Vladimir Yakunin

Russia Today: We’ve heard a lot of talks about various projects that you plan to launch or have launched already. Can you highlight the most important ones for Russian railways?

Vladimir Yakunin: Definitely, it is called the Strategic Development of Russian Railways up to 2030. It is a project which has various aspects.

For example, it isn’t announced officially yet but the governments of several CIS countries are working on the plan to create a unified economic market, and to create it they will introduce a unified model of tariffs on railways. I suppose that will be a big step towards economic integration of the CIS countries.

RT: Why should passengers and customers in general go for trains as opposed to airplanes, which are much faster and now could be relatively affordable, for instance, Aeroflot?

V.Y.: First of all, there are people who aren’t recommended to fly because of their health. Then, there are many people who would prefer comfort and take train instead of taking low cost plane, for example. And thirdly, when you are flying in the sky, you hardly see what the beauty of the Earth is, while traveling by train you are a part of this beauty.

RT: In your recent speech you mentioned something interesting about an equal treatment from the government. Can you expand a little bit on that?

V.Y.: We have several companies where 100% or 50% belong to the State. Who represent the state? Bureaucrats. It can be a deputy minister, a head of department – doesn’t matter. And I suppose that with the current development of economy it is a very hard burden for a ministerial worker to look deeply into the work of a company. I think it will more fruitful to have independent managers who are working for the owner. The owner can be a state or a private company.