The Western China-Western Europe transport corridor can be considered as the largest infrastructure project between China, Russia and Kazakhstan, extending from the South China Sea (Lyanyungan) to the Baltic Sea (Saint Petersburg). The issue of this transport corridor was first raised in the 2005 letter to the Founding President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev from the then President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiyev, proposing to establish a highway on the Saint Petersburg-Vologda-Kostroma-Kirov-Kazan-Orenburg-Kazakhstan border route.