Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development, Farzaneh Sadegh, announced on Saturday that roughly 34 kilometers (21 miles) of land have been officially handed over to Russia to begin construction of the Rasht–Astara railway, a key part of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC).
The Rasht–Astara section, stretching 162 kilometers (100 miles) through Iran’s Gilan Province, is considered one of the most critical missing links of the INSTC, a multimodal trade route designed to connect Russia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the Persian Gulf and onward to India. According to Tehran, nearly half of the land required for the line has already been secured, with the remainder expected to be acquired by the end of 2025.
Russia is financing the bulk of the project, having provided a €1.3 billion loan—about 80% of the total funding—under a May 2023 agreement. Russian specialists began surveying the area earlier this year, and construction is now expected to move ahead in stages. The railway is projected for completion by 2028.
Once finished, the line will link Iran’s Caspian Sea ports to the Azerbaijani and Russian rail systems, and through Iran’s domestic network, to major southern ports including Chabahar and Bandar Abbas. This will allow freight to move directly from Russia to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, bypassing the Suez Canal and other Western-controlled chokepoints.
The project will also allow for a fully sanctions proof transit route that could eventually integrate the trade routes from other parts of Asia that are part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Tehran projects that the corridor will eventually handle over 15 million tons of freight annually, slashing transit times from Russia to India from 40–60 days down to just 10–20 days. The INSTC has increasingly drawn concern in Western capitals, where Washington has recently sanctioned Iran’s Chabahar Port in an attempt to disrupt India’s participation in the corridor.