The story
Background and 2003 reform
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation inherited 17 of the 32 regions of the former Soviet Railways (SZD).
In the mid-1990s, the profitability of railway transportation of the Russian Ministry of Railways fell to negative values, the bureaucratization of the ministry itself was publicly criticized, which became an occasion for reforms. Shortly after being elected president of Russia in 2000, Vladimir Putin approved the idea of reforming the railway transport, according to which all economic functions on the railway should be transferred to a joint-stock company with 100% state participation. The start of the state program for reforming the Russian railway sector was given by the establishment of Russian Railways in October 2003. The new company received over 95% of the assets belonging to the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Federation.
In 2003, the Federal Law on Railway Transport divided the Ministry of Railways into the Federal Railway Transport Agency (FRTA) and Russian Railways (RZD). The reform also required RZD to provide access to railway infrastructure to other carriers and operators. As the law requires carriers to provide service to customers anywhere in Russia, RZD retained its dominant position.
Later in 2003, the Decree No. 585 established RZD as a joint stock company, making it a holding in charge of 63 subsidiaries, including TransContainer, RailTranAuto, Rail Passenger Directorate, Russian Troika, TransGroup, and Refservis. RZD acquired 987 companies (95% in asset value) out of the 2046 that had formed the MR system. Gennady Fadeyev, the Railways Minister, became the company's first president.
The reform saw the creation of a new market segment following the privatization of the network's rolling stock. The company divided the bulk of its wagon fleet between two new operating companies, Freight One (which was later privatised) and Freight Two (renamed Federal Freight in 2012), and private players such as GlobalTrans also entering the market.
2000s
In 2003, RZD launched a project to replace the narrow gauge on Sakhalin Railway to the broad gauge used in the rest of Russia, which it formally completed in August 2019. The share of privately owned wagons in the freight transport increased to one-third of the total by 2005. On 18 May 2006, the company signed an agreement with Siemens for the delivery of eight high-speed trains.
On 23 May 2007, Russian Railways adopted a new corporate style which changed fundamentally the way the Company presented itself visually to the outside world. The change of corporate identity underwent several stages during the 2007–2010 period. The final version of the logo was designed by BBDO Branding.
Also, commissioned by BBDO Branding The Agency HardCase Design created a family of corporate fonts RussianRail, consisting of 15 fonts. In the new company logo Sans-serif RussianRail Grotesque Medium was used. In 2008, the new logo of Russian Railways became a runner-up for the international design competition WOLDA '08 award.
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Strategy 2030, an investment plan to expand and modernize the railway network, was approved by the Russian government in 2008. Since 2008, as part of the structural reform of rail transport, with separation of the services infrastructure of transportation activity and the emergence of a competitive environment, Russian Railways has been transformed into a vertically oriented holding company.
In 2009, the investment budget was 262.8 billion rubles (excluding VAT), of which 47.4 billion for projects related to the preparation and staging of the Olympic Games in Sochi; 58.7 billion for the renovation of the rolling stock (including supply of Sapsan trains).
2010s
In 2010, Federal Passenger Company was established as a fully owned subsidiary of Russian Railways, providing long-distance passenger services both in Russia and abroad. By the end of 2013, it operated all long-distance routes, except for high-speed Sapsan lines, which are operated by RZD.
RZD issued its first dollar-denominated bond in 2010, raising $1.5 billion. On 28 October 2011, the Joint Stock Company Freight One, a subsidiary of Russian Railways, sold 75% of its shares minus two shares for 125.5 billion rubles (about 4 billion $) to Independent Transport Company owned by Vladimir Lisin. Thus, Lisin as Russia's largest operator of rolling stock acquired control of a quarter of the freight market.
As part of its reform efforts, RZD massively reduced its workforce, from 2.2 million in the 1990s to 934,000 people in 2012. In 2012, it became one of the three largest transport companies in the world.
According to a Reuters inquiry, RZD procurement activities in 2012 amounted to $22.5 billion; part of this was awarded to private contractors with no genuine operations in de facto noncompetitive tenders. Some of the company addresses listed on the tenders turned out to be private apartments, car repair shops or department stores. It was alleged that the contractors were actually shell companies, used to convey billions of dollars in tenders to close associates of Yakunin, president of RZD.
Zheldoripoteka, RZD's real estate arm, was revealed to have sold land plots located close to railway stations in major cities to the son of Russian Railways president Vladimir Yakunin. Far East Land Bridge, a company partnered with a Russian Railways subsidiary, was also linked to Yakunin's son.
On 16 October 2012, Russian Railways has completed competitive negotiations with potential buyers of the remaining 25-percent plus 1 share stake in JSC Freight One. The best binding offer was received from the Independent Transport Company LLC. The assets were sold for 50 billion rubles.
In early November 2012, Russian Railways announced the purchase of 75% of the French logistics company Gefco SA. The total value of the transaction was 800 million euros, the seller being PSA Peugeot Citroen, the parent company of Gefco. A program to modernize the Baikal–Amur Mainline was launched in 2013, costing the equivalent of £4 billion by 2018.
In 2015, RZD International won a €1.2 billion contract to electrify the Garmsar–Inche Bourun line in Iran.
In August 2015, company president Vladimir Yakunin was dismissed, allegedly because of poor performance and mismanagement. Yakunin was replaced by Oleg Belozyorov.
RZD International began works on the reconstruction of the Serbian Vinarci – Djordjevo line in 2016. The Moscow Central Circle railway, designed and managed by Roszheldorproject, an RZD subsidiary, opened in September 2016. In July 2018, the company announced plans to phase out third-class carriages on long-distance trains by 2025.
2020s
On 8 April 2022, the shipping company CMA CGM announced to be acquiring the French logistics company Gefco SA from Russian Railways and minority shareholder Stellantis.
On 11 April 2022, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters reported that the International Swaps and Derivatives Association had determined a "failure to pay" credit event occurred on 250 million CHF worth of Swiss franc loan participation notes linked to an entity related to Russian Railways, RZD Capital. The determination is considered the first step to triggering a credit default swap.
In December 2023 the joint venture with the VR Group, Finnish Railways, to run the Karelian Trains ceased, the trains having stopped running in March 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Russian Railways having failed to meet their portion of the financing obligations, VR Group assumed the whole financial obligations and took over the rolling stock.
From Wikipedia’s article on Russian Railways, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5