Editing Baikal–Amur Mainline (section)

===Construction project of the century===
[[File:RIAN archive 463353 Rally on occasion of arrival of construction team.jpg|thumb|left|A rally in [[Ust-Ilimsk]], [[Irkutsk Region]], on the occasion of the arrival of a building team for construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway. 1979.]]
In March 1974, Soviet [[General secretary|General Secretary]] [[Leonid Brezhnev| Brezhnev]] proposed that the BAM would be one of the two major projects in the [[Tenth Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union)|Tenth Five Year Plan]] (1976–80).<ref name=shabad/> He famously stated that "BAM will be constructed with clean hands only!" and firmly rejected the suggestion to again use [[prison labor]]. A few weeks later, he challenged the Young Communist League ([[Komsomol]]) to join in "the construction project of the century".<ref name=brown/> The 17th [[Komsomol]] congress (held in April 1974) announced the BAM as a Komsomol [[shock construction project]], created the central Komsomol headquarters of BAM construction, and appointed [[Dmitry Nikolayevich Filippov|Dmitry Filippov]] the chief of the headquarters.

By the end of 1974, perhaps 50,000 young people of the 156,000 young people who applied had moved to the BAM service area. In 1975 and 1976, 28 new settlements were inaugurated and 70 new bridges, including the Amur and Lena bridges, were erected. And while {{convert|110|mi|km}} of track was laid, the track-laying rate would have needed to nearly triple to meet the 1983 deadline.<ref name=shabad/>

In September 1984, a "[[golden spike]]" was hammered into place, connecting the eastern and western sections of the BAM. The Western media was not invited to attend this historic event as Soviet officials did not want any comments about the line's operational status. In reality, only one third of the BAM's track was fully operational for civilians, due to military reasons.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Ward, C.J. |title=Selling the "Project of the Century": Perceptions of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM) in the Soviet Press, 1974–1984 |journal=Canadian Slavonic Papers |year=2001 |volume=43 |pages=75–95|doi=10.1080/00085006.2001.11092272 |s2cid=129139539 }}</ref>

The BAM was again declared complete in 1991. By then, the total cost to build the line was [[United States Dollar|US$]]14 [[billion]] ([[Russian ruble|RU₽]]106 [[trillion]]).