Yes and no. Much of that is the alluded-to Zilov Gap (also known as the Чита-to-Хабаровск section) on the Амур highway. (I have also mentioned this in passing before on this blog.)
A sufficiently determined Google search turns up much interesting info on this stretch of road; the short version is that although planned over a century ago, it lingered, unfinished, as no more than a muddy and barely-passable cart track - with a couple of unbridged and non-trivial river crossings - until about 10 years ago. At that time, Putin made it a grand plan to finish this gap in the newly-christened "Trans-Siberian Highway" and connect western Russia with the far-East. (Previous to that, my original plan for this trip had been to either bike along the railway right-of-way for a couple hundred km, or were that to prove infeasible, say "fuck it" and take the train itself over that section.)
It was "opened" by Putin in 2004, however said opening was largely symbolic, and much of the highway remained physically incomplete. The projected completion date was sometime in the Fall of 2010, however most recent accounts that I've read are that it still isn't quite there. (That construction status map I've posted dates to January 2010 and still shows a a couple hundred km either yet to be built or requiring reconstruction (the red and yellow sections).)
Having said that, A) I expect it actually has a chance at being finished by mid-2016; B) It is certainly passable in the meantime. The river crossings and other major obstacles are all done; it's just the paving and bringing it up to full highway standards that are pending. Every year, many thousands of cars navigate the route (apparently there's a fair cottage industry built up around flying to Владивосток, buying cheap Japanese cars fresh off the boat, taping cardboard all around them to "protect" them, and driving them back to Москва to sell at a significant mark-up. There is enough traffic that does this, if nothing else, to mean that there is a decent de-facto road in existence, even if it is not yet "finished".)
That section is, as Wikipedia indicates, actually technically Russian highway M58. It's just not (yet) recognized as such by Google Maps. (It's unclear to me whether it is or is not properly signed as such on the ground. Either way, it makes little practical difference.)
Other sections not having a name are just Google Maps being on crack and finding little secondary- and tertiary- roads that it wants to route me along to save a kilometer or two here and there. I've tweaked a few of them away manually, but couldn't be bothered to do it for all of them unless it involved a significant deviation from my intended route.
Yes and no. Much of that is the
alluded-to
Zilov Gap (also known as the Чита-to-Хабаровск section) on the
Амур highway. (I have also mentioned this in passing
before on this blog.)
A sufficiently determined Google search turns up much interesting info on this stretch of road; the short version is that although planned over a century ago, it lingered, unfinished, as no more than a muddy and barely-passable cart track - with a couple of unbridged and non-trivial river crossings - until about 10 years ago. At that time, Putin made it a grand plan to finish this gap in the newly-christened "Trans-Siberian Highway" and connect western Russia with the far-East. (Previous to that, my original plan for this trip had been to either bike along the railway right-of-way for a couple hundred km, or were that to prove infeasible, say "fuck it" and take the train itself over that section.)
It was "opened" by Putin in 2004, however said opening was largely symbolic, and much of the highway remained physically incomplete. The projected completion date was sometime in the Fall of 2010, however most recent accounts that I've read are that it still isn't quite there. (That construction status map I've posted dates to January 2010 and still shows a a couple hundred km either yet to be built or requiring reconstruction (the red and yellow sections).)
Having said that,
A) I expect it actually has a chance at being finished by mid-2016;
B) It is certainly passable in the meantime. The river crossings and other major obstacles are all done; it's just the paving and bringing it up to full highway standards that are pending. Every year, many thousands of cars navigate the route (apparently there's a fair cottage industry built up around flying to Владивосток, buying cheap Japanese cars fresh off the boat, taping cardboard all around them to "protect" them, and driving them back to Москва to sell at a significant mark-up. There is enough traffic that does this, if nothing else, to mean that there is a decent de-facto road in existence, even if it is not yet "finished".)
That section is, as Wikipedia indicates, actually technically Russian highway M58. It's just not (yet) recognized as such by Google Maps. (It's unclear to me whether it is or is not properly signed as such on the ground. Either way, it makes little practical difference.)
Other sections not having a name are just Google Maps being on crack and finding little secondary- and tertiary- roads that it wants to route me along to save a kilometer or two here and there. I've tweaked a few of them away manually, but couldn't be bothered to do it for all of them unless it involved a significant deviation from my intended route.
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What a strange situation.
I just realized right now: the road exists de facto and the road exists de jure. But yet, the road doesn't exist.
If that isn't Russia for you, I don't know what is.
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