TELL ME WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE: DECODING THE FREIGHT DYNAMICS

Marat Zembatov, Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Research, HSE Institute of State and Municipal Management; member, Russian-Omani Business Council; BRICS Transport & Infrastructure Expert:

“There's been plenty of talk lately about sagging cargo volumes, which raises an obvious question: Is this just our headache, or are others feeling the pinch too? Take the US – they've been systematically shrinking their rail networks for years. But we don't need to look that far. Let's focus on what's happening in our own backyard and among our neighbors. That's exactly what 'Logistics of Meanings' aims to explore – freight dynamics across jurisdictions that form the central pillar of our regional connectivity - North-South International Transport Corridor.
To complete the picture, we took a close look at Uzbekistan's freight situation. While the eastern route of the North-South Corridor doesn't pass through Uzbekistan, the country does provide a strategic gateway to Afghanistan. The Trans-Afghan Highway project is already moving forward, with early terminal sections near Mazar-i-Sharif under development and feasibility studies now underway for the Naibabad-Harlachi route. It's clearly only a matter of time.
So let's dive into what's really happening with Central Asian and Caucasian railways. Are we seeing growth in transit traffic, or are infrastructure gaps creating bottlenecks?

The post-pandemic period (2021–2025) has been a mixed story for railways in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. After the initial recovery and transit boom, we're now seeing structural constraints and volume corrections.

Kazakhstan: The Region's Freight Powerhouse

Kazakhstan solidly dominates the region's railway freight market. According to Kazakhstan's national statistics bureau, railway freight volumes hit around 416 million tons in 2021. In 2022, that dropped to 405 million tons – the spillover effects of supply-chain disruptions and shifting export patterns.

But from 2023 on, things turned around. Kazakhstan Railways transported 416.4 million tons in 2023, then jumped to 437.1 million tons in 2024. The growth continued in 2025, reaching 453.2 million tons – that's a 37-million-ton increase, or roughly 9%, in just two years.
In terms of product structure, Kazakhstan's freight base is built on the traditional pillars: coal, ore, metals, grain, and oil products. Transit traffic on the China-Europe and China-Caspian routes has been a major driver of this growth. But here's the reality: the numbers show we're running up against infrastructure bottlenecks at key hubs and border crossings. The good news is that 2025 brought real progress on railway reconstruction and double-tracking projects, which should support continued growth through 2026.
Azerbaijan's Volatile Freight Traffic

Cargo volumes on Azerbaijan's rail network tell an instructive story about how international corridors – including the North-South Corridor – are performing. In 2021, the country's railways handled around 15.1 million tons of cargo. By 2022, volumes jumped sharply to 18.7 million tons, riding the wave of newly activated East-West transit routes.

In 2023–2024, cargo loading settled into a range of 18.3–18.6 million tons. These were the boom years for Azerbaijan's transit ambitions: Baku and the Caspian ports hummed with activity.
However, 2025 marked a pullback. By year-end, railway freight had fallen to 16.8 million tons – a 9.4% dip from 2024. That said, the overall trajectory since 2021 remains upward, underscoring Azerbaijan Railways' newfound role as a critical player in Eurasian logistics. And the network's sensitivity to external shocks – shifting transit demand, competing corridor routes – is perhaps the best evidence yet of just how important it has become to the regional transport picture.
However, 2025 marked a pullback. By year-end, railway freight had fallen to 16.8 million tons – a 9.4% dip from 2024. That said, the overall trajectory since 2021 remains upward, underscoring Azerbaijan Railways' newfound role as a critical player in Eurasian logistics. And the network's sensitivity to external shocks – shifting transit demand, competing ITC routes – is perhaps the best evidence yet of just how important it has become to the regional transport picture.

Uzbekistan – Steady and Clear on the Network

Uzbekistan displays a distinctly different cargo loading pattern. Cargo volumes here grow slowly and almost linearly. In 2021, railways shipped approximately 72.0 million tons. By 2022, this had risen to 73.4 million tons, 73.7 million tons in 2023, and 73.9 million tons in 2024.

Over four years, growth totaled less than 2 million tons. This steady trajectory reflects Uzbekistan's economic structure: a substantial share of cargo goes to domestic consumption and processing. Transit traffic remains secondary in volume and hasn't yet fully tapped the network's significant transit potential. Infrastructure projects and electrification have sustained operational stability but haven't sparked a cargo surge.

Uzbekistan's railways also showed passenger growth. In 2021, they carried 7.9 million passengers. By 2024, that had grown to 9.9 million.
General Trends: Growth, Fluctuations, and Growth Again
The transit corridors neighboring Russia's rail network show not only different loading dynamics but operate under fundamentally different conditions. Yet for Russian import, export, and transit flows – they're all equally critical. So let's examine what ties together the cargo patterns across these three routes.

First, the entire region rebounded from the pandemic slump by 2022. Even Kazakhstan, which experienced a temporary dip, bounced back quickly. Cargo, after all, flows like water – it always finds its way.

Second, transit has been the growth engine everywhere. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have especially capitalized on the reshuffling of Eurasian shipping routes. But this transit dependency cuts both ways – it makes the volumes far more volatile. Any shift in external conditions triggers rapid adjustments in throughput.
Third, infrastructure bottlenecks have emerged as the real constraint. Without corresponding capacity upgrades, cargo loading growth either stalls or plateaus out.

Signals Ahead

What does the future hold? Data from 2021–2025 suggests the region's rail cargo potential remains intact, but tapping it demands more than just geographic advantage – it requires systematic infrastructure investment. For Kazakhstan, this means further upgrading corridor capacity and border crossing bottlenecks. Azerbaijani railways face a delicate juggling act: keeping transit tariffs competitive while maintaining domestic transport viability. And Uzbek Railways has real upside if they can translate operational stability into new market corridors and logistics services.

As long as cargo volumes remain the truest barometer of rail sector health, we'll keep tracking them here. Straightforward quantitative cargo forecasting remains the most practical planning tool available – including for assessing rail infrastructure needs. Because growth without investment never sustains itself.