African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1441: A Strong Transportation Nation

Dar es Salaam has a completely different style and charm from Soviet cities, which made the Soviet inspectors feel very novel and comfortable.

The natural environment of the Soviet Union seems to be naturally melancholy and depressing, while East Africa is exactly the opposite. It is full of the enthusiasm and vitality of a tropical country, just like the animals galloping on the savannah.

Of course, not all tropical countries are like this. Take India for example. The overly hot and stuffy environment makes the whole of India full of laziness and laxity. In the absence of air conditioning, many tropical regions are like this. This is probably because the local climate and soil determine the local people.

While everyone was touring and looking at the urban scenery of this strange country, Belogoriye, a Soviet urban designer, looked more deeply.

"The city of Dar es Salaam is clearly planned, and this planning is very different from the current urban design in Europe and the United States. The entire urban design is full of deliberate integration and is not stingy in the use of land," said Belogoriye.

"Comrade Belogoriye, could you be more specific?"

Belogoriye rested his hand on his chin and analyzed: "In today's capitalist countries, urban construction obviously pays more attention to the efficiency of utilization, especially the arrangement of industry."

"Due to high land prices in Europe and the United States, streets and residential areas are cramped and roads are narrow, but East Africa is the opposite. It can be seen that East Africans attach great importance to the comfort of living space. Their residential density is neither too high nor too low, but they have everything they need."

"During our trip, we saw many parks, sports venues and some strange facilities in the city of Dar es Salaam."

"I guess those are sports equipment provided by the East African government. Unfortunately, most East Africans don't have any holidays. We can only see some elderly people and children using these equipment for various exercises or play activities."

"This may also be the contradiction of capitalist countries in East Africa. Their institutional problems make it impossible for some good ideas to be effectively implemented."

"However, we can learn from the Soviet Union. In the future, Soviet cities should also build a large number of parks and fitness facilities."

"In this way, our workers will have more places for entertainment, leisure and sports in their spare time. After all, the Soviet Union was a country with a strict eight-hour work system. Our workers have enough time to enjoy their lives, unlike East Africa, where even though a large amount of infrastructure has been built, the industry has no time to enjoy it."

If you must say, East Africa is also a country with an eight-hour workday at the legal level, but obviously working only eight hours is not conducive to the development of the East African economy, so law enforcement will naturally be much more relaxed.

Moreover, capitalists are calculating and cunning. If East Africa really enforces the eight-hour workday, the consequences can be imagined. Business owners will find ways to circumvent legal provisions that are unfavorable to them and exploit loopholes in the law.

If it is really unavoidable, then just flee the country. There are many countries in the world anyway, and capital has no motherland. The East African government obviously cannot afford this cost.

Unless the whole world is like the Soviet Union, capital will have nowhere to escape. If this really happens, then the world will be united. This situation only exists in science fiction novels.

The East African governments, unable to solve the fundamental problems, can only "serve" their citizens in some minor ways, such as stabilizing prices, building a large number of free public facilities, lowering energy prices, etc.

The parks, sports venues, etc. that Belogoriye and other Soviet comrades saw in Dar es Salaam were all free public facilities provided by the East African government for its citizens.

Of course, in the eyes of the Soviets, these were just some tricks of the East African governments.

Shapovalov, a colleague of Belogoriye, felt very disdainful of this.

"Many designs in East Africa are actually flashy ornaments. These things are not very practical at all. They look beautiful, but the reality is that people in many countries are so poor that they can only struggle to make ends meet."

"It would be better to invest this energy into industry or improve the welfare of the people."

"Moreover, many public facilities in East Africa are extremely wasteful, especially in terms of land consumption. Although East Africa is the second largest country in the world, this kind of waste is despicable."

"The Soviet Union has the largest land area in the world, but we must not follow the practices of East Africa. We should learn more from the urban construction concepts of Europe and the United States to maximize the efficiency of land resource utilization."

It is normal for the two to have differences. Belogoriye sees the potential benefits and livability, while Shapovalov sees the shocking waste.

It's like an antique lover can get spiritual enjoyment from a cultural relic, while to others it may just be a waste of time.

Of course, although Shapovalov is dissatisfied with some aspects of urban planning in East Africa, he does not completely deny it.

After disparaging East African governments, he went on to highlight some of Dar es Salaam's strengths.

"East Africa's industrial layout and port transportation construction are still reasonable. Today, the Soviet Union is lagging far behind East Africa and other countries."

"East Africa ranks first in the world in terms of transportation construction. I have studied East Africa's infrastructure such as railways, roads and ports."

"There is no doubt that the crazy transportation construction has played an important role in East Africa's ability to become the world's most important economic power in just a few decades."

"The Rhine Palace has invested generously in the transportation sector. East Africa's railways are second only to those in the United States, and its highways rank first in the world. Although the port has some natural deficiencies, it has been renovated on a large scale, becoming the most modern port renovation case I have ever seen."

"This is of great reference significance to our country, because among the major powers in the world, only East Africa and the Soviet Union have the most similar basic conditions."

The similarities between the Soviet Union and East Africa are indeed a good topic. In fact, at the end of the last century and the beginning of this century, East Africa also liked to use Russia as a reference.

Because at that time, whether in terms of land area, population, industrial scale, or economic size, the most similar country in the world to East Africa was Russia.

Now, in the eyes of the Soviets, East Africa and the Soviet Union are the only two major countries in the world with a land area of ​​more than 10 million square kilometers, of course, without taking into account colonies.

Because the colonies are included in the calculation of the land area, the areas of Britain and France are among the largest in the world, and Britain is even ranked first in the world. The total area of ​​the three colonies of Canada, Australia and India alone is more than 20 million square kilometers.

Of course, the Soviet Union was not much different. Its land area was also about 22 million square kilometers, even after losing Poland and Western Ukraine. Although the Soviet Union's territory was smaller than that of Tsarist Russia, it was more terrifying than Tsarist Russia. After all, in the Tsarist Russia era, many territories were no different from colonies, while the Soviet Union united these former colonies through ideology.

The most typical case is Central Asia. In the Tsarist era, Central Asians certainly did not think that they and Russia were one family. However, under the Soviet ideology, most Central Asians would consider themselves Soviets and be proud of it.

Of course, there are definitely many extreme religious elements who choose to die to the end and persist in fighting the Soviet government, but this does not affect the overall situation of the Soviet Union today. Before the Soviet Union completely decayed, its ideological cohesion effect was still very significant.

Not to mention the Soviet people themselves, the Soviet ideology could even influence many countries in Europe, Asia, and even the world, becoming the spiritual homeland for many people.

This is also where the imperialist countries are extremely afraid of the Soviet Union.

Shapovalov went on to say: "Both East Africa and the Soviet Union are countries with extremely large land areas, which makes it more difficult for the two countries to effectively use their land than for ordinary countries."

"But East Africans are clearly ahead of us now, considering that in the 19s East Africa was just an insignificant colony."

"At that time, the population of East Africa was probably only tens of thousands, or even only a few thousand people, while the population of Imperial Russia had long exceeded 100 million, with a certain industry and economic strength far exceeding that of East Africa."

"Now, in just half a century, East Africa has surpassed the population, industry and economic output of the former Russian Empire, which is the land inherited by our Soviet Union."

"From this we can see that the Russian Empire was extremely evil. They seriously delayed the development of our Soviet Union. Until now, we still have to clean up the mess left by the Russian Empire..."

"Ahem..." Belogorye interrupted, "Comrade Shapovalov, the Russian Empire is a thing of the past after all. Even if we hold them responsible, it will not change the difficult situation we are facing now. You should focus on telling us the secret of how East Africa can rise so quickly!"

Shapovalov calmed down, nodded and said, "Well, I was a little excited. Let's get back to the topic. I think the key to East Africa's rise in a short period of time lies in East Africa's large-scale transformation of its own transportation."

"Look at the roads in Dar es Salaam. They are not only wide but also very smooth. There are also a lot of auxiliary infrastructure and detailed planning to improve traffic efficiency, such as traffic lights, various warning lines, and signboards..."

In this regard, East Africa is indeed much more advanced than many countries. Various warning lines on the roads in East Africa are used to distinguish lanes, sidewalks, turns, straight driving, or parking and other special purposes.

These are all advanced experiences acquired by Ernst in his previous life. Although very simple, in the early 20th century, when transportation was not yet fully mature, East Africa had already established convenient, unified and efficient transportation rules, which is truly unique in the world.

In fact, major powers such as Germany and the United States are not bad in this regard, but there is no doubt that East Africa has certain advantages in handling more details.

This is also an inevitable result, because even without the blessing of Ernst's previous life experience, given the current national conditions in East Africa, it will be more advanced than other countries in terms of road traffic.

After all, East Africa has the world's largest road system and the largest number of cars in the world. It is obviously unacceptable that there is no matching traffic rules in East Africa, the automobile kingdom.

Shapovalov went on to say: "Of course, it is very difficult for us in the Soviet Union to transform our roads into those in East Africa. Just looking at the details of the roads in Dar es Salaam, we can see that the cost of such roads must be high."

"In Dar es Salaam, except for some pedestrian streets and special places, all their roads are paved with asphalt."

“I don’t know whether the road conditions in other cities in East Africa are the same as in Dar es Salaam. After all, Dar es Salaam is the most economically developed city in East Africa.”

“I think the roads of Rhine City, the capital of East Africa, and the former capital, First Town City, might even be higher than Dar es Salaam.”

"Just the road construction in Dar es Salaam is an important manifestation of the East African government's emphasis on transportation, even though it is a special city."

“Combined with some of the materials I’ve studied on East African transportation and what I’ve seen with my own eyes in Dar es Salaam, I think a strong transportation nation is an important part of East Africa’s rapid rise.”

"It is not an exaggeration to say that the Soviet Union's transportation is 20 years behind East Africa. The road conditions in the Soviet Union are probably similar to those in East Africa 20 years ago."

In fact, East Africa’s transportation construction twenty years ago was much stronger than Russia’s at that time. After all, since the colonial era, the construction of infrastructure such as transportation has always been part of the national governance that the East African government attaches the most importance to.

The actual level of the Soviet Union’s transportation sector today should be similar to that of East Africa at the end of the last century.

The Soviet Union has not yet carried out large-scale industrial construction, but has been recovering. In other words, the Soviet Union's current data in many aspects may be worse than that of the Imperial Russia period.

Shapovalov said: "Developed transportation has greatly reduced the cost of developing industry in East Africa and improved the efficiency of East Africa's allocation of national resources."

"This may also be an important factor in the more balanced economy of East Africa compared to the Soviet Union. The lack of obvious economic gap between the east and west coasts of East Africa and the interior also proves this point."

"Thanks to the developed transportation system, even inland areas of East Africa can develop industrial economy at a lower cost and improve economic efficiency."

"In the Soviet Union, the gap between the east and the west is very obvious, and the inland areas are even less developed, especially east of the Ural Mountains. If we want to fully tap the potential of our country, we need more railways and roads."

"At least the natural environment in Western Siberia is not as harsh as that in the Far East, and resources are not lacking. The most obvious shortcoming is transportation."

"If we can solve the transportation problem and develop the Western Siberia region, it will greatly enhance our national strength for the Soviet Union."

"Of course, even in the East European Plain, the transportation development in the core area of ​​the Soviet economy is much less developed than that in East Africa. The railways in the entire Soviet Union are less than half of those in East Africa, but our land area is much larger than that of East Africa. This is obviously unreasonable."

"After all, the population data of the two countries is not much different. We must at least improve our transportation to the level of East Africa to be qualified."

(End of this chapter)