Business News Russia | Page 35

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Entrance to the Kremlin Senate, part of the Moscow Kremlin and the working residence of the Russian president.

technological development: energy efficiency, IT (including both common products and the products combined with space technology), nuclear energy and pharmaceuticals. Some progress already has been achieved, with Russia's having nearly completed GLONASS, the only global satellite navigation system apart from American GPS, and Russia's being the only country constructing mobile nuclear plants.

Transportation

Railway transport in Russia is mostly under the control of the state-run Russian Railways monopoly. The company accounts for over 3.6% of Russia’s GDP and handles 39% of the total of Russia’s freight traffic (including pipelines) and more than 42% of passenger traffic. The total length of common-used railway tracks exceeeds 85,500 km, second only to the United States. Over 44,000 km of tracks are electrified, which is the largest number in the world, and additionally there are more than 30,000 km of industrial non-common carrier lines. Railways in Russia, unlike in the most of the world, use broad gauge of 1,520 mm (4 ft 11+⁄6 in), with the exception of 957 km on Sakhalin Island using narrow gauge of 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in). The most renown railroad in Russia is Trans-Siberian Railway (or 'Transsib'), spanning a record 7 time zones and serving the longest single continuous services in the world, Moscow-Vladivostok (9,259 km, 5,753 mi), Moscow–Pyongyang (10,267 km, 6,380 mi) and Kiev–Vladivostok

(11,085 km, 6,888 mi).

As of 2006 Russia had 933,000 km of roads, of which 755,000 were paved. Some of these make up the Russian federal motorway system. With a large land area the road density is the lowest of all the G8 and BRIC countries. A Russian saying states that There are two main problems in Russia: fools and roads, however this very lack of roads was of much help to Russians in the times of Napoleon's and Hitler's invasions.

102,000 km of inland waterways in Russia mostly go by natural rivers or lakes. In the European part of the country the network of channels connects the basins of major rivers. Russia's capital, Moscow, is sometimes called "the port of the five seas", due to its waterway connections to the Baltic, White, Caspian, Azov and Black seas.