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Federal Highway M58 |
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| Amur Highway | |
| Route information | |
| Length: | 2,100 km (1,300 mi) |
| Major junctions | |
| West end: | Chita |
| East end: | Khabarovsk |
| Highway system | |
The Russian route M58 is a federal highway in Russia, part of the Trans-Siberian Highway. It runs from Chita to Khabarovsk and has a length of 2100 km.
The most problematic stretch of the highway lies between Chita and Khabarovsk. The first section of this route, linking Belogorsk to Blagoveshchensk (124 km in length), was constructed by gulag inmates as early as 1949. Extended and updated between 1998 and 2001, this road forms part of the Asian route AH31 connecting Belogorsk to Dalian in China.
The section of the Chita-Khabarovsk road known as the Zilov Gap remained largely unfinished up until early 2004, when Russian President Vladimir Putin symbolically opened the Amur Highway, with great swaths of forest separating major portions from one another. The St. Petersburg Times reported in September 2010 that paving of the highway had been completed. At a videoconference marking the event, Putin described it as "a dependable, modern farm road, but not the Autobahn".
Jim Oliver and Dennis ONeil rode motorcycles across Russia, along the Trans-Siberian Highway, during the last week of May and the first three weeks of June in 2004. As described in Jim Oliver's book, Lucille and The XXX Road, the section between Chita and Khabarovsk was an extremely challenging undertaking. Jim writes about the massive marsh, gravel, rock, mud, sand, washboard, pot-holes, stream fording, and detours of the elusive highway with a noticeable absence of pavement. Many motorcyclists have been injured or killed trying to "master" the Amur Highway. Today, it is a modern paved highway with painted reflective lane-lines.
Asphalt paving of the highway is expected to continue until 2016.[1]
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