March 29, 2013. Russian Railways (RZhD) is going to present its calculations on the cost of building a network of high-speed railway links around Russia to the Russian Government in the second half of 2013. The network is supposed to develop along three main directions, the company’s First Vice President Alexander Misharin explained in the course of Passenger Forum 2013, RBC reports.

‘Some economic calculations have shown that Moscow-Saint Petersburg link, Moscow-Nizhniy Novgorod-Kazan-Yekaterinburg link (including Perm, Ufa, and Chelyabinsk), and the Moscow-Rostov-on-Don-Adler one (including the nearby cities) are the most promising directions,’ Misharin pointed out.

The implementation of the projects will mean that 90m Russian living around the said railways will be able to benefit from this high-speed links. For one, building the Moscow-Yekaterinburg link will make it possible to connect two cities where a total of more than 20m people live (in fact, 35m people if you consider the satellite towns). According to Misharin, this link alone will create ‘new opportunities and new quality of life’ for the people.