The construction of the high-speed railway between Moscow and St. Petersburg was discussed at the SPIEF

The construction of Russia's first high—speed Moscow-St. Petersburg railway became one of the main events of the second day of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2025) on June 19. This was reported by Izvestia correspondent Kirill Vorobyov.

The trip between the two capitals will be reduced to two hours thanks to new-generation trains capable of speeds up to 400 km/h. The total length of the route will be 680 km. More than 150 Russian companies have already joined the implementation.

"Parallel work is underway on several tracks almost from scratch. I head the project office, it works around the clock. Together with the experts of the project team, we resolve all issues that arise. We are proceeding in strict accordance with the schedule, and in parallel we are developing the design of the track itself, railway stations, and the removal of communications. The trolley is already being tested," said Roman Starovoit, Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation.

The project is close to leaving the state expertise, and in parallel, training has already begun for the future operation of the HSR.

"We have already prepared in advance for the fact that we will launch the movement. We are starting to train machinists, maintenance, and infrastructure maintenance technologies themselves, which will also require completely new knowledge. Everything that remains behind the scenes is still being developed," said Oleg Belozerov, CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of Russian Railways.

The first stage of the route is from Moscow to St. Petersburg, the highway will also pass through Valdai and Veliky Novgorod.

"Russian President [Vladimir Putin] has restored historical justice to Veliky Novgorod. We all know the Nikolaevskaya road, which is used by Peregrine Falcons today, it passed by Veliky Novgorod. And Veliky Novgorod is the northern capital of Ancient Russia. And today, historical justice has been restored by the president, and the road will pass through Veliky Novgorod. And I want to say that this is very important for both Veliky Novgorod and St. Petersburg. It's been almost 29 minutes," said Alexander Beglov, the Governor of St. Petersburg.

The Moscow–Petersburg high—speed railway is only the first stage of a large-scale transport initiative. In the future, it is planned to extend the highway towards Adler, Minsk, Yekaterinburg and Ryazan. Technologically, this will be Russia's first ballast-free road: the rails will be embedded in a reinforced concrete slab. It is planned to build two factories for the production of the necessary components for the project.

"This is a completely Russian development that will be localized on the territory of the Russian Federation and fully applied to the construction of all, hopefully, subsequent HSR projects," said Alexey Krapivin, General Director of the National Project Construction Group.

The HSR is being financed under the largest concession agreement in the history of Russia. The business sees the benefits of this project and is actively involved in the work.

"Trains are not being built in any country of the world by attracting investments from commercial sources. And together with the government, we managed to structure the project in such a way that a minimum of federal budget money is spent," said German Gref, President and Chairman of the Board of Sberbank of Russia.

41 trains have already been ordered for the first section of the highway. Russian engineers are confident in their readiness to implement the project. The train control system is completely Russian.

"This is a new level that we are reaching, but we have already accumulated a lot of experience in high—speed traffic, and this is the next step on the path of development," said Dmitry Pumpyansky, President of the Sverdlovsk Regional Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

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What does this mean for consumers and how are the communications on other railway routes?

On Wednesday, June 18, the head of the Russian Ministry of Transport, Roman Starovoit, inspected the preparations for the construction of the Moscow–St. Petersburg high-speed railway. At the moment, work has been deployed at all stages of construction, involving more than 830 people and 140 pieces of equipment.