Competition and Concentration: Some Problems of Development of the Volga-Caspian Transport Corridor during the Period of the First Russian Industrialization (second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries)

The relevance of the study is due to the increase in public and scientific attention to logistics problems, both due to climate change and in connection with significant negative transformations in the global economy and large-scale geopolitical conflicts.In these conditions, it is of particular interest to identify domestic historical experience in using the state organizational and economic mechanism for the development of large logistics corridors that contributed to the comprehensive development of outlying territories and their inclusion in the general economic contour of the country.The study is devoted to the analysis of the development of the transport infrastructure of the busiest freight and passenger artery of the Russian Empire -the Volga-Caspian transport corridor -during the first Russian industrialization of the second half of the 19th -early 20th centuries.The participation of the state in this process is revealed, which was manifested through the creation of private-public partnerships in the form of railway and shipping jointstock companies, work with the business elite at congresses and meetings of entrepreneurs, speeches in the press by opinion leaders, stimulation of ship owners to create large shipping companies (encouraging railway companies to the detriment of shipping companies), etc.The study was carried out of archival office documents, allowing a better understanding of the organization of shipping companies work, the structure of cartel and syndicate agreements between shipping companies, the working conditions of workers and management personnel, and the principles of entrepreneurial activity.