Rail Transport 1991-2000

MRT was to organize the management of financial resources. In addition, there were plans to reduce funding of passenger transport via freight transport and switch to subsidies for separate categories of passengers. On January 29, the government approved this concept. Although it was never carried out, the concept is notable for the fact that, as was the case two years later, MRT was planning to shift the burden of passenger transport onto the shoulders of the regions.

In April, the critical financial state of the October Railway (OR) was the cause of organizational shuffles. Anatoly Zaitsev, the head of (OR), who had returned to this position in 1997 from the post of Minister of Rail Transport, was reprimanded and fired along with his deputy. A version of the story that appeared in the media claimed that there was more than just the personal enmity of Nikolai Aksenenko toward his predecessor hidden behind the feud between OR and its ministry: the story was that OR's financial interests were at cross purposes with the interests of Aksenenko's nephew, Sergei Aksenenko, who headed the Eurosib industrial and financial group.


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