Infrastructure

Railway transport in Russia is mostly under the control of the state-run Russian Railways. The total length of common-used railway tracks exceeds 85,500 km (53,127 mi), second only to the United States. The most renowned railway in Russia is the Trans-Siberian Railway, the longest railway-line in the world. As of 2016, Russia had 1,452.2 km of roads; and its road density is the lowest among the BRICS. Much of Russia’s inland waterways, which total 102,000 km (63,380 mi), are made up of natural rivers or lakes. Among Russia’s 1,216 airports, the busiest are Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, and Vnukovo in Moscow, and Pulkovo in Saint Petersburg.

Major sea ports of Russia include Rostov-on-Don on the Sea of Azov, Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, Astrakhan and Makhachkala on the Caspian Sea, Kaliningrad and Saint Petersburg on the Baltic Sea, Arkhangelsk on the White Sea, Murmansk on the Barents Sea, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean. The world’s only fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers advances the economic exploitation of the Arctic continental shelf of Russia and the development of sea trade through the Northern Sea Route.

Russia is considered an energy superpower; with the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the second-largest coal reserves, the eighth-largest oil reserves, and the largest oil shale reserves in Europe. The country is the world’s leading natural gas exporter, the second-largest natural gas producer, the second-largest oil exporter, and the third-largest oil producer. Fossil fuels cause most of the greenhouse gas emissions by Russia. It is the fourth-largest electricity producer in the world, and the ninth-largest renewable energy producer in 2019. It was the first country to develop civilian nuclear power and to construct the world’s first nuclear power plant. In 2019, the country was the fourth-largest nuclear energy producer in the world; nuclear generated 20% of the country’s electricity.