Обговорення війни расії проти України

Тим не менше, це не завадило як-завжди-найдостовірнішій-у-світі російській пресі "загубити" його десь на території Казахстану сьогодні вранці, коли він уже добу стояв у Достику. Оскільки це не найбільша відома нам "сенсація" російських ЗМІ, я був не дуже здивований. Значно більше мене вразили українські "колеги", які відверто зраділи цьому повідомленню і почали зі смаком обговорювати "провальність цього проекту, яка від самого початку була їм очевидна".

Отож, ми з Укрзалізницею просимо вибачення і у перших, і у других, що не справдили їх сподівання. Альтернативний Шовковий шлях працює і буде працювати ще краще.

"Lost train. Identifying characteristics - sea salt on the wheels and a birthmark on the 5th container. There will be a reward for those who find and return it safe and sound. The country really misses it".

On the night of January 31st, a train pulled into Dostyk station, on the border of Kazakhstan and China. But this wasn't any regular train. It was the first train to ever run along the new Silk Road, and it had just finished its journey. There were delays along the route: first a storm on the Black Sea, then a delay in Kazakhstan due to a lack of coordination during payment to the Kazakh side. But nothing serious happened. After all, isn't that the whole purpose of a "test run" - to identify and smooth out possible "bottlenecks"? The more problems we learn to solve now, the better the logistics will be during the regular operation of the route. It was possible to track the progress of the train on an interactive map that we had on the Ministry website.

Nevertheless, that couldn't stop the ever-truthful Russian media from "losing" it somewhere on the territory of Kazakhstan this morning, by which point it had been in Dostyk for 24 hours. The Russian mass media has other, better-known "sensational stories", so that didn't surprise me much. What did shock me was our Ukrainian "colleagues", who openly rejoiced upon hearing this "news" and then proceeded to discuss, with vigorous pleasure, how they always knew that this project was "doomed from the start".

So Ukrainian Railways and I feel that we owe both groups an apology for not meeting their expectations. The Alternative Silk Road works well, and will keep on getting better and better.