site.btaSofia-Skopje Railway Link Construction Stalled For 150 Years

The construction of the railway link between Sofia and Skopje has been stalled for 150 years. The project for the Sofia - Kyustendil - Skopje line has been in existence for three centuries - 150 years since the first construction period, said Prof. Assoc. Angel Dzhonev, who has collected the history of the still unfinished project in photos. The exhibition is currently visiting the gallery in the Kyustendil village of Razhdavitsa, where a few days ago the third friendship event "Corridor 8" took place, dedicated to the friendship between Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia.

According to Dzhonev, the Sofia - Skopje railway line is a marker of the relations between Bulgaria and North Macedonia. "Our relations are the same as our transport links", Dzhonev noted. "We are in a phase of great confrontation, and between Sofia and Skopje the train runs through Nish or through Thessaloniki. Not only as transport hubs, but also as geopolitical centres of influence," the historian said.

Dzhonev added that within the Ottoman Empire, in the early 1870s, this railroad project was part of the central route to connect the Ottoman capital Constantinople with the Austro-Hungarian one - Vienna. "It was substantially different from the current central route via Nish and Belgrade", the Professor noted. "The Ottoman Empire was eager to build the modern communication within its borders, so in 1872 it started the construction of this section with its own funds, and after its completion it had to hand it over to the "Eastern Railways" Operating Company of Baron Moritz Hirsch (an industrialist and philanthropist of Jewish origin). This did not happen because in 1875 the Eastern crisis broke out, the Ottoman Empire went bankrupt, instability, uprisings, wars, the Russo-Turkish War, the restoration of the Bulgarian state followed. These are all a series of historical events that interrupted this first building period. The construction of the railway remains the legacy of the Bulgarian state," Dzhonev explained.

He added that the first Bulgarian governments sought to impose the Sofia - Kyustendil - Skopje project as the main one to connect the railways with the Ottoman Empire and Europe. At the same time a conference of four countries was held, and the idea to connect Constantinople with Vienna via the Ottoman Empire, the territory of the Principality of Bulgaria, Serbia and Austria-Hungary was put forward by the latter. As a result of this conference, a convention was signed and the central route was established along the route Constantinople - Plovdiv - Sofia - Nish - Belgrade - Vienna. "It was built in 1888 and started functioning, and the Ottoman capital was connected to Central Europe," the historian explained.

The route to connect with the geographical area of Macedonia, a top priority of the Bulgarian state, is left for later implementation. For its realization, work is being done in two main directions - diplomacy in foreign policy, construction in domestic policy, Dzhonev said, adding that the Bulgarian governments of Stefan Stambolov and of Konstantin Stoilov in the 1890s made great efforts for the implementation of this plan. An agreement was reached with the Ottoman Empire to connect the railway in the area of Deve Bair, in the area of the village of Gyueshevo, Kyustendil region, and the government of Stambolov began the construction of the route.

In 1893 the construction reached Pernik, and in 1897, during Stoilov's governance - to Radomir. In 1898 the construction of the section Radomir - Kyustendil - Gyueshevo began.

The historian stressed that foreign, mainly geopolitical reasons led to the termination of the construction, which was restored in 1905, but this time - with French capital, English rails and bridges from Germany. The building company was the enterprise "Ivan Zlatin & Co.", which received BGN 12,377,000 to implement the project, Dzhonev added. Within only five years, between 1905 and 1910, the railway line from Radomir through Kyustendil to Gyueshevo was built. "So from July 16, 1910 the train was waiting at the border at Gyueshevo to continue on. It is more than 110 years since the line was completed on the territory of the Kingdom of Bulgaria," Dzhonev noted.

"To sum up, we can say that Bulgaria succeeded in domestic politics to complete its section, but in foreign politics it failed to find a political lobby to force the Ottoman Empire to complete its section", Dzhonev concluded, adding that there was an agreement in 1904, followed by another in 1912, which specified that the railway would connect at Gueshevo, where the international exchange station would be situated. "By building the station at Gueshevo, Bulgaria was building it exactly as an international exchange station - with two parts, a Bulgarian and a Turkish one, and the station itself is an impressive and magnificent building," the historian added. He clarified that in foreign policy Bulgaria could not create a lobby, because on both the railway aspect and the Macedonian issue, it had no ally until 1912 and the Balkan wars.

The Professor clarified that the geopolitical situation after the Balkan wars did not change drastically, except for the First World War, when work was mainly done at the legislative level with laws passed for the construction of a number of railways on the territory of the geographical area of Macedonia, then under Bulgarian military control, with the construction of the railway line from Gueshevo to Kumanovo being a priority. However, no construction took place.

"Then Bulgaria made an incredible feat - narrow-gauge railways were built over 671 km on the territory of Macedonia", Dzhonev said. He clarified that the Radomir - Gorna Dzhumaia (modern day Blagoevgrad) - Petrich route, which was about 250 km in total, was built, together with the Skopje - Kichevo - Ohrid section - 230 km in total. However, the one that should connect Sofia via Kyustendil with Skopje remained only a project. "This is how it was later in the period of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia", Dzhonev explained, noting that the main geopolitical adversary in the period of the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Serbia, became the master of these territories. "Quite naturally, extremely rarely, this direction was discussed once or twice at the state level, but nothing was undertaken as construction until 1941, when after the April War the situation in the Balkans changed. Germany conquered Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria entered these areas with its army", Dzhonev said.

Bulgaria entered Vardar Macedonia on April 19-20, 1941, and on May 3 the government of Prime Minister Bogdan Filov decided to build several railway lines to connect Bulgaria with its new lands in Vardar Macedonia and the Aegean coast. One of the main priorities was again the Gueshevo-Kumanovo line, the historian said.

Prof. Assoc. Dzhonev said that in the span of the 3 and a half years that Bulgaria has been in possession of Vardar Macedonia and the Aegean coast, intensive work has been carried out on the route with 30 out of 50 tunnels having been drilled and others in an advanced stage of construction. "The investments were large and were estimated at around BGN 525 million invested by the Bulgarian state at that time," Dzhonev said, noting that even nowadays a significant part of the facilities built in those years can still be seen.

"In September 1944, when Bulgaria left Vardar Macedonia, construction in this area largely ended", he noted. "Work continued in the Gueshevo area until 1948-49, on the water tunnel, because relations between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia were very warm then. A number of agreements were being prepared at that time, including the so-called Bled Agreement. This was the first attempt of the Communist regime to destroy the sovereignty of its own country by incorporating Bulgaria into a large South Slavic federation," Dzhonev pointed out.

The plan failed, together with the idea of a rail link at the beginning of the Communist regime. In the newly created People's Republic of Macedonia within Yugoslavia, work was started on the Bulgarian route in the mid-1950s, and the section from Kumanovo to Belyakovtsi was completed. This is about 30 km of railway track and this section was put into operation. "Everything else remains in the realm of good intentions", the historian said, adding that the topic continues to be discussed from time to time, some investments are made, and a campaign to improve the line and raise the tunnels has been launched on Bulgarian territory.

"Up to this point Bulgaria has been a country defeated in three wars, which was in severe international isolation between the First and the Second World War. It was a satellite of the Soviet Union after World War II until 1990 and was in a difficult foreign policy situation. On the other side, in Vardar Macedonia, we are first talking about a geographical area and a proto-state, which is the federal unit of Macedonia within Yugoslavia. After the beginning of the 1990s, we now have two sovereign states which have come out of the tutelage, and can now carry out their sovereign policy independently. However, more than 30 years have passed since then, and nothing has been done in terms of rail connectivity. It remains once again only in the realm of discussion and documents", Dzhonev explained.

He said that the first attempts to "resuscitate" the railway construction bilaterally and on a broader level date back to the early 1990s, when the idea of an East-West corridor began to emerge, followed by an agreement between the Bulgarian, FYROM and Albanian transport ministers. The next step were the "Cretan Corridors", which created the basis for the Burgas - Sofia - Kyustendil - Skopje - Duras route, for a railway, a motorway and accompanying communication. Dzhonev noted that the route completes a large infrastructure corridor, as Corridor 8 claims to be.

In the bilateral relations this issue was raised as early as with the recognition of the Republic of Macedonia by Bulgaria and entered an intense phase in 1994, at the time of an election campaign in the Republic of Macedonia, when FYROM Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski made the first dig, the historian added. "It was announced then that the railway to Bulgaria would be completed in one year. Separately, exploratory activities began. But such an ambitious construction within a year could not be spoken of, it was abused politically, which happened very often after that," said Dzhonev. 

History remembers many first digs, and usually political analysts say that when elections occurred in the Republic of North Macedonia, another first dig is made, and the corridor is periodically used as political "gum". However, it remains at the level of political talk.

The Professor pointed out that the matter has been discussed numerous times throughout the years with the discussions during the governances of Ljubcho Georgievski and Ivan Kostov being the most intense. Then, the Georgievski administration funded the construction of the Belyakovtsi- Kriva Palanka section, which was suspended at the beginning of the new millennium due to lack of funds, to be resuscitated in 2022. The section to Kriva Palanka has been ceded to a Turkish company for construction, while the one from Kumanovo to Belyakovtsi is undergoing a complete rehabilitation by a German company, which did not finish what it started. This route is now being completed by an Austrian company.

But while the route from Kumanovo to Kriva Palanka has a domestic political importance, the international section, which creates the final phase between Kriva Palanka and Gueshevo, does not even have its own draft project yet.

Dzhonev speculated that perhaps Bulgaria could not use EU funding for this project. "Bulgaria is also not in a positive phase with regard to the project, although we have an existing line to Gueshevo which is over 110 years old", he stressed. "Everybody knows that the 34 km Kyustendil-Gueshevo section is covered in nearly two hours, which breaks records for slow speed in Europe, and why not globally," Dzhonev added.

According to him, a direct rail link between the two capitals is a must. Under the Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighbourliness, the last launch date is approaching. The deadline for the completion of the route in the Republic of North Macedonia is 2027, and the connection between the two countries is planned for 2030, according to a 2021 memorandum.

"In terms of current construction possibilities, it is not a problem to implement the project", the historian said, noting that the Radomir-Gueshevo route was built in just five years, under completely different technical possibilities. He added that while Bulgaria invests in the modernization of many of its areas, in the Radomir-Kyustendil-Gueshevo section "silence reigns".