The organizers of the Silk Railway 2025 talked about the upcoming marathon, and the athletes shared their plans. The riders are waiting for the most diverse landscape, large changes in heights and temperatures and, of course, checking the technique for strength. This year, the rally marathon will be held from July 12 to 22.
The route of the new rally marathon is largely similar to last year, but twisted in the opposite direction: starting from the coast of Lake Baikal on July 12, the caravan of the Silk Road will pass through the Mongolian steppes, the sands of the Gobi and the Altai Mountain and finish on July 22 in Gorno-Altaysk. Dozens of crews on SUVs, motor vehicles, trucks, motorcycles and ATVs will come to the start of the Silk Road rally.
Silk Way Rally
“The first race of our project took place in 2009 and passed along the route from Kazan to Ashgabat, uniting Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan,” says the principles of cooperation, the exchange of experience, mutual respect and friendship, says the project manager of the International Rally, the project. Since then, much has changed, but the foundation of the rally remains the same. One of the main traditions of the Silk Road is that annually we prepare a unique route for the participants, trying to reveal in a new way to the athletes and show the audience the unique beauty of our planet. This year, the route has absorbed all the best that is in rally-raids. We start off the coast of the largest lake in the world-Baikal, then go to Mongolia, we will visit the Gobi desert with its picturesque dunes, we will rise to the Altai mountains-and it is at their foot that we will celebrate the finish of the 11-day rally marathon.
Silk Road route 2025
Silk Way Rally
The organizers made the rally route complex, exciting and, if possible, safe for all rally participants. The route includes a variety of natural zones – from steppes to deserts, mountain massifs and plateau, and height changes vary from 400 to 2,700 meters.
Several stages include navigation zones, where landmarks are practically absent. In them an important role will play the skill of the navigator and a clear interaction in the crew. The organizers tried to make the sports component of the rally interesting. The race by 80% will include new special stages and routes, as well as two large sand specialists.
Silk Way Rally
All teams are now preparing for the complex marathon, the sports director of the GAZ Raid Sports Vyacheslav Subbotin team told what the team is busy before the coming difficult trials:
– The Silk Road this year will be difficult. Although when was he simple?! The route has changed a bit, but the main thing is the areas in the desert and sands. This is very serious, you need to overcome up to 100 kilometers among the dunes. However, the steppe roads will also not be simple: they are hard, fast, winding and rocky, require extreme accuracy. In addition, there will be mountainous areas and large height changes. This year we will traditionally expose two NN gazelles and two sadko 4 × 4. Now there is a configuration of equipment to confidently pass steep climbs and descents, as well as to move along the sands. If we set a good pace and we will lead, we will be able to apply for victory, as well as last year. This will be a serious challenge, but we are ready for it. Our pilots have experience in sand driving-we have already overcome sugar, gobi, carakum Takla-Makan. We carefully prepare cars for the heat and sands, setting up the suspension and the motor. In conditions of high temperatures and rarefied air, special settings are needed so that the engine works effectively with a lack of oxygen. We are configured for a successful performance in this complex rally.
Silk Way Rally
In the absolute standings last year, Roman Rusinov won on the Silk Road. This year he also goes to the start.
“I look forward to the next Silk Road rally,” said Roman – every year it becomes better, more and brighter, the competition is very serious. The route this year is interesting: foothills, a bunch of stones and fords. In the weather, it is also not easy – large temperature jumps. But we are sure: the technique will take out.
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally
The hot struggle will be in the cargo standings – traditionally between KamAZ and MAZ. At the same time, trucks of the Gorky Automobile Plant this year are in a separate standings, which participate in trucks with an engine volume of up to 10 liters.
– The race is serious. Both athletes and mechanics represent the difficulties that are faced with, ”said Mikhail Shklyaev, the head of the cargo department of the GAZ Ray Sports GAZ team, the cars are prepared with particular care. We are now selecting tires that withstand the temperature and which will improve the passability of the car in the sands. Last year, we were problems with the temperature of the engine, and now we, together with the specialists of the Yaroslavl Motor Plant, make technical changes. We’ll change the form of maintenance a little: the number and nomenclature of spare parts. Before the Silk Way, we are still going to the stage of the Russian Rally-Raid championship in Miass, we cannot miss it, so this creates an additional difficulty in preparing technology. This is a serious race, and after it we immediately start on the Silk Road.
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally
The motorcycle carrier Ilya Shcheglov won the Silk Road in 2023. However, in the next 2024th, the victory slipped away from him.
“Last year, luck was not on my side: everything that could happen happened, and even what it was impossible to foresee,” Ilya Shcheglov recalls his adventures on the Silk Road, “there were technical problems with a motorcycle that no one could explain to me, I was injured. But I still did not give up and do not consider myself a loser, because the “Silk Road” rally is about overcoming myself. And I had such a chance: I got to the finish podium and did not lose to myself. Before the race of this year, I decided to change the technique – that motorcycle could not repair that motorcycle. A tense struggle awaits us again. But no one said that it would be easy: we risk, we like it, so we are in the race!
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally
On the Silk Road is hard for all athletes. But there is a separate category that is especially difficult. The plans for the upcoming race were told by the winner of the Rally Silk Road 2024 and the candidate of medical sciences Anton Kruglov, who holds the position of chief physician of the Biononik 2.0 prosthetics center and the head of the unique BN Racing team:
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally 
Silk Way Rally
– In our team are pilots who use the prostheses of the arms and legs and at the same time go along with everyone. This is an example of overcoming seemingly irreversible states, overcoming barriers – both physical and mental. It is this philosophy that BN Racing is in the basis of BN Racing. It is very difficult to make suitable prostheses on which the guys alone could drive a rally-marathon motorcycle. We have made more than one or two designs. We selected two riders – this is Evgeny Ozol on the thigh prosthesis and Alexander Makarov with a brush prosthesis. We try to make the right systems for prosthesis fasteners for them so that they can withstand the loads, so that it is convenient to use. We also rebuilt motorcycles, rebuilt control systems. And we trained a lot. The guys have already traveled the first stage of the Russian Rally-Raidam championship-Bahu Gold Kagan-the most difficult in the calendar. The guys finished in the middle of the standings, and I am incredibly proud of them!
Silk Way Rally
This Sunday, June 8, the Moscow Luzhniki will host the Silk Way Sport Fest festival. Visitors to the festival will be able to consider the technique of participants in details, chat with athletes, and also see the fare on a solemn catwalk. The performance of the Group “My Michelle” will complete the program.
Silk Way Rally
From June 12 to 16, the stage of the Russian Rally-Raids Championship will be held-the Ural Rubezh race in the Miass of the Chelyabinsk Region. After that, the technique will go to the shores of Lake Baikal. On July 12, in Irkutsk, the Silk Road rally will take place-and for the 15th time it will be larger than the race and brighter than the adventure! /m
The complex road of the Silk Road Samara from Yorkshire “Silk Road” on the tank 300
