Rail Khasan has a railway station on the
Baranovsky-Khasan railway line from
Vladivostok to
Rason in
North Korea. It is the link between
Russia and North Korea, by a rail bridge over the
Tumen River called the
Korean-Russian Friendship Bridge (Korean: 조로친선교). The North Korean station in
Tumangang Workers' District,
Sonbong, is directly across the river. Construction began on the railway line from
Baranovsky railway station to a point 190 km away in the direction opposite of
Kraskino, and was completed in 1941. After
World War II, the Baranovski-Kraskino line was continued to the border with North Korea, resulting in a total length of . The end of the line was the Khasan station, located near Lake Khasan. The Khasan station opened for operation on September 28, 1951. It has long remained a dead-end: across the Tumen River, which forms the state border, a temporary wooden bridge was built, which carried its first working train into Korea in 1952. Exchange of goods between the Soviet Union and North Korea by rail through the Khasan station began in 1954. Sixty-five cars or 1,300 tons of cargo were exported from North Korea, with 153 cars or 3,123 tons of cargo being imported. In 1955, 530 cars or 7,200 tons were exported from North Korea, while 295 cars or 4,800 tons of cargo were imported. Two years later, Khasan station exports had grown an incredible fourteen-fold and imports sixteen-fold. The temporary wooden bridge was inadequate for the increasing traffic, so in 1959 a joint decision was made to build a bridge with metal spans on stone abutments, called the "Friendship Bridge". It was commissioned on August 9, 1959. There is a
break of gauge between the two railroads since the Russian railroad system is and the North Korean railroad system is . This line is currently little used, with only 10,000 passengers being carried in 2005. In 1988, the two-way cargo traffic exceeded 5 million tons annually, but by 2001 the total volume had dropped to only 144,000 tons. In 1989, 830,000 tons of freight passed through the border from Russia (Khasan) to North Korea (Tumangang). By 1998 this number stood at 150,000 tons, and by 2001, only 92,000 tons of freight crossed the border, according to the Far East customs office. The Korean portion from Tumangang to the port of
Rajin was destroyed in the 1950s. Throughout the 1990s, the state of the railroad deteriorated sharply due to the
economic crisis in Russia. By 1996, North Korea owed $20 million to the Russian railway operator,
Russian Railways. This debt had accumulated over the previous 5 years as North Korea seized and used Russian train cars that were in North Korea. The situation led to the
Ministry of Railways of Russia issuing a directive forbidding the passage of trains from Khasan to North Korea, effectively isolating North Korea from the Russian market. The crisis was resolved in September 1996, when North Korea agreed to pay $26 million of the debt.
Reconstruction At the beginning of the 21st century the situation improved, and
capital investments were made to improve and modernize the railway system in the area. The rail station got a new roof in 2002, and the railroad bed was raised, using crushed stones, in 2002/3. In 2001, Russian Railways laid a
fiber optic link from
Ussuriysk to Khasan railway station, which made it possible to connect Khasan to the unified data system of the trains in the
Far East. In April 2008, Russia and North Korea signed a long-awaited deal to rebuild the railway line to North Korea. Under the deal, the two countries will renovate the rail line from Russia's border town of Khasan to the North Korean port of Rajin, where sea cargo to and from North Korea could be unloaded. To implement the project, the Russian Railways Trading House and the Port of Rajin set up a joint venture. It will ensure investments in the project, as well as employing contractors for design and construction work. The joint venture is to last 49 years, with 70 percent of the shares belonging to Russia and 30 percent to North Korea. Russian railwaymen began renovating the Khasan-Rajin railway section in October 2008, and a demonstration train ran on the Rajin-Khasan route in October 2011. By the following February, a new
dual gauge with the length of 32 kilometres has been laid at the Rajin-Khasan section, complete overhaul of 20 kilometres of the tracks has been made,
railroad switches and tracks were installed, a number of
stations reconstructed, the work in the
tunnels was started, trunk
telecommunication lines and electrical
interlocking lines were stretched and
drainage structures restored. Coal transport from North Korea started in summer 2014.
Road The reconstructed Khasan-Razdolnoye Road connecting Khasan, the ports of
Zarubino and
Posyet, and the settlement of
Razdolnoye,
Nadezhdinsky District was completed in November 2007. In April 2015 Deputy Ministers of Transport of Russia and North Korea,
Nikolai Asaul and
Kwok Il-ryong, signed an agreement on developing a road connection between Russia and North Korea. This is called the
Khasan-Tumangang bridge. ==Climate==