Roads, Bridges, Ports and Airports - It’s Time to Build Up Russia
When Putin said Russia had to be upgraded with modern communications, of course, he also meant what we're about to show you.
Andrey Grigoryev reports on the issue.
Tons of ground flies up in the air. Rocks are scattered for up to a kilometer. The road to Sortavala is being built in record times.
Valery Borisenko, head engineer of JSC "High-Quality Roads": "It's all mountains and swamps, so we need to blow them up. Here, we see the aftermath of it all".
But, they took advantage even of the taiga landscape. This is what using modern technologies means. This is a nearly waste-free production. This shattered ground will later become the road base. When this sector will be finished next year, the entire European part of Russia's federal roads will have pavement. Every picket (this is what road crew calls every 100 meters of pavement) is a battle, but Russia slowly develops a series of new highways.
Valery Borisenko: "I've worked in the road industry since 1982, and there are so many interesting objects, they're all so different. We used to build small roads, paths even, and look at the large-scale projects we're executing now".
Hundreds of transportation objects have been modernized in Russia. Since the Soviet Union, it's the first time two airports were built from scratch, Sabetta in the Arctic and Platov in Rostov-on-Don. All this was done under close supervision of government authorities. A transportation network is the foundation of the country's well-being.
Here, the President remotely controlled a tunnel opening at the Baikal-Amur Mainline.
President Putin: “This is a celebration of completing such a grand, large-scale project, as building the Baikal-Amur tunnel. The previous one took 10 years to build. This job was completed in two years with great results, with great precision, with an allowed 100 mm, and only 16 mm factual precision, this is another type of our high-precision weapon in a way.”
The tunnel was built in record time, with trimmings along the entire diameter. This is a unique technology that's been tested no the Olympic objects in Sochi. The goal is to increase Russian railroads' throughput capability by 1.5 times.
Aleksey Tsydenov, head of the Republic of Buryatia: "This is the railroad industry, it allows creating new enterprises here, for sand mining. This facilitates the growth of the entire region, creating new workplaces. A different life is coming to the region".
The Crimea bridge is yet another important infrastructural object, where 3,000 experts work daily, without days off. Basically, you can already walk the entire 19 km from the Kerch Peninsula to the Taman Peninsula. Although, only the engineering personnel is allowed to do that now. One of today's largest constructions is coming to an end. The majority of the bridge has already been paved.
The idea is that the bridge slowly turns into a highway, which goes through Crimea from west to east, bypassing all the residential areas. This is a united complex, a route for supplies from the continent to be delivered to the island. The region's economic state directly depends on its construction.
Andrey Volkov, technician in JSC "High-Quality Roads": "The transportation flow is huge here, this road is like an artery that will be used to deliver supplies to industrial shops, stores, and other objects".
15 bridges, 20 rotaries, and 123 turnpikes are being built in 7 locations at the same time. This way, they'll be done sooner.
Brand-new, more durable and long-lasting pavement, along with a new approach, when archaeological studies take place first, then the heavy equipment comes in. Wherever you dig around here, you'll stumble across a historic cultural layer. The Bronze Age, Bosporan Kingdom, the Golden Horde times, the Crimean War... The construction of Tavrida highway has led to an archaeological boom on the peninsula. Over 60 valuable artifacts from different eras have already been discovered here.
Sergey Karpov, Chairman of the Crimean State Road Committee: "By the end of construction, we plan to create a digital museum of everything found during the road construction. It'll be very interesting, but we're keeping quiet about it for now."
However, the properties of the road in progress are no secret. There will be two lanes in each direction, with an alleged speed limit of 120 km/hr.
Sergey Karpov: It'll take about 60-80 minutes to drive from the Kerch bridge…
- So, it'll take significantly less time?
- Absolutely. What's essential is not just the time saving, but the decrease of environmental impact.
It's a complex approach — each road won't just harmonically fit into the landscape, but also be embedded into the global road network.
Vyacheslav Karman, manager of SC "Russian highways": "This road is one of the links in creating international transportation corridors, such as Nizhniy Novgorod-London, Europe-Western China".
The Central Ring Road, the highway around Russia's capital, the creators consider all the possible transit flows. The throughput capability is over 40,000 vehicles per day, for comparison, Moscow Beltway's is 4 times less. The speed limit is 140 km/hr, a real autobahn, a first for the country. Pavement is in perfect condition and it didn't have to be delivered from afar. Pop-out mini-plants stand along the entire highway in progress.
Sergey Kudryashov, CRR III Stage Deputy Acting Manager: "We see the assembly of one of 4 of such plants. It will have the productivity of 240 tons per hour".
To say the least, roads are what unites and cements the largest country in the world, even at the construction stage. As we can see, people from different regions work here, from Kirov, from Kursk, from Bryansk and Tatarstan, different regions participate in this project.
Andrey Grigoriev, Anton Gubanov, Ilya Baev, Yaroslav Borisov, Viktor Barvin, Sergey Ischenko, Konstantin Morozov, Vesti News of the Week