It happened that the greatest rivers of Eurasia are operating with an intensity that is lower by an order than that throughout the world. Even the Volga that was formerly a transportation pivot of the Central and Southern Russia is losing its freightage importance to an increasing extent. The transit traffic from the Trans-Siberian route enters directly the marine "flanks", i.e. St. Petersburg and Novorossisk. The Volga and its tributaries are almost not operating but they are forming allegedly annoying "water obstacles" which need the bridges to be built over them.
        Stating the existing situation as above, some experts draw a conclusion about lack of prospects that is supposedly inherent and irreversible to the Russian internal water transport all round the world and thus prove the inexpedience of investments in its development. In doing so, they keep silent about the practical state of affairs. You know that both vessels and trains are going almost uninterruptedly up and down the Rhine and Danube, Mississippi and Thames, owing to both an intensive use of those by business communities as well as a powerful support of the governments, private sectors and international investment institutions. Also, they keep silent about the fact that the European Union Program stipulates for the establishment of a common intermodal transport network by 2010 that will naturally include the renovated transportation systems of Russia, the Baltic and CIS countries.
        It is necessary to emphasize new geopolitical and economic considerations, which pose a global importance on a solution to the problem of Volga revival as a business complex.
        The Volga as the greatest river of Europe is of vital importance in socioeconomic and geopolitical aspects as well as the Don and tributaries thereof are related to the mutual development of about 40 Russian regions, including the Northwest of Russia and Moscow Region. The above regions accommodate as much as 40 percent population and account for 45 percent industrial output of the country. The Volga forms, via its tributaries, channel systems and freight lines, a freightage network interacting with the countries of the North and South Europe, North America, Middle East, and the Caspian and Black Sea countries.
        Nevertheless, the Volga region can appear as a large-scale business system provided only that an equivalent interaction with economic macroregions is established. When considering water traffic capabilities under a modern logistics intermodal cargo traffic system and mutual economic interests of the adjacent regional clusters of Russia (first and foremost, those of the Volga, Ural, Center and South) and foreign countries, the Eastern hemisphere exposes an intercontinental macroregion featuring an area of about 30 million sq. km (that means it exceeds an area of the North America), which constitutes a sphere of Russia's direct vital concerns and is most favorable for the competitive engagement of river and sea transport in 3- or 4-modal traffic (in addition to single- and bimodal direct overland traffic by rail and road).
        Nowadays an earnest interest of wholesale exporters and importers from the Volga, Ural regions and those from the Caspian, Balkan, and Near East countries in intermodal wholesale traffic using the Volga and Don as well as their tributaries is already obvious. Large-scale projects are known which are to develop a trading carriage infrastructure involving the Volga and the Don in Kalmykia, Turkmenia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Iran. The Russian-Turkish Business Council has included the development of trading carriage projects covering the Volga region in its priority programs. Egypt offers to establish a joint trade shipping line using Russian vessels of a river-sea type, Romania suggests that a similar line via the Volga and Danube be established with the modernized cargo storage infrastructure across the entire range. By the way, they are ready to set up a pool of European business communities. Croatia offers consignment port points on the Adriatic Sea. Similar negotiations are held with Serbia. Specific offers have been received from various trading and forwarding companies of Germany, Finland, Tunisia, etc.
        The Southern Belt countries are greatly interested in the imports of Russian products in a range from nails and planks to machine tools and engines, from peat and timber waste to fertilizers and plastics. Everything mentioned above is a vast market for Russian products. At the same time, most of the countries mentioned above, while lacking a developed shipbuilding industry, agree to carry imported and exported cargoes by Russian vessels. Russia's top priority is to expand greatly both trading and cargo traffic with the Danube countries, which existing extent is not conforming totally to the modern geopolitical and foreign economic configuration.
        In view of the above geopolitical and foreign economic trends, the conceptual projects under the TransVolga and TransVolga-Danube Programs have been developed. The adopted general federal and intergovernmental programs have been accepted as the starting points. Any delay in the implementation of the above programs contributes to a situation when essential international trading routes are laid around Russia.