Furs - Until the mid-1800s, Siberia's attraction remained wedded to furs. Millions of squirrel skins, more than 50,000 ermines, and 40,000 sables were trapped every year. However, the discovery of gold along the upper Lena River in 1846 brought on a gold rush (just as frantic as those in California and the Yukon) which created a new impetus for settlement.
Settlement - Siberia was an attractive destination for peasants from European Russia and the Trans-Siberian facilitated their migration. There were too many people in Europe farming too little land under repressive conditions. In the new regions to the east there was plenty of land to cultivate, serfdom had never developed there, and government officials tended to be less severe. There were several years in the first decade of the 20th century when the annual migration exceeded 250,000. By 1910 the Trans-Siberian served 10 million inhabitants.
Russia as intermediary between Asia and Europe - For Witte, new factories and improved communications were means to increase the resources of Russia and enhance her political and military influence in world affairs. Thus, his greatest achievement was the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the East Chinese Railway. For Witte they would make Russia the chief intermediary between Western Europe and the Far East, they would join European and Asiatic Russia, and would be an economic stimulus.
Grab for Chinese territory - Only in February 1903 -two years behind schedule - was the East Chinese ready for regular traffic. It cost more than the entire Trans-Siberian main line. However, the government was jockeying for Russian hegemony in China, a policy that soon resulted in war with Japan.
