Reformer of the Railways and of the Country

LevinD. Yu. S. Yu. Witte– railwayman, an outstanding statesman [S. Yu. Witte– zheleznodorozhnik, vydayushchiisya gosudarstvenniy deyatel]. Moscow, Railway training and methodological centre, 2020, 376 p. ISBN 978-5- 907206-02-1. Books about the «outstanding railway man No. 1» are published quite often, especially since 2019 that marked his 170th birthday. The personality of Sergey Yulievich Witte has always attracted connoisseurs and lovers of Russian history. Dmitry Levin’s new book «S. Yu. Witte – railwayman, an outstanding statesman» [S. Yu. Witte – zheleznodorozhnik, vydayushchiisya gosudarstvenniy deyatel’] is about him, a reformer who began his career on the railway. The author of the first Charter of Railways, the creator of the theory of tariffs, the initiator of the reform of construction and operation of railways, the acting head of construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, who became a politician, statesman, diplomat, financier – this is a small part of what Witte had managed to do for the country