Kerch Bridge to Crimea: condition and progress of construction. The Crimean Bridge is a gigantic senseless construction project How the Crimean Bridge was built

Crimean Bridge in numbers

The current Crimean Bridge, which is Kerch, is the largest in Russia. Its length is 19 km. It consists of parallel road and railway routes (traffic by rail in 2019). The throughput capacity of the automobile part will be up to 40 thousand cars per day, and the railway part - up to 47 pairs of trains per day. The speed of cars and passenger trains should not exceed 120 km/h. A high corridor has been organized for the passage of ships - arches 35 m high and 227 m long, the depth of the shipping canal is 10 m. 10 thousand workers are working on the construction of the bridge.

The customer for the construction was Rosavtodor, the general contractor was Stroygazmontazh of Arkady Rotenberg. The cost of the project amounted to 228.3 billion rubles. Construction began in February 2016 and should be completed by mid-2019.

New transport system

It is assumed that the crossing through the Kerch Strait will fit into the transport system of Crimea and Kuban. The Crimean Bridge from the side of the peninsula will connect to the Tavrida highway, which will run along the route Kerch - Feodosia - Belogorsk - Simferopol - Bakhchisaray - Sevastopol. Construction of this 251 km route began in May 2017 and is due to be completed in 2020. roads — 166 billion rubles.

The general contractor for the construction of Tavrida, the VAD company, was subject to US sanctions in January 2018, as were its founders, Valery Abramov and Viktor Perevalov.

From the Kuban side, the bridge will also connect to a new 40 km long highway.

Photo: Alexey Pavlishak / TASS

Safety problems

At the beginning of 2017, the government appointed the private security department of the Ministry of Transport to carry out work to ensure the transport safety of the Crimean Bridge and its approaches. The total value of contracts received by the Ministry of Transport exceeded 12 billion rubles. The original version of the document dated January 26, 2017 provided for the completion of work to ensure the safety of the road part of the bridge until April 30, 2018, and for the railway part until December 1, 2019.

But the structure of the Ministry of Transport was on time: it was supposed to carry out engineering surveys, design and equip engineering systems to ensure transport safety of the bridge, but by April 2018 it had not even started work on the road part. On May 3, it became known that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s deadline for completing all work to ensure the transport safety of the Crimean Bridge (both road and railway parts) is December 1, 2019.

Trucks later

On March 20, the Ministry of Transport announced that at the first stage it would limit the passage of trucks on the Crimean Bridge. As then the head of Rosavtodor, Roman Starovoyt, the interchanges on the approaches to the bridge in terms of connections to regional roads are still not ready, therefore, in order to avoid collapse, it was decided to initially allow only cars and buses on the bridge. At the end of April, Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov promised that truck traffic on the Crimean Bridge would begin in October 2018.

Video: RT in Russian

Ukrainian boycott

Ukrainian media have repeatedly reported problems with the Crimean Bridge and even called it a “fiction.” They also regularly published information about violations of construction technologies. For example, in 2017, the Dialog.ua publication reported that during the first stages of the construction of the Crimean Bridge, “important technical problems arose that would not allow the completion of the construction” of the structure. The portal Kuresh.info wrote that the 256th bridge support “could not withstand the load and cracked.” According to him, workers reassembled the frame around the support to prevent its further destruction. But the Crimean Bridge information center calls them “myths.”

Having become convinced of the reality of the bridge, Ukrainian nationalists spoke about the possibility of blocking the bridge and holding actions on it. There were even attempts to take the bridge from Russia as indemnity.

Bridge under sanctions

Russia has been under European and American sanctions since 2014, imposed after the annexation of Crimea and the conflict in south-eastern Ukraine. The companies SGM-Most (a subsidiary of Stroygazmontazh) and Mostotrest, which are building the Crimean Bridge, also found themselves under sanctions, as was their owner, businessman Arkady Rotenberg.

European and American companies are prohibited from participating in this construction. In 2018, it became known that the Dutch prosecutor's office began to report that seven Dutch companies had violated the EU sanctions regime against Russia. In 2015-2017, these companies supplied heavy equipment that was used in the construction of the Crimean Bridge and provided its maintenance and repair. The statement from the prosecutor's office indicated that the construction of the bridge is considered by the courts of the European Union as “undermining the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

The bridge across the Kerch Strait is intended to solve the problem of transport communication with Crimea for Russia. The company of Arkady Rotenberg, a businessman close to the Russian President, plans to complete construction of the bridge in 2018. I tried to figure out why the deadline for completing the project can be considered ambitious, and why scientists and experts consider the construction of the bridge unsafe.

Nikolay GOROKHOV

Plans to build a bridge across the Kerch Strait existed in the USSR back in the mid-30s, but their implementation was prevented by the war. The bridge was also going to be built by the Nazis after the occupation of Crimea in 1941. Hitler wanted to simplify the transfer of troops to the Caucasus, but the resources of the warring Germany were only enough for a cable car. The first real bridge from the Krasnodar region to Crimea was built by the Soviet army after the liberation of the peninsula in 1944. For this they used material left by the Germans. Metal supports were installed between the two banks, along which the railway track was launched. Construction began in the spring of 1944, and the first trains began running across the strait in November. However, already in February of the following year, the bridge supports were destroyed by ice floes.

In 1949, a new bridge project was developed - monumental and ambitious. It was supposed to be on two levels, and at the beginning there would be a giant statue of Stalin. The project was not implemented due to the high cost. Instead, a ferry service began operating in 1953.

Project of a two-tier bridge completed in 1949. Photo: kerch-most.ru

In the mid-90s, in already independent Ukraine, several bridge projects were developed that could connect two separate states. In 1993, the bridge project was developed by the Kiev institute Soyuztransproekt. In 1995, the Krymenergoresursy company proposed a version of a two-tier bridge - with a road and a railway track. The total cost of construction, including access roads, was $1.5-2 billion. The authors of the project assumed that in five to six years it could be recouped through tolls.

Politicians liked to use the topic of the bridge across the Kerch Strait in their statements. In particular, ex-mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov. In 2001, with the participation of Luzhkov, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea Leonid Grach, Head of the Cabinet of Ministers of Crimea Sergei Kunitsyn, as well as the leadership of the Krasnodar region of Russia and the mayor of Kerch, a memorial sign was unveiled in Kerch about “an agreement in principle to develop and implement a project for a multifunctional transport crossing across the Kerch Strait” . However, an investor for this project was never found.

Bridge project of the company "Krymenergoresursy". Photo: ru.krymr.com

In 2005, it was proposed to replace the bridge with a tunnel. The then government of Crimea, headed by Anatoly Burdyugov, presented a project developed by the Expo research and production company. The main advantages of the tunnel over the bridge are resistance to the influence of atmospheric phenomena and minimization of harm to the ecology of the Azov Sea. Opponents of the tunnel argued that the project would be significantly more expensive and more difficult to construct and operate.

In April 2008, an agreement on the construction of the bridge was reached at the level of the two governments. The then prime ministers of Russia and Ukraine, Viktor Zubkov and Yulia Tymoshenko, spoke about their intentions.

With Viktor Yanukovych coming to power, people started talking more and more actively about the bridge construction project. In October 2010, at a meeting between the head of Ukraine and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the bridge construction project was reviewed and approved. It was assumed that it should be built by the beginning of Euro 2012. In December 2013, when Yanukovych, after renouncing his association with the EU, came to Moscow to seek a loan from Putin, the two presidents once again discussed the issue of building the bridge and reportedly agreed on “concrete steps.”

Construction of the bridge to Crimea began in 2014 after the annexation of the peninsula. In June, the Russian Federation approved the design of a bridge passing through the Tuzla Spit. Despite the fact that this option is longer, in Russia they justified it with several advantages. Firstly, in this case it is possible to build more convenient transport interchanges, and secondly, there is more space for installing complex equipment. A significant role was also played by the fact that with this option there would be no interference with the operation of the ferry crossing, which now connects Crimea with Russia.

Infographics about choosing a site for bridge construction, made by a contractor. Photo: most.life

The cost of the project of the St. Petersburg Institute “Giprostroymost” amounted to 280 billion rubles or almost $3.5 billion. The total length of the bridge is planned to be 19 km, the height above sea level is 35 m.

The construction contract was awarded to the SGM-Most company, a subsidiary of Stroygazmontazh LLC, the chairman of the board of directors of which is Arkady Rotenberg, one of a group of businessmen close to Vladimir Putin.

The construction of a bridge from Russia to the territory of the annexed peninsula did not go unnoticed by the United States. In September 2016, the US Department of the Treasury issued another list of companies against which sanctions are imposed. The list included the bridge designers, contractor and subcontractor, as well as the state customer - the Taman Federal Highway Administration.

The Sea of ​​Azov has the status of an internal body of water for the two countries, which is stated in the Ukrainian-Russian treaty of 2003. To build a structure in its waters, formal permission from Ukraine is required. “It turns out funny: Crimea, based on the current legislation of the Russian Federation, “joined” Russia - but not the Kerch Strait! It is still a common water space for use, where unilateral actions are impossible, and all issues of using the waters of the strait must be carried out by agreement between the parties,” writes journalist Valentina Samar in the article “The Invisible Corridor” for “Mirror of the Week.”

Lawyer, expert on maritime law and ex-government commissioner of Ukraine for ECHR cases Boris Babin believes that the government could make more efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Russia for illegal construction. “There is imitation of actions. In reality there are none,” Babin said in a commentary to “Krym.Realii”.

In 2016, according to official reports, 69 billion rubles were allocated for the construction of the bridge, as reported by Updor Taman on December 28. Earlier, in the summer of the same year, information was received from Kerch that workers involved in the construction of the bridge were being delayed in wages and were not being paid in full as promised. The fact that financing the construction of the Kerch Bridge is going through problems in June 2016 .

The project is accompanied by powerful PR support. The bridge's information support campaign even received a specialized award in Russia for the best PR activity, writes the publication "In Crimea". However, the bridge under construction has been criticized more than once by scientists and experts. The author of two bridge projects made in the 90s, chief engineer of the Soyuztransproekt company Georgy Rosanovsky, is surprised at the choice of the site for construction across Tuzla.

“The geology here is very bad. The bottom is muddy, bedrock at a depth of 80-90 meters. Everything that is higher is layers of silty soils or slightly stronger soils, but you cannot “plant” the foundations of supports on them,” Rosanovsky said in an interview with Focus.

Rosanovsky also fears that the construction of the bridge will create a danger for ships passing through the strait. “Here the canal has turns; ships simply will have little room to maneuver. When approaching bridge crossings, vessels must have a steady, straight motion. Taxiing in stormy or dark conditions is not good,” he said.

The first accident on the still unfinished bridge occurred in March of this year. Turkish cargo ship "Lira".

Senior researcher at the Institute of Water Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yuri Medovar, agrees with Rosanovsky’s opinion. “There is mud volcanism, there are six aquifers, and on top of that, there is karst. Where, as everyone is now explaining, will we drive the piles? Guys, you can’t hit anything there,” he said.

Member of the Academy of Construction of Ukraine Petr Koval notes that the bridge is a seismically dangerous structure, as it is located at the site of a tectonic fault. “The requirements for seismic resistance of the structure were artificially reduced. And we know what earthquakes there were in Crimea,” he told the publication “Krym.Realii”.

Russian expert, former director of the Leningrad hydroelectric power station Yuri Sevenard believes that the future bridge may pose a danger to cars due to strong hurricane winds and a high risk of road icing.

“In this region there are very strong hurricane winds, which can lead to emergency situations with cars on the bridge, which is, let us remind you, as long as 19 km. Plus, ice conditions are a common factor in conditions of changing temperatures. Winds, high humidity, freezing rains (but icing can occur without them) - all this is dangerous from the point of view of vehicle slipping,” he said in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets.

One of the piles of the future bridge was bent during installation. Photo: ankerch-crimea.ru

German bridge builder, professor at the Dresden Technical University Holger Svensson believes that the deadline for the bridge to be completed in 2018 is overly optimistic. “I’m not saying that this is impossible, especially if the Russian state wants it and doesn’t stand behind the price... But the deadlines are very ambitious,” he noted in an interview with Deutsche Welle.

At the moment, bridge builders are finishing the construction of road approaches to the bridge on the western and eastern sides of the strait and the land part of the crossing on Tuzla Island. To drive piles on the offshore section of the route, workers built a temporary bridge. The installation of supports is currently underway. A problem arose with the selection of a contractor for the construction of railway approaches to the bridge, Kommersant reports. Two attempts to organize a competition to carry out this work failed - there were no takers.

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The event of the week was the opening of the Crimean Bridge. What is the price of the issue and who made money and who was “threw away” at this construction site?

On May 15, at the head of a convoy of trucks, President Vladimir Putin opened the automobile part of the bridge across the Kerch Strait. For the sake of this brief triumph, in front of the whole world, tens of thousands of workers connected the mainland with the peninsula for two years, and hundreds of billions of rubles were allocated from the budget.

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It took the president 16 minutes to cross the bridge while driving a KAMAZ.

Members of the Night Wolves motorcycle club became pioneers in terms of traffic violations on the Crimean Bridge. For spectacular photos, they parked on the side of the road, ignoring signs prohibiting stopping.

However, even before the bikers and Putin, the bridge was “opened” by a simple girl from Orel, Ekaterina Kobzar. She won a poetry competition about construction and was rewarded with a tour of the site.

I was the first to walk across one of the finished sections of the bridge. It was built using a special technology on inclined supports in order to maintain reliability in conditions of muddy bottom and seismic activity. But the Crimean Bridge is not only a road. This is a paragraph in future history books. To see it live, to feel the power, the work of all the people who are building it - that was the most amazing thing,” Ekaterina shared her impressions.

The main builder of the bridge was Arkady Rotenberg. During the project, he doubled his fortune: from $1.4 billion in 2015 to $3 billion in 2018 (according to Forbes).

Putin’s longtime friend received the largest government contract in history without a competition. Rotenberg is the sole founder of Stroygazmontazh LLC, which became the general contractor of the project. The oligarch’s company earned more than 222 billion rubles from the contract with FKU Taman.

But Rotenberg’s work does not end with the commissioning of the facility. PJSC Mostotrest, controlled by him, will provide road maintenance services. According to the government procurement website, the issue price is half a billion rubles per year. For the sake of such a business, Rotenberg recently even bought back his share in Mostotrest, which he got rid of several years ago.

Is this not the “accomplished miracle” that the president spoke about at the bridge opening ceremony?

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“Even under the Tsar-Father, people dreamed of building this bridge.”
Vladimir Putin

At the opening ceremony of the Crimean Bridge: Vladimir Putin, General Director of SGM-Most Alexander Ostrovsky, Arkady Rotenberg

The best - St. Petersburg

As an analysis of the source showed, orders related to the Crimean Bridge mainly went to companies from the Northern capital.

Designer for 436 million rubles. The company "Giprostroymost - St. Petersburg" performed. Construction control was carried out by Lenstroy CJSC (RUB 1.5 billion). Moreover, the organization became a supplier on a non-alternative basis. And even the construction of a stationary traffic police post was entrusted to the St. Petersburg JSC Transecoproject Institute.

The accompanying roads to the bridge were also built by a company from the same place as Vladimir Putin. JSC "Vad" was appointed as the "sole supplier" of services for the construction of the road approach to the Kerch Bridge, as well as the Kerch - Feodosia - Simferopol - Sevastopol ("Tavrida") road. Subsequently, the company, which changed its registration from St. Petersburg to Vologda, bypassing competitive procedures, received 141 billion rubles. In general, she is constantly lucky: she previously carried out the renovation of Nevsky Prospect, Palace Embankment, Vyborg Highway, and the construction of a VIP road in Pulkovo...

Firms from other regions get a little less money on Crimean projects. OJSC Tsentrodorstroy, headed by the deputy of the Bryansk Regional Duma from the United Russia Igor Kurov, received 8 billion rubles. for the construction of the Tavrida branch. Kubanenergo - 363 million for electricity.

A significant item of expenditure for the Crimean Bridge (9 billion rubles) is for security and safety. These issues are dealt with by a special Federal State Unitary Enterprise of the Ministry of Transport. At the same time, the management of the departmental security is no stranger to luxury: they rent exquisite apartments for 250 thousand rubles. per month and a Mercedes-Benz car.

Safety comes later

There are problems with security on the Crimean Bridge. The deadlines for carrying out engineering surveys, designing and equipping the bridge with engineering and technical systems were missed. The government ordered to shift the completion of work from April 30 this year to December 1 next. Because of this, in particular, the launch of truck traffic has been postponed: for now it is open only to cars and public transport. The parallel railway bridge should be commissioned by the end of the year.

Technical requirements were not always observed during construction. In particular, violations were detected by Rostechnadzor (the source has the results of inspections).

A specially created subsidiary of Stroygazmontazh, SGM-Most, compacted the concrete mixture in violation of technology. After removing the formwork, areas of unvibrated concrete, shells and voids appeared on the surface of the reinforced concrete supports. The inspectors also discovered extensive areas with rubble and shells. The standard thickness of the protective layer of concrete on the supports was not provided, Rostechnadzor came to the conclusion.

The general director of SGM-Most, Alexander Ostrovsky, was the same man who was sitting in the KAMAZ cab next to the president while driving across the bridge. By the way, he is also responsible for another financial violation: a fine of 83 rubles for transport tax.

Ostrovsky and Putin did not bother with seat belts. But the FSO explained this simply: they say that at that time the bridge had the status of a construction site, traffic on which is not regulated by traffic regulations. The Kremlin also found an explanation for the president being behind the wheel: he supposedly received a category C license 20 years ago. Why the FSB director needed to drive heavy trucks is a mystery.

The president was driving - and, as many noted, was not wearing a seat belt

Who got dumped?

We worked on the Crimean Bridge on a rotational basis. You can also find approximate salary amounts: from 20 thousand rubles. for low-skilled labor up to 80 thousand for specialists. The most common salary on job sites is about 40 thousand.

However, not everyone who went to make fun of them was happy. In the Belarusian media you can find complaints about deception on the part of employers. The Gomelskaya Pravda publication claims that several dozen “Belarusian guest workers” worked on the bridge for 2 months without days off, lived in trailers, and ultimately refused to pay them.

The organization that hired the Belarusians, Truboprovodstroymontazh, is also listed. As the source found out, this LLC was created only in 2016 (with the start of construction) and acted as a contractor for PJSC Mostotrest, which in turn received the contract from Rotenberg’s subsidiary SGM-Most.

The founders of Truboprovodstroymontazh, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, are two people: former Gazprom manager Vyacheslav Kolesnik and businessman Alexey Stepanov. It was not possible to contact them: the phone number listed on the official website is no longer in service. Reviews on the Internet about the company are contradictory: some write about excellent housing and decent pay, others write about unbearable conditions and delays in money.

Got a taste for it

After the Crimean Bridge, a new mega-construction awaits Russians - a bridge to Sakhalin. Arkady Rotenberg should also take care of it. The project is estimated at more than 700 billion rubles. But it may also become more expensive: the bridge across the Kerch Strait also gradually increased in price.

A specially created public council should monitor the implementation of the Crimean project. But he was not involved in finances, said council member, singer Alena Sviridova:

Why the price has risen several times, I cannot answer. I'm not an accountant. Talkative mouths write a lot of nasty things. But construction is a real feat of people. I watched from my house as the arches were being erected. I heard the piles being driven. The equipment was all new, beautiful, not some old thing. The opening of the bridge is a grandiose event; it only evokes a feeling of pride.

It is difficult to assess the economic efficiency of budget investments in infrastructure; economists differ in their assessments. It will probably become more convenient to get to the peninsula. Perhaps the bridge will bring down prices and give an impetus to small businesses. But the authorities coped with the symbolic task absolutely accurately: while Crimea is not legally recognized as Russian in the world, the Kremlin has a reinforced concrete argument.

At the opening ceremony of the road part of the Crimean Bridge. The head of state got acquainted with the readiness of the Unified Traffic Control Center and all operational services to operate the transport crossing. Car traffic on the bridge will start on May 16.

The Crimean Bridge will connect the Kerch Peninsula (Crimea) with the Taman Peninsula (Krasnodar Territory). It will ensure uninterrupted transport links between Crimea and the Russian mainland. The bridge begins on the Taman Peninsula, runs along the existing five-kilometer dam and Tuzla Island, crosses the Kerch Strait, skirting Cape Ak-Burun from the north, and reaches the Crimean coast. The transport crossing consists of parallel road and railway routes. Pedestrian zones and bicycle paths are not provided.

Story

The railway bridge across the Kerch Strait was first built during the Great Patriotic War. In the fall of 1944, it was erected by Soviet military engineers in 150 days. The bridge connected the Krasnodar coast near the Chushka spit with the Crimean coast near the village of Zhukovka. The structure, 4.5 km long and 22 m wide, consisted of 115 spans and a device for passing ships. On February 18, 1945, the bridge was destroyed by a powerful ice drift from the Sea of ​​Azov. Instead of a bridge crossing, on September 22, 1954, a ferry crossing across the Kerch Strait began operating (Krasnodar port "Caucasus" - port "Crimea").

Since the late 1990s, the idea of ​​building a combined road-railway bridge across the strait has been actively discussed by Russian and Ukrainian authorities. In February 2014, after a violent change of power in Ukraine, negotiations were terminated. In March of the same year, Crimea was reunited with Russia. The main transport corridor connecting the peninsula with the mainland of the Russian Federation remained the Kerch ferry crossing.

On March 19, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin set the Russian Ministry of Transport the task of building a bridge across the strait in two versions - road and rail. Of the several proposed projects, the most optimal was considered to be the one that provided for construction not in the narrowest section of the strait, like the bridge built in 1944, but to the south - from the Taman Peninsula to Kerch via Tuzla Island. In August 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the design documentation for the construction of a bridge crossing with a highway and electrified railway tracks.

Project implementers

The customer of the project was the federal government agency "Department of Federal Highways "Taman" of the Federal Road Agency of the Russian Federation. In accordance with the government decree of January 30, 2015, Stroygazmontazh LLC (part of the SGM group of companies Arkady Rotenberg) was determined as the general contractor for the work. Construction project management The bridge is being constructed by Stroygazmontazh-Most LLC.

Almost 220 Russian enterprises are involved in the construction of the bridge; construction is carried out by more than 30 bridge crews, more than 10 thousand workers and over 1.5 thousand engineering and technical specialists.

Main technical characteristics

• The total length of the bridge is 19 km (it will become the longest in Russia);
• a four-lane highway (two lanes in each direction) with a total capacity of up to 40 thousand cars per day;
• the permitted speed on the highway for cars is 90 km/h;
• two railway tracks with a capacity of up to 47 pairs of trains per day;
• the permitted speed of passenger trains is 90 km/h, freight trains are 80 km/h;
• capacity - 14 million passengers and 13 million tons of cargo per year;
• For navigation, arched spans 35 m high are provided.

The transport transition project also includes the construction of railway and road infrastructure on both banks of the Kerch Strait. More than 100 km of road and railway approaches are being built.

The railway approaches to the bridge from the Krasnodar Territory and Crimea are roads with a length of 40 and 17.5 km. They will be put into operation in 2019, simultaneously with the railway part of the crossing.

Financing

The cost of the state contract for the design and construction of the bridge (the costs of the contractor Stroygazmontazh LLC) was approved in the amount of 223 billion 143 million rubles in the prices of the corresponding years. The total cost of construction will be 227.922 billion rubles. The work is being carried out only at the expense of the federal budget within the framework of the federal target program “Socio-economic development of the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol until 2020.”

Bridge name

Until the end of 2017, the transport crossing through the Kerch Strait did not have an official name. The question about the name of the future bridge was asked to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a large press conference on December 23, 2016. In response, the head of state proposed to find out the opinion of Russians through a survey.

On November 16, 2017, a vote started on the nazovimost.rf website, during which users were asked to choose a name for the bridge. The five most popular options were submitted for consideration: Crimean, Kerch, Tuzlinsky, Friendship Bridge and Reunion Bridge. Voting participants could also propose their own name.

Construction stages

By the end of 2015, the infrastructure necessary for construction was created on both sides of the Kerch Strait. To ensure transport connections with offshore areas, temporary working bridges were erected from which technological work was carried out in the waters of the strait. In October 2015, the first working bridge, 1.2 km long, connected the Taman Peninsula and Tuzla. Two more (1.8 and 2 km long) - towards each other from Kerch and Tuzla Island - were put into operation in the summer of 2016. On March 18 of the same year, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the construction site for the first time.

On March 10, 2016, builders began the construction of pile foundations for the supports of the Kerch Bridge on land, and on May 17 - on the offshore sections.

In mid-June 2017, the assembly of the navigable arch of the railway part of the bridge was completed (weight - about 6 thousand tons, consists of more than 400 large elements). The railway span is a combination of a span with through main trusses and an arch. Installation of the arch began on August 27, 2017. It was delivered to the transport crossing by a special floating system, then the lifting of the structure onto the fairway supports began. On August 29, the railway arch span was raised to its design height. The offshore operation to transport and lift the arch has become unique for Russian bridge construction. According to the construction information center, arched spans with such dimensions have not yet been installed in marine conditions.

At the end of July 2017, the assembly of the road part of the bridge was completed on the Kerch bank (weight - about 5.5 thousand tons, consists of almost 200 large elements). Arched spans are the largest elements of the Crimean Bridge, the length of each is 227 m, the height of the arch at the highest point is 45 m. On October 11, 2017, the operation to transport the road arch began. On October 12, the arched span was lifted onto fairway supports and secured. Once installed, it ensured the unhindered passage of ships through a free space 185 m wide and 35 m high from sea level.

On February 2, 2017, construction of the spans between the offshore supports of the crossing began. By the beginning of 2018, almost all the piles for the road and railway parts of the future bridge had been installed - more than 6.5 thousand pieces. In some areas, the depth of their immersion reached 105 m, which corresponds to the height of a 35-story building. More than 130 thousand out of almost 250 thousand tons of metal structures of span structures have been assembled.

By the end of April 2018, the builders had completely completed laying the asphalt concrete pavement on the road part of the transport crossing and carried out static and dynamic tests of this part of the bridge. At the beginning of May, the construction customer, the Taman Federal Highway Administration, accepted the road part of the Crimean Bridge to complete preparations for the opening of traffic.

Opening of traffic on the bridge

The opening of working vehicle traffic on the bridge was planned in December 2018, the start of temporary operation of the railway line in December 2019.

In a number of areas, work was carried out ahead of schedule. On March 14, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who visited the construction site, did not rule out that vehicle traffic would be opened earlier than planned. At the same time, the head of the Stroygazmontazh company, Arkady Rotenberg, said that the builders would be ready to hand over the automotive part of the facility after May 9, 2018.

The Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation is considering a step-by-step scheme for organizing traffic along the automobile part of the crossing of the Kerch Strait. At the first stage - in May 2018 - the passage will be open to passenger vehicles and passenger buses. The start of regular freight transport is planned for the end of 2018.

According to the Crimean Bridge information center, traffic for motorists will be opened on May 16 at 05:30 Moscow time simultaneously from both banks of the Kerch Strait. At the same time, the entrance to the road approaches to the bridge from the Taman and Kerch peninsulas will be opened an hour before the official start of traffic. From the Krasnodar Territory, the federal highway A-290 leads to the bridge to the junction with the new road on the Taman Peninsula, then 40 km along the road approach to the bridge. From the Crimea side, traffic starts from the junction on the existing Simferopol - Kerch highway and then 8.6 km to the transport crossing.

The question arose of who was building the bridge across the Kerch Strait during the period when the well-known Crimean events took place. The peninsula has returned to the Russian Federation and this may speed up the solution to the problem.

Pages of history

Having deviated from the question of which company is building the bridge across the Kerch Strait, it is necessary to turn back and look into history. Since ancient times, there have been plans to build a crossing. The British at the end of the 19th century and the Germans during the Great Patriotic War attempted construction, but they were unsuccessful. Many times during the USSR period this issue was raised in the government, but there was not enough time and funds. In 1954, a ferry service appeared, which is still in operation.

Return of Crimea

After the return of Crimea to Russia, the question arose with particular urgency as to who would be the general contractor for the construction of the bridge across the Kerch Strait. This situation arose due to the difficulties of traveling to Crimea through the territory of Ukraine. The economy of the peninsula is directly related to the flow of tourists, so a durable crossing designed to connect the two banks must be built in a short time and with high quality. The bridge across the Kerch Strait, the general contractor of which has already been selected, is of great tourist and economic importance.

Connect the Caucasus and Crimea

The company building the bridge across the Kerch Strait takes into account the difficulties and climatic conditions of the area. This is not the first time such large-scale work has been carried out in the world, but Crimea has its own difficulties.

• Seismic instability;
• Strong storm winds;
• Ice situation in winter and spring;
• The need to create a convenient passage for ships from one sea to another.

The general contractor for the construction of a bridge across the Kerch Strait is faced with these features of the region.

Who is building a bridge across the Kerch Strait?

The Taman Road Administration is the customer for the construction. Now, when asked which company is building the bridge across the Kerch Strait, we can answer that it is Stroygazmontazh.” The company is the main one over several organizations. They are engaged in laying tunnels and large structures on the water. The contractor for the construction of the bridge across the Kerch Strait claims that everything is moving according to the planned scheme. Work is currently underway along the entire route. Presumably the length of the bridge will be almost 20 kilometers.

Until a certain time, it was quite difficult to decide which organizations were building a bridge across the Kerch Strait. Tenders were held in which preferences were given to several companies. Not only the estimated estimates were taken into account, but also the scale of the project and the specific climatic conditions.

Subcontractors for the construction of the bridge across the Kerch Strait were identified, and work began in full swing. The necessary materials have been delivered to the site. The main ones are large metal structures that form the basis of the structure. About 1,000 units of equipment are involved in the work. Organizations building a bridge across the Kerch Strait assume that it will be installed within a certain time frame. It is planned to be put into operation in 2018. By this time, the highway in southern Russia will be repaired.