The idea to link Eurasia with North America by a transport tunnel under the Bering Strait has won the Grand Prix Award at an innovation projects competition held during the 4th Civilization Forum at the World Expo-2010 in Shanghai.
"Transport connection between Eurasia and [North] America through the Bering Strait with the simultaneous economic exploration of huge northern territories in Russia, the United States and Canada is a unique opportunity to crucially strengthen transcontinental and inter-civilization integration," said Aslanbek Aslakhanov, a member of the upper house of the Russian parliament, said at an awards ceremony in the Russian pavilion.
The project would boost the economic power of the Asia-Pacific region and the role of Russia's east in the regional economy, he said.
The project stipulates the construction of a 6,000-kilometer (3,700-mile) highway and pipelines linking Russia's Chukotka Peninsula with the U.S. state of Alaska.
Russia's last emperor, Tsar Nicholas II, was the first Russian leader to approve a plan for a tunnel under the Bering Strait in 1905, 38 years after his grandfather sold Alaska to the United States. The project was stalled with the beginning of World War I.
More than 100 projects participated in the innovation projects competition at the World Expo, which was held in five categories such as system innovations, new materials and nanotechnologies, energy efficiency improvement and ecology, social and educational innovations, and regional and transborder cooperation projects.
The competition was organized by several Russian scientific and research organizations, including the Pitirim Sorokin/Nikolai Kondratieff International Institute, International Strategic Innovation and Technology Alliance, and Kazakhstan's scientific and technology holding Parasat.
SHANGHAI, October 14 (RIA Novosti)
