Trans-Siberian Railway Similar to the First Transcontinental Railroad in the US, Russian engineers started construction at both ends and worked towards the centre. From Vladivostok the railway was laid north along the right bank of the Ussuri River to Khabarovsk at the Amur River, becoming the Ussuri Railway. In 1890, a bridge across the Ural River was built and the new railway entered Asia. The bridge across the Ob River was built in 1898 and the small city of Novonikolaevsk, founded in 1883, grew into the large Siberian city of Novosibirsk. In 1898 the first train reached Irkutsk and the shores of
The Eastern-Siberian Inland Navigation Company licensing of special kinds of activity» was passed on 16 September 1998. The main legislative acts are the statute «About inland water transport service in Department of Transport of Russian Federation» of 11 March 1998 and the Water Code of Russian Federation. 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