Chinese Eastern Railway Liaodong from China in 1898. Officially, traffic on the line started in November 1901, but regular passenger traffic from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok across the Trans-Siberian railway did not commence until July 1903. In 1898, construction of a 550-mile (880 km) spur line, most of which later formed the South Manchuria Railway, began at Harbin, leading southwards through Eastern Manchuria, along the Liaodong Peninsula, to the ice-free deep-water port at Lüshun, which Russia was fortifying and developing into a first-class strategic naval base and marine coaling station for its Far East Fleet and Merchant Marine. This town was known in
The Eastern-Siberian Inland Navigation Company The Eastern-Siberian Inland Navigation Company The Eastern-Siberian Inland Navigation Company (ESINC) is a company, which carries out goods and passengers by inland waterways of Irkutsk Oblast and the Buryatia Republic. ESINC is the largest shipping company in Eastern Siberia, the main transportation carrier on Lake Baikal, the Selenga, the Angara River and its tributaries. Irkutsk Oblast is rich in reservoirs, which is why there are about 30 ferries. The largest of them are situated on the Olkhon island, in Listvyanka, Balagansk and Svirsk. These ferries belong to the ESINC. The others are in ownership of private businessmen or traffic agencies.