Russia spans the Asian continent and has a territory of more than 17.1 million square kilometers, far exceeding Canada's 9.98 million square kilometers, ranking first in the world.

Russia spans the Asian continent and has a territory of more than 17.1 million square kilometers, far exceeding Canada's 9.98 million square kilometers, ranking first in the world. This area is larger than that of Europe, Oceania , and Antarctica, and is almost the same as the 17.84 million square kilometers in South America.

Russian map

Currently, the country with the longest highway mileage in the world is China, with a total mileage exceeding 150,000 kilometers, and the United States also claims to have 100,000 kilometers of highways. If China's fully enclosed standard is based on China's standard, the United States has only less than 40,000 kilometers. Is it because Russia doesn't want to build a highway? Of course not. Expressways, as the fastest road traffic, have been favored by countries around the world.

Currently, the only expressway in Russia is located in St. Petersburg . It was completed and opened to traffic in 2013. It is only 49 kilometers long. The opening of this expressway can only end the history of Russia's lack of expressways.

In contrast, China's new highway mileage reaches thousands of kilometers every year, making it difficult for countries around the world to meet. Even a small country like South Korea has more than 2,000 kilometers of expressways, while a country as big as Russia has almost no standard fully enclosed expressways. Russia's mileage is not as small as South Korea. So why doesn’t Russia build highways? There are three main reasons for

First of all, the land structure is special.

Russia is located in a high latitude area, and the high latitude area of ​​the entire country accounts for 60% of the total area. Whenever summer comes, the permafrost will melt in some areas with lower latitudes, and the roadbed will collapse, and some places will even sink into swamps. Even the best-built highway will face the risk of sinking and collapse. In winter, the temperature in some places falls to more than minus 50 degrees Celsius, and cement roads or asphalt roads paved in this climate are easily frozen. With a geographical and climatic structure like Russia, it is much more difficult to build highways than other countries, and there are no technical standards to refer to.

The second is the economic investment problem

Nothing can be done without money. As the world's largest country in territory, Russia has a total economic output of only US$1.48 trillion, which is even worse than South Korea. Russia's area is much larger than South Korea, and it is impossible to use limited funds to build highways across the country. The huge territory only required huge capital to consolidate national defense. Before the first highway was built, most of their roads were built during the Soviet era, and none of them were highways. With regard to Russia's geographical environment, building a highway is much more expensive than other countries. The construction of highways can be hundreds of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan per kilometer, which is a very big burden for Russia, and a very big technical test. After the collapse of , Russia's economy has been very tense, and it has also inherited the 100 billion US dollars of foreign debt in the Soviet era, which took 26 years to pay off. Russia's primary goal at that time was to develop its economy so that the country could have enough funds to maintain normal operation, so infrastructure construction almost stagnated.

Finally, it is Russia's population factor

Although Russia has a population of 144 million, its distribution is extremely uneven. With Ulashan as the boundary, the western part of Russia belongs to the European part and the eastern part belongs to the Asian part. The European part of Russia covers an area of ​​about 4.5 million square kilometers, with more than 110 million people living in it, accounting for more than half of the country. During the Soviet period, a well-connected first-class highway network was built here, which could fully meet everyone's travel requirements. Therefore, building a highway is not an urgently needed facility for Russia. The area of ​​Russia's Asian part is as high as more than 10 million square kilometers, but its population is only more than 30 million. The population density of Russia's Asian part is less than three people per square kilometer. This local population density is sometimes difficult to meet one person if you drive a day. There are no man's area everywhere, so there is basically no demand for highways.

Although Russia's hardware facilities are not very developed, its military and industrial technology are far ahead in the world! It does not prevent Russia from becoming a powerful country.