Evaluation of the railways effectiveness in Central Asia as an economic institution (late XIX - early XX centuries)
A feature of the state policy for the development of the railway network in the Russian Empire at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries was the predominance of military-strategic factors over economic ones in the decision-making process on the construction of a particular railway. This thesis is especially relevant for the railway transport development in Central Asia, where two state-owned railways operated at the beginning of the XX century - the Central Asian and Tashkent. However, the role of railways in the economic modernization of the region largely exceeded their strategic importance. The assessment of the quantitative indicators of the work of railways (freight transportation, passenger transportation, gross income) indicates an increase in demand for rail transportation in the regional market and an acceleration of systemic changes in the economy: an increase in marketability and the formation of a market specialization of the economy, integration into the all-Russian market. At the same time, statistics show that railways were unprofitable, partly due to the functional difficulties of this institution in the natural-climatic and traditional socio-cultural environment of the region. The low profitability of railways influenced the governmental policy of further railway transport development in Central Asia.