Marat Khusnullin: full delivery of Moscow — Kazan highway expected in 2023

Plus 150bn rubles for Kazan

Russian Vice Premier Marat Khusnullin regularly makes rounds controlling the course of construction of the M-12 federal toll road. But his visit to Tatarstan on 19 August turned out to be special. The country’s government approved early allocation of a considerable tranche from the National Well-Being Fund for the early construction of the high-speed highway.

“Yesterday, the chairman of the government signed a decree to adopt the certificate of the M-12 highway project from Moscow to Kazan, and we are additionally given 150 billion rubles from the National Well-Being Fund,” said the vice premier. “Despite the difficult economic situation, such a decision was made, we will get the money and will be provided with money.”

According to him, now the road construction works are going full swing “to deliver the segment from Moscow to Kazan in 2023.” “This year, we need to launch about 100 km one year in advance. This is the first task. The second task is that we will look at the course of the project to deliver the whole highway Moscow — Kazan in 2023.”

More significant allocations of 260 billion rubles will be provided to the early construction of other parts of the highway to Yekaterinburg.

Towards the Urals this year

Khusnullin talked about the works on the Bashkortostan segment of the highway. “We started working there — preparations are already underway there, networks are laid, contractors got down to work. Money was allocated to bypass Tver — Roads and Bridges company has fully started working there today,” the functionary added. As a result of the corrections, the total value of the M-12 road surpassed 800 billion rubles, Khusnullin specified.

Evaluating the pace of the road construction works, the Russian prime minister said that the works are going ahead of schedule at least on four segments. 30,000 people were planned to work, now 28,000 are there, 8,000 pieces of machinery is being used. “We are going ahead of schedule on four segments (two in Tatarstan) and set to deliver them in advance a hundred per cent,” Marat Khusnullin clarified.

Roads and Bridges got bridge circumventing Chelny for 23,8 billion

It is planned to build another bridge on the M-12 highway via the Kama River to bypass Nizhnekamsk and Naberezhnye Chelny on the Volga M-7 highway. It became known on 19 August that Vladimir Vlasov’s Moscow-based company Roads and Bridges won the tender.

“The bridge contract in Chelny is being signed, procedures are held, it is signed with Roads and Bridges,” head of the Federal Road Agency Roman Novikov told journalists.

The cost of the contract is 23,8 billion rubles. The delivery is scheduled for late 2024. “So will we build the bridge in 2,5 years?” Marat Khusnullin asked Director of the company Vladimir Vlasov in the presence of the press. The latter replied affirmatively and noted: “The fact that advance financing was provided (150 billion rubles from the National Well-Being Fund) creates all conditions to achieve a success.

Another 20,5 billion rubles are planned to be spent when building the highway from Shali to Bavly, said Tatarstan Prime Minister Alexey Pesoshin. Two general contractors for three stages were chosen. The Shali — Bavly highway will operate to additionally connect the M-5, Bashkiria and Tatarstan with the possibility of reaching this highway. This will be a high-speed road that will add an additional flow,” he explained. The Federal Road Service provides 374 out of 587 km of the whole route. We are doing major repairs on the road R-242 from Perm to Yekaterinburg, which is 140 km. Works are done today, a 26-km segment was delivered last year, 9 km have been this year.”

Simultaneously with the construction of the M-12, the Federal Road Service intends to do road works to expand federal roads going from settlements to big administrative centres to the highway, starting with Vladimir Nizhny Novgorod, Arzamas, Saransk. The total lenfth of these roads is 450 km. “While the M-12 will be built, major repairs will be done on these roads and it will be expanded from two to four lanes, we will provide safe and reliable traffic,” Roman Novikov said. “Then we will take the M-12 to Yekaterinburg

Road builders ahead of schedule

At the end of the meeting, the vice premier noted that such large-scale highways as M-12 had never built in 2,5 years in history of Russian construction. “In 2024, we must have a fully-fledged highway. We have never built such a highway in 2,5 years in history of Russian construction. But now we see in the M-12 we can do it, though it is hard, it isn’t easy, it is a tough task. Four segments are going ahead of schedule, four are going either according to schedule or with some delay, but in general we see the prospect of completing the segment in 2023 and take the road to Yekaterinburg in 2024,” Khusnullin claimed.

The total length of the M-12 highway from Moscow to Yekaterinburg is about 1,600 kilometres. The length of the Tatarstan segment is 142 kilometres. Nowadays 28,000 workers and 8,000 pieces of machinery are involved in the construction. The construction of the M-12 Moscow — Nizhny Novgorod — Kazan highway 800 km in length began in July 2020 (396 km of the highway is the reconstruction of existing federal roads, the other 425 km is the new construction). 639 billion rubles were allocated for this first. It was planned first that the road construction would end in Kazan. However, in April 2021, Vladimir Putin claimed that the highway needed to be extended to Yekaterinburg. The project’s terms didn’t change — 2024. In May, the head of the country tasked the government with providing road projects with money of the National Well-Being Fund until 1 August by accelerating the construction pace of the M-12. On 29 July, Russian Vice Premier Marat Khusnullin reported in front of Russian President Vladimir Putin that “there is every chance of opening the segment of the M-12 highway one year in advance if nothing unexpected happens.”