In 1865 C.E., workers broke ground at Poti, a port town on the Black Sea coast of what is now Georgia, beginning one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in 19th-century Eurasia. The Transcaucasus Railway — the first railway ever built in the South Caucasus — would eventually stretch across mountains, rivers, and ancient trading corridors to reach the Caspian Sea at Baku, nearly two decades later. What started as a Russian imperial strategic project became something far more lasting: a physical spine connecting peoples, goods, and cultures across one of the world’s most geographically complex regions.
Key facts
- Transcaucasus Railway: Construction began at Poti in 1865 C.E., funded by the Russian Empire as a strategic line connecting the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea across the South Caucasus.
- South Caucasus infrastructure: The line reached Zestaponi by 1871 C.E. and Tbilisi by 1872 C.E., with British engineers playing a key early role — including resident engineer Edward Preston, who had previously worked in North Wales.
- Baku oil trade: The railway reached Baku in 1883 C.E., unlocking the transport of Caspian oil to Black Sea ports and helping fuel a regional economic transformation.
Why Russia built it
The South Caucasus in the mid-19th century was a patchwork of ancient kingdoms, mountain communities, and contested borderlands. The Russian Empire, having extended its reach into the region across several decades of conflict, faced a fundamental problem: supplying and moving troops across terrain that defeated wheeled transport. A railway would change that calculation entirely.
The line was designed as a strategic railway first and a commercial one second. Connecting the Black Sea port of Poti to the Caspian port of Baku meant that military reinforcements could arrive in days rather than weeks. It also meant that goods, grain, and eventually oil could flow with unprecedented speed across a region where commerce had moved largely on foot or horseback for centuries.
The contractor for the early section was the British firm Messrs G.B. Crawley and Co. Edward Preston, the resident engineer, brought experience from railway work in North Wales — and reportedly brought an interest in narrow-gauge mountain rail technology along with him. This cross-continental engineering exchange was typical of the era: major imperial infrastructure projects drew expertise from wherever it existed.
What the railway made possible
The transformation along the railway’s route was rapid and uneven. By 1872 C.E., trains were running into Tbilisi — a city that had served for centuries as the political and cultural center of the Caucasus. The railway gave Tbilisi a new economic heartbeat, drawing merchants, workers, and industries toward its stations.
The connection to Baku in 1883 C.E. was the turning point that reshaped the entire region’s economy. Baku’s oil fields, long known but poorly exploited, suddenly had a direct route to global markets. Freight trains loaded with crude oil rolled to Poti, where ships carried it to Russian cities and beyond. Within two decades, Baku would become one of the world’s leading oil-producing cities — a boom directly enabled by the railway’s completion.
The line also quietly changed everyday life across Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Towns along the route gained access to goods they had rarely seen. Farmers could sell produce across the region. Workers moved to find new opportunities. The railway carried not just oil and soldiers but also books, textiles, music, and ideas.
Lasting impact
The Transcaucasus Railway outlasted the empire that built it. When the Russian Empire dissolved after 1917 C.E., the line kept running under Soviet administration. When the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991 C.E., the railway fragmented — portions passing to Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia — but the physical infrastructure remained, and many sections continued operating.
The railway’s legacy is visible in the region’s modern transport map. The Kars–Tbilisi–Baku railway, a major 21st-century project linking Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, follows corridors first opened by the Transcaucasus line. The narrow-gauge Borjomi–Bakuriani Railway, built in 1902 C.E. to serve skiing communities in the Georgian highlands, still operates today as a tourist line — a living remnant of the original network.
The railway also demonstrated something important about infrastructure and regional connectivity: physical links between peoples tend to persist even when the political arrangements that created them do not. The South Caucasus remains one of the world’s most complex geopolitical zones, but the railway corridors laid down in the 1860s and 1870s are still part of the conversation about how to connect it to wider Eurasian trade networks.
Blindspots and limits
The Transcaucasus Railway was built as an instrument of imperial control, and its construction came at real cost to local communities. The Russian Empire’s expansion into the South Caucasus was violent and disruptive for many of the region’s peoples — including Highland Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and numerous smaller communities — and the railway extended that imperial grip rather than challenging it. The line’s role in enabling the Baku oil boom also set in motion an extractive economy whose environmental and social consequences would shape the region for generations. Not all towns along the route benefited equally, and the political fractures of the 20th century severed connections the railway had begun to build.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Wikipedia — Transcaucasus Railway
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- Indigenous land rights: 160 million hectares recognized at COP30
- The Good News for Humankind archive on the modern era
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