History of Megaprojects: From the Great Wall of China to Baikonur
Project management is not a 20th-century invention. The Great Wall of China was built over two thousand years; the Trans-Siberian Railway was laid through taiga and permafrost in 25 years; and Soviet high-rises were built to strict network-based schedules, with just two months allocated to the design of each building.
The history of megaprojects is a history of management decisions that worked. PM Excellence has brought together twenty stories, from ancient structures to Soviet industrial programs and modern infrastructure. They make compelling reading, and their lessons remain relevant today.
The Trans-Siberian Railway: 25 Years, 100,000 People, 9,288 km
Construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway ran from 1891 to 1916 and cost RUB 1.5 billion—more than RUB 20 trillion in today's money when calculated on a gold-standard basis. Around 100,000 workers laid the route through mountains, taiga, and permafrost. The result: the world's longest railway, crossing eight time zones.
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The Circum-Baikal Railway: The Golden Buckle of Russia's Steel Belt
The Circum-Baikal Railway (1901–1904) was the most expensive railway project in Tsarist Russia: 65 million gold rubles, 260 km of track through the mountains, 39 tunnels, and manual tunneling progress of 96 centimeters a day. There was at least one engineered structure for every 400 meters of the route, each individually designed. That engineering is still in service today.
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Osudareva Road and the White Sea–Baltic Canal
Two contrasting examples of megaproject management. Osudareva Road was a military project undertaken by Peter the Great in 1702: 265 km built in two weeks by 5,000 workers. The White Sea–Baltic Canal was a Soviet project of 1931–1933: 227 km of waterway, 19 locks, 15 dams, and less than two years of construction. Both projects represent an extraordinary concentration of determination and resources.
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Seven and a Half ‘Sisters’: Moscow's High-Rises
In January 1947, Gosplan approved the construction of eight high-rise buildings to mark Moscow's 800th anniversary. Each had a two-month design period, an exceptionally tight network-based schedule, and coordination across several ministries. The engineering solutions were unprecedented: a box foundation for Moscow State University and ground freezing to a depth of 27 meters at Krasnye Vorota. Seven of the buildings still stand today.
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Kola Superdeep SG-3: 12,262 Meters into the Earth's Crust
The deepest borehole in human history was drilled over two decades with the involvement of 150 Soviet scientific organizations. At depth, researchers found gneiss instead of the expected basalt, highly mineralized water, and traces of microorganisms 1.5 billion years old—in conditions where their existence had been considered impossible. All the equipment was developed domestically.
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The Crimean Bridge: RUB 227 Billion and 19 km Across the Kerch Strait
595 piers, piles reaching 105 meters deep, resistance to earthquakes of intensity 9, and more than 400 monitoring sensors. Evgeniy Pikulev examines the project as a management case study: the road section opened in May 2018, and the rail section in December 2019. Its cost is comparable to that of the world's largest bridges, despite its substantially greater length.
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Baikonur: The Construction Project of the Century in the Kazakh Desert
In 1954, on Korolev's recommendation, a site near the equator was selected to take advantage of the Earth's rotational speed. For two years, 3,000 workers carried out construction around the clock in 50°C heat and dust storms. Exactly two years after the first building was started, the first launch complex was accepted by the commissioning committee—on schedule.
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Evacuation and Il-2 Production: A Megaproject in Wartime
During 1941–1942, 2,743 enterprises and more than 20 million people were relocated. Plant No. 18 moved from Voronezh to Kuibyshev in 2.5 months, interrupting production for just 35 days. Following a telegram from Stalin, output of ground-attack aircraft increased sevenfold in a month. During the war, the plant produced around 15,000 Il-2 aircraft while introducing dozens of design improvements.
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Igor Kurchatov: Leader of the Nuclear Megaproject
Laboratory No. 2, founded in 1942, achieved Eurasia's first nuclear chain reaction in 16 months. Construction of the production reactor at Chelyabinsk-40 involved 45,000 workers, followed by the bomb test in 1949. Then came the world's first nuclear power plant, at Obninsk (1954). Kutuzov created more than a weapon: he established a scientific school and an entire industry.
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Vladimir Shukhov: Life as a Megaproject
More than 700 completed projects: around 200 towers, 500 bridges, Russia's first oil pipeline, and a patent for oil cracking (1878). The Shukhov radio tower on Shabolovka (1922) was built using a telescopic erection method amid the devastation following the revolution. An engineer who maintained rigorous project documentation and kept contractors under control long before project management methodologies emerged.
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The Ostankino TV Tower: Nikolay Nikitin's Megaproject
Nikitin developed the concept for a prestressed-concrete tower with a minimal foundation in just three days before the tender. The budget grew to 2.5 times its original level, and the duration increased from 5–6 to 8 years. But the tower was built, and the Lenin Prize was awarded. Nikitin applied the same engineering principles to ‘The Motherland Calls’ monument in Volgograd.
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Memories of the Future: Megaprojects in the USSR. Part 1
Bratskgesstroy (1955–1991) was a self-contained construction organization that produced all the materials it needed in-house, without relying on external suppliers. Hydroelectric power stations, aluminum smelters, and entire industrial cities were built from scratch in remote Siberia. Author Igor Pletenny believes these Soviet methodologies remain applicable to the development of the eastern territories today.
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Memories of the Future: Megaprojects in the USSR. Part 2
Central planning as a mechanism for managing megaproject resources: coordinating deliveries at the state level without delays, training 79,000 workers in 135 trades directly on site, and moving the team from one project to the next in succession. A coordinating staff of 150 managed several large construction projects simultaneously.
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Brigade Contracting on Soviet Construction Sites
An experiment in 1970: a brigade of 50 built a 14-story apartment building in 155 days instead of the planned 235—80 days ahead of schedule. Savings totaled RUB 20,000 against a budget of RUB 408,000. Each worker received a bonus of RUB 362–495. By the late 1970s, around 70,000 Soviet construction brigades had adopted the method—35% of all construction teams in the country.
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A Climate Megaproject: The History of the Kama Hydroelectric Power Station
The decision was made in 1930; the first electricity was generated in 1954. Over the course of construction, more than 160,000 hectares of land were flooded, thousands of families were resettled, and the town of Dedyukhin disappeared from the map. The project brought electricity and navigation to the region—and destroyed the river's ecosystem. The lesson for managers: megaprojects require an assessment of indirect, long-term consequences ten or more years ahead.
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The Great Wall of China: Two Thousand Years of Construction
The wall was built from the third century BCE to the seventeenth century CE, reaching a total length of more than 21,000 km with around 25,000 towers. Under Qin Shi Huang, around two million builders were involved: peasants, soldiers, artisans, and prisoners. Existing sections were reused, and the route was adapted to the mountainous terrain. It achieved little militarily—but created a cultural symbol that has endured for millennia.
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Megaprojects: The Art of Building Bridges
The Crimean Bridge, the bridge to Russky Island, the Svirsky and Vysokogorsky bridges, and the Volga bridge near Tolyatti: Russian bridge megaprojects as part of the country's development strategy. Evgeniy Pikulev sets out the conditions for success: professionally developed schedule network models, engaging a PMC contractor, and proactive risk management. Every bridge presents unique engineering challenges and its own history of management decisions.
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Karachay-Cherkessia: An Astronomical Megaproject
The Large Azimuth Telescope (BTA), with a 9-meter mirror—the largest in Eurasia—was built starting in 1965 at an elevation of 2,600 meters. This Soviet megaproject required new methods of transporting equipment into the mountains. The observatory confirmed the existence of gravitational waves and the expansion of the universe; its work is scheduled two years in advance.
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VDNH: From Stability to Aristocracy
Evgeniy Pikulev analyzes the exhibition's life cycle using the Adizes model: from its ‘Infancy’ in 1935, through Soviet-era ‘Stability’ and decline in the 1990s, to the large-scale reconstruction of 2014–2019. Today, VDNH is the venue for the ‘Russia 2023’ forum, which brought together megaprojects from all 89 regions. A case study of how an institution can die and be reborn.
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Underground Megaprojects
Norway is a world leader in underground construction: 1,200 road tunnels totaling more than 5,000 km, including the 24-km Lærdal Tunnel. In the Moscow Metro, the number of stations grew to 1.7 times its previous level over 15 years, supported by modern 150-ton tunnel boring machines advancing at 10 meters a day. RUB 1.7 trillion is planned for the development of Moscow's transport infrastructure in 2025–2027.
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The series continues. PM Excellence regularly publishes new stories of megaprojects, each offering a management lesson relevant to today's practice. → Explore the Full Collection: History of Megaprojects — Full Collection