Transport Communications In Caspian Region Under The New Conditions[Транспортные Коммуникации Каспийского Региона В Новых Условиях]

The Caspian region has long been a crossroads for transport corridors due to its geographic location.After the USSR collapsed,the region experienced dramaticgeopolitical transformations.In the early days of the post-Soviet Caspian-adjacent states, they sought to diversify their routes to external markets and reduce their dependence on transit through Russia and other countries.Border and civil conflicts in the new states of Central Asia and Transcaucasia aggravated their transport isolation, sometimes resulting in transport blockades. At present, attention to the region’s transport communications is aggravated by the region’s energy resources; the historical competition for regional leadership between such Middle Eastern powers as Iran and Turkey; the growing interests of China,which sees the region as part of the Belt and Road project and has invested significant resources in the region’s energy sector; the European Union’s desire to establish alternative logistics routes bypassing Russia; Russia’s turn to the East and the strategically aggravated need for accelerated expansion of the «North-South» ITCcapacity.Despite all the peculiarities of relations between the Caspian countries, they are all interested in sustainable transport partnership, expressed in the intensification of multivariate logistics development projects, overcoming infrastructure, tariff and non-tariff barriers,as well as the promotion of horizontal links between various levels of publicand private regional structures.An additional incentive for the meridional transport routes development is the increased load on the ports of the Russian Far East basin and reaching the limits of the Eastern polygon of Russian Railways,which will contribute to the redirection of some cargo flows to the “North-South”ITC.