Trans-Siberian Railway imperial collapse, and before the Red Army took control, the Czechs and Slovaks were able to use their organisation and the resources of the railway to establish a temporary zone of control before eventually continuing onwards towards Vladivostok, from where they emigrated back to Czechoslovakia. During World War II, the Trans-Siberian Railway played an important role in the supply of the powers fighting in Europe. During the first two years of the war the USSR had secretly agreed to a neutrality and non-aggression pact with Germany. While Germany's merchant shipping was interdicted by the Western allies, the Trans-Siberian Railway (along
East Siberian Railway no other railway in the world has as many man-made objects, namely 40 tunnels, 16 avalanche galleries, 470 overpasses, bridges, and pipe culverts, some 280 protecting walls, let alone various buildings at different railway stations. The Circum-Baikal Railway is also known as the "golden buckle of the steel belt" (the Trans-Siberian Railway being the "steel belt") because the construction of the greatest Russian railway was finished on the shores of Lake Baikal. In December 2003, the Severomuysky Tunnel on the Baikal-Amur Mainline (a section of the East Siberian Railway) was commissioned, the longest tunnel in Russia and the fifth longest