Los Angeles-based startup Hyperloop One has reached a deal with the city of Moscow that could bring the high-tech transit concept to the Russian capital, and at least one Russian industrialist hopes that the experimental technology will play a major role in current efforts to re-establish the ancient Silk Road that transported goods between China and Europe.

“Hyperloop” is a term coined by Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk for what is essentially an enormous pneumatic tube system capable of transporting people and goods at high speeds. According to Musk, the Hyperloop would be immune to weather and would be capable of travelling at at least twice the speed of commercial aircraft. Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) is working on its own Hyperloop concept, but the idea itself has been open sourced, allowing a number of other companies, including Hyperloop One, to attempt their own versions.

Hyperloop One is already working on a proof of concept project in the Nevada desert, but now thanks to a new deal with the government of the city of Moscow, the company could soon launch a major Hyperloop project in Russia. According to Hyperloop One, the deal was signed at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum by Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin, Summa Group chairman Ziyavudin Magomedov and Hyperloop One chairman and cofounder Shervin Pishevar.

“The implementation of Hyperloop technology provides tremendous benefits to the Russian Federation in terms of the geopolitical development of the intracontinental transit potential and building of an economically attractive alternative to the existing global logistics flows,” Magomedov said in a statement. “In the long term Hyperloop could catalyze the development of regional economic integration, including the Eurasian Economic Union and the Chinese initiative ‘One Belt – One Road.’”

Hyperloop One noted in a blog post that Russian transportation minister Maksim Sokolov wants to co-found a 70-kilometer hyperloop route with China that would connect the port city of Zarubino, Russia with China’s Jilin province.

“We have a fund to support the Silk Road projects. I believe that this project may count on 100 percent co-financing from this fund,” Sokolov said.

Image courtesy of Hyperloop One