Trans-Siberian Railway adventures. The railway is often associated with the main transcontinental Russian line that connects hundreds of large and small cities of the European and Asian parts of Russia. At a Moscow–Vladivostok track length of , it spans a record eight time zones. Taking eight days to complete the journey, it is the third-longest single continuous service in the world, after the Moscow–Pyongyang and the Kiev–Vladivostok services, both of which also follow the Trans-Siberian for much of their routes. The main route of the Trans-Siberian Railway begins in Moscow at Yaroslavsky Vokzal, runs through Yaroslavl, Chelyabinsk, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Ulan-Ude,
Chinese Eastern Railway in Harbin. The railway and the concession, known as the Chinese Eastern Railway Zone, were administered from the city, which grew into a major rail hub. The southern branch of the CER, which became the South Manchuria Railway in 1906, became the locus and partial casus belli for the Russo-Japanese War, the 1929 Sino-Soviet Conflict, and the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Soviet Union returned the Chinese Eastern Railway to the People's Republic of China in 1952. The Chinese Eastern Railway, a single-track line, provided a shortcut for the world's longest railroad, the Trans-Siberian Railway, from near the Siberian city of