An overview of the vision in the US and Russia for a Bering Strait Crossing going back more than 100 years, including adventurous swimmers and kiteboarders, engineering challenges, architectural concept drawings, and comparisons with notable canals, tunnels, and transcontinental railway systems that have transformed commerce, transportation, history and culture.

1. Proposal for a Bering Strait
Crossing

2. Vision of the Universal Peace Federation
Develop an international transportation network that can
draw together people of all races, cultures, religions and
nationalities in one peaceful and prosperous global
community.

3. Little Diomede/Big Diomede Islands
2.4 miles separate the Western Hemisphere and the Eastern Hemisphere.
Here you can look from today to tomorrow (across the International Date Line)

4. Google Earth captures an open sea.

5. Perhaps a more typical view

6. • When his ship was
crushed by ice in the
Chuckchi Sea north of
Russia in 1913, Max
Gottschalk crossed the
Bering Strait by dog sled,
eventually making it to
Nome, Alaska.
Some people dogsled
across.

7. Or kitesurf.

8. • Lynne Cox swam from Little Diomede to Big Diomede island in 1987
breaking the “ice curtain.” It took her a little over two hours to swim
from the US to the Soviet Union in 38-degree water.
Others swim.

9. International Relay Swim across the Bering Strait
• 86K First Intercontinental Swimming Relay from Eurasia to America
across the Bering Strait: 66 ice swimmers from 16 countries and 15
regions of the Russian Federation swam in relay from Cape Dezhnev
in Russia to Cape Prince of Wales August 5-11, 2013.

10. How about
driving across?
Engineers love
challenges. Fittingly,
the issue about the US-
to-Russia Bridge also
features a “Home
Improvement Guide” –
an idea for customizing
our home planet!

11. The “Extreme
Engineering” video
examines
precedents of
other construction
projects in the far
north.

12. US interest goes back more than a century.
• Colorado governor William Gilpin proposed a “Cosmopolitan Railway linking the work
in a series of railways” (1890).
• Joseph Strauss, designer of 400 bridges, including the Golden Gate Bridge, presented
a proposal to the Russian empire, but it was rejected (1892).
• A syndicate of American railroad magnates proposed an Alaska-Siberian railroad to
Irkutsk, with mineral rights on the right of way (1904). It was turned down (1907).
• Engineer T.Y. Lin proposed a bridge to “foster commerce and understanding between
the people of the United States and Soviet Union (1958) and organized the Inter-
Continental Peace Bridge Inc. to advance the proposal (1968).
• Interhemispheric Bering Strait Tunnel and Railroad Group attracted attention of the
Russian American Pacific Partnerships, which evaluates North-Pacific trade corridors
between the US, China and Russia (1992).
• A private company in Alaska, InterBering, was created to promote Bering tunnel
construction (2013).

13. Russian interest goes back more than a century.
• Tsar Nicholas II approved a railroad and tunnel project (1905). But
conditions changed with the outbreak of World War I (1914) and the
Russian Revolution (1917).
• Plans were announced for a TMK-World Link, 6,000-kilometer link
between Siberia and Alaska providing oil, natural gas, electricity and
railroad passengers to the US from Russia (2007). A tunnel under the
Bering Strait would be part of a railway link to Yakutsk, the anticipated
terminal of the Amur-Yakutsk Mainline.
• The Russian government gave the go-ahead for construction projects
(2011).

14. Recent Chinese interest
• The Beijing Times
reported that an expert at
the Chinese Academy of
Engineering is considering
a 8,000 mile-long high-
speed rail line from
China's northeastern
section to the United
States, with a tunnel
under the Bering Strait
(2014).

15. Architectural designs
• The Bering Strait International Ideas Competition was created in 2009,
building on UPF Founder Dr. Sun Myung Moon’s 2005 proposal for a
Bering Strait Crossing.
• Architects submitted concept drawings that envision the potential for
tourism and up-close encounters with undersea life.

16. First-place winner
• Taller 301, Bogota, Colombia: Create a
series of artificial islands that form two
archipelagos extending the two
continents and tunnels connecting the
two Diomede islands and the
archipelagos: one path for vehicles,
high-speed trains and pipelines and the
other for people to experience a
natural park. The artificial land created
by dredging and land reclamation
would offer protection from the
extreme climate.

17. Second-place winner
• OFF Architecture, France: An eco-
bridge would give people the
opportunity to traverse the Strait by
foot, as was originally intended by
primary civilizations. People would be
able to view the seascape and marine
life from the tunnel submerged 50
meters below water level.

18. In North
America, about
2,000
kilometers
track would
need to be laid
to connect to
existing rail
terminals.

19. In Russia,
about 4,000
kilometers of
track would
need to be laid
to connect to
the closest
railroad near
Yakutsk.

20. Impact of crossings on commerce and travel
Panama Canal,
Completed in 1914
Suez Canal,
Completed in 1869
Channel Tunnel,
Completed in 1994

21. Impact of transcontinental railroads
Transformed commerce – communications – history – culture
Russia: Trans-Siberian
Railway, completed in 1916
Canada: Canadian-Pacific
Railway, completed in 1885
US: Transcontinental
Railway, completed in1869

22. Potential impact of a Bering Strait crossing?
Existing routes: green; proposed routes: red

23. Universal Peace Federation
www.upf.org
Bering Strait Crossing Proposal