Trans-Siberian Railway one side of the lake to the other until the completion of the Lake Baikal spur along the southern edge of the lake. With the Amur River Line north of the Chinese border being completed in 1916, there was a continuous railway from Petrograd to Vladivostok that remains to this day the world's longest railway line. Electrification of the line, begun in 1929 and completed in 2002, allowed a doubling of train weights to 6,000 tonnes. There were expectations upon electrification that it would increase rail traffic on the line by 40 percent. The additional Chinese Eastern Railway was constructed
Siberian agriculture fact, to necessitate the "Siberian tariff" of 1897, which was an increased rate on transport of Butter and Grain by rail to European Russia. This measure, which lasted until 1913, was enacted in order to protect European Russian farmers from the very cheap Siberian agricultural goods flooding in from the newly built Trans-Siberian Railway (which had decreased the price of shipping from Siberia by 5-6 times). Therefore, while the climate and Geography posed difficulties for the Siberian farmer, there was still agricultural success to be had in the region. The Neolithic period (8,000-7,000 BCE) is often taken to signify the