TURKISH SULTAN's DREAM

Turkish Sultan Abdulmecid cherished a dream in the mid-19th century to build a tunnel that would link the eastern and western parts of Istanbul. He sought assistance from both local and overseas engineers, but, unfortunately, at that time, fulfilling such a daunting task was technically unfeasible and financially burdensome even for the sultans. So, it wasn't until one and a half centuries later that the Turkish ruler's dream materialized, and his fellow citizens managed to construct a railway tunnel under the Bosphorus Straits!

In addition to the tremendous local significance of the project, it will be a key link in the implementation of an even more ambitious initiative, which is restoration of the historic Silk Road.

On October 29, the Republic Day of Turkey, thousands of people, including senior Turkish officials, as well as government representatives from Azerbaijan, Japan, Afghanistan, Georgia, Bulgaria and Romania, attended the ceremony of commissioning the Marmaray railway tunnel, which links Europe and Asia.

"The one and a half centuries long dream of our forefathers has been realized. We have succeeded in fulfilling it," said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who stood behind the steering wheel of the first train which went through the tunnel during the test run in August.

Work on the project began as early as in 2004 after financial support from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the European Investment Bank was secured.

The construction operations were carried out by an international consortium involving mainly Turkish and Japanese companies.

The Marmaray project covers more than 76 km of railway lines, 37 ground stations, as well as three subterranean, four transit and eight suburban railway stations. The length of the railroad, the construction of which cost over 5bn dollars, is 13.6 km, including 1.4 km built under the Bosphorus. The railway will be used for commuter trains, as well as passenger and freight train traffic. Trains will be dispatched every two minutes. It is expected that trains will cross the Bosphorus in a matter of minutes and that it would take 103 minutes for passengers to travel from Halkali to Gebze, which are Istanbul's farthermost points in Europe and Asia, respectively.

Obviously, first of all, the availability of this tunnel will solve the pressing problem of traffic jams in the city, which has millions of residents; so far about 2 million people a day had to cross the Bosphorus using the two existing overground bridges, which cannot handle the increasing traffic of vehicles. On the very first day of its operation, the number of passengers travelling through the Marmaray tunnel exceeded 300,000, which is well over the expected 200,000. By the way, some of them had a little accident: early in the morning there was a blackout and the train passengers had to walk along the rails under the Bosphorus. The traffic was resumed a few minutes thereafter. Also, the doors of the metro train in the tunnel got stuck. But all these are just minor nuisances that are acceptable in the early stage of the implementation of this new transport project.

At the same time, no matter how grand the project is, public safety is paramount. Planners and construction managers say they've taken care of safety. The tunnel is a twin-tube, which was laid at the depth of some 60 meters under the Bosphorus bottom. It was designed to withstand a 9.0-point magnitude earthquake (based on the Richter magnitude scale). This is extremely important, given that just 20 km away there is the North-Anatolian Fault Zone, which, according to seismologists, may trigger a powerful quake over the next 30 years.

Interestingly, the implementation of this project has also enriched the world treasure of historical exhibits, and this actually led to a delay in the project implementation. Thus, during the construction work the tunnellers ran across the Byzantine-era port of Feodosiya, which along with the wreckage of over 30 medieval ships contained ruins that archeologists say date back to the 7th millennium B.C.E.

A total of about 40,000 ancient items were found. UNESCO said these finds are so valuable that they could be listed as a World Heritage Site.

Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the tunnel opening ceremony that the Marmaray railway project is an indicator of economic growth and democracy in Turkey; the implementation of such a global project once again shows that stability in the country makes it possible to attain significant economic achievements.

With the commissioning of the afore-mentioned tunnel, railway transportation in Istanbul is expected to increase by 20 per cent -- up to 28 per cent of the overall volume. This will allow the Turkish city to be ranked third on this indicator -- next only to Tokyo with 60 percent and New York with 31 per cent.

A ticket to travel from one coast of the Bosphorus to the other one costs about $1 this year.

As for the global importance of the project, it is worthy of note that "Marmaray" will be a stepping stone in creating a transportation system which will span thousands of kilometers and link Europe with Central Asia. It has already been given a quite poetic name, the Iron Silk Road. This railway route will connect London with Beijing and will become an alternative to the Trans-Siberian Railway in the future.

This will be possible after the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is put into operation in 2014.

The peak capacity of this route will be 17m tons of cargo per year. Initially, the annual capacity will be 1 million passengers and 6.5m tons of cargo.

Given the importance of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project, Azerbai-jan allocated a loan worth 775m dollars for the construction of the Georgian section of the railway.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is also being eyed by Central Asian countries, Afghanistan and China, which believe that a transport corridor stretching all the way to the Black Sea would be an alternative route to seaports. Thus, in November 2012, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Turkey signed a memorandum on the SilkWind transport project, which is an initiative being realized within the TRACECA program. SilkWind will allow delivering additional cargo to the Azerbaijani segment of the corridor and boosting international trade in the region. This could be done by transporting more transit cargo from China, southeastern Asia and the Pacific region and in the opposite direction.

Under the project, a conventional multi-modal unit train will travel a distance of 4,192 km in 12 days.

According to the project, the implementation of large-scale infrastructure projects, such as the construction of the new Baku International Seaport, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project, the Zhezkazgan-Beyneu railway in Kazakhstan, the subsea Marmaray railway tunnel in Turkey, as well as conclusion of an intergovernmental agreement among the signatories of the memorandum, will play an important role in realizing the SilkWind project.

Accordingly, the railway projects being implemented in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Central Asia will allow transporting a large bulk of consignments and increasing the transit potential of Azerbaijan and the entire region. In particular, potential delivery of container cargo from China, which is posting production growth, is very promising.

 In turn, "Marmaray", which is, so to speak, a continuation of the Silk Road, will be of trans-European importance for the major Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. Thus, these two enormous projects will pave the way for further restoration of the great Silk Road.