The long road from China to Spain: Eurasia restores the ancient trade routes

On November 18, 2014, the first freight train of 82 container wagons set off along the superlong route of the Yiwu -Madrid railway. It is reported by the Washington Post . The train's path according to plan should take 21 days. After all, this is the longest route on the planet - about 6,200 miles, almost 10,000 km (even longer than Transsib ). “New Silk Road,” as the project was dubbed, runs from China through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and the European Union countries (Poland, Germany, France) and ends in the Spanish capital.



The industrial city of Yiwu in China is a consumer goods wholesale center. The project of the longest railway, according to the idea of ​​the Chinese authorities, should revive the old Silk Road - the medieval trade route from China to Europe. Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China plans to spend $ 40 billion on "eliminating a bottleneck in Asia."
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For the time being, the transportation of containers with goods from China is carried out mainly by sea routes - it is almost twice as cheaper as sending them by train. But the situation is gradually changing, especially due to the fact that containers are no longer returned to China, but they are carrying luxury goods from Europe, in particular, expensive cars . In addition, the sea routes are controlled by the United States, and as we all know, the course towards friendship between China and Russia against the United States has already been taken.