducting bilateral negotiations with his Russian colleague, is still fighting alone for the interests of Estonian transit. However, there is no political will in the face of the Estonian government behind this, although the projection from its absence casts a heavy shadow over the entire economy.
And talk about the fact that the government's job is to create good conditions for business remains just words. Attempts to get into the corridor of the New Silk Road, intercepting a piece of Kazakh transit on the way of goods from China to Europe, may again be broken by clumsy tariffs. In addition, one should not deceive oneself too much and forget that Kazakhstan, along with Russia, is part of a single customs union, and the ports of the Leningrad region may be preferable to Estonian ones, which means that freight trains will go there without looking into our penates.
So whatever one may say, it is necessary to improve relations with the eastern neighbor - in the autumn a parliamentary delegation visited Moscow, now it is the turn of the executive branch. But, remembering the thesis of the former prime minister that we do not really need transit, I am tormented by vague doubts that his cause lives and wins in the current corridors of power. And so far, there are no signals from the authorities that the long-awaited loaded trains will run along the rails - to the delight of workers employed in the industry and the state budget, and to the envy of competitors.
