James Brooke is VOA Moscow bureau chief, covering Russia and the former USSR. With The New York Times, he worked as a foreign correspondent in Africa, Latin America, Canada and Japan/Koreas. He studied Russian in college during the Brezhnev years, first visited Moscow as a reporter during the final months of Gorbachev, and then came back for reporting forays during the Yeltsin and early Putin years. In 2006, he moved to Moscow to report for Bloomberg. He joined VOA in Moscow in 2010. Follow Jim on Twitter @VOA_Moscow.
3 responses to “imag001-1”
It is an amazing concept and the visuals provide are very expository. Thanks for the simplified perspective. The hurdles, at least two at the forefront, would be making it economically viable and limiting strategic compromises. For the latter, our Russian “neighbors” didn’t fair the Americans well in the 50 years that followed WWII even though the US did lend considerable support, and the President Elect still has a thorny attitude towards the Yanks. Economically speaking, goods movements alone wouldn’t sustain such a project since the project payback and the transport energy costs are insurmountable when compared with the relatively low cost of shipping by sea. Now if an oil and gas pipeline were included in the endeavor, then that may help a bit but probably not enough to garner support on both sides or justify the expense over a short period, this would especially be the case when considering that he majority of oil and goods would be leaving the debt ridden NA continent toward the Asiatic one.
I remember another “big idea” from Russia: a Russian engineer wanted to build a really huge dam acros the Bearing Strait and “pump” Pacific Ocean water in massive amounts into the Arctic Ocean to “warm” the Arctic climate to resemble northern Europe’s climate. Of course, the “down side” was that western Europe would probably be included in a new Ice Age.
Also, there is from Russia a periodic desire to somehow “recover” Alaska by some massive scheme.
As was the case with Communism, Russians will fall for a variety of hare-brained ideas – the bigger and more absurd, it seems, the more attractive for a country with an incredible history of folly and human misery deriving from “big projects.” When will they ever learn the error of their ways?
the bore holes for air are the best Idea up to the 2 islands big Diomeade and little Diomeade,,.You should install freight elevators at least on big diomeade…you could use a smaller one onto little diomeade..its a good plan