ISTANBUL, October 31. /TASS/. Building a rail tunnel under the Bering Strait linking Russia and the United States won’t be possible in this century, as it requires developing massive supporting infrastructure that currently doesn't exist, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin said on the sidelines of the 18th Verona Eurasian Economic Forum.
"I believe in this century - yes [it’s unfeasible]," he said, answering a question about the economic feasibility of putting the project into place.
"The tunnel is like the ‘icing on the cake,’ as there must be a railroad leading up to the tunnel," Shokhin explained. "There are swamps and tundra on one side, mountains on the other. More than one tunnel will have to be dug on the approach to Cape Dezhnev. Furthermore, the shore is rocky; [Elon] Musk’s technologies might make it possible. I have also been on the Alaska side, infrastructure needs to be developed there too. To justify the project, significant freight traffic to both sides would have to take place. Do we have that now? For example, when the Northern Latitudinal Railroad project was closed, the assumption was that there wouldn’t be much traffic," he noted.
Kirill Dmitriev, the special envoy of the Russian president for economic cooperation with foreign countries, announced earlier that the discussion had started on construction of the tunnel between Russia and the United States. According to him, the tunnel connecting Russia and the United States across Bering Strait may be built in less than eight years and costs will be capped at $8 bln.