A special case was the Chinese Eastern Railway Zone, which was governed as a concession granted by Imperial China to the Russian 'Chinese Eastern Railway Society' (in Russian "Obshchestvo Kitayskoy Vostochnoy Zheleznoy Dorogi"; established on 17 December 1896 in St. Petersburg, later moved to Vladivostok), which built 1,481 km of tracks (Tarskaya – Hilar – Harbin – Nikolsk-Ussuriski; 3 November 1901 traffic opened) and established on 16 May 1898 the new capital city, Harbin; in August 1898, the defense for Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) across northeast China was assumed by Russia (first under Priamur governor).