With Bridge In Crimea, Symbolism Matters
KERCH, Crimea — The bridge is the best show in town. Every two weeks, Nikolai Ench, a retired sailor, and his wife, Olga, scale the scrublands above Kerch in their truck to marvel at the engineering feat slowly making its way across the strait separating Crimea from the Russian mainland.
“This is the first time they can build something like this in Russia,” said Mr. Ench, 67, who spent an entire night in August staring at the bridge until construction workers slotted the first of two arches into place.
Expected to open to traffic in December 2018, the $7 billion bridge project is likely to come more freighted with symbolism than with actual vehicles. It is the latest megaproject of President Vladimir V. Putin.
“It is showing the world the great things it can do,” said Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. “The government might not be able to provide safety, good health care and education, but it can provide big projects. If you cannot do bread, you can at least do circuses.” The bridge, around 19 kilometers long, carries even weightier symbolism because much of the world considers Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea illegitimate. “It signifies in the most visible way the connection between Crimea and Russia, that Crimea is part of Russia,” Ms. Schulmann said.
Mr. Putin has taken a keen interest in the project. When the project was announced, however, it seemed that no Russian company wanted to touch it. There were engineering challenges, and anything involving Crimea carried the risk of international sanctions. “The bridge itself is difficult, the scale is huge and it is tough to meet the deadline,” said Oleg Skvortsov, a bridge specialist who led an advisory council.
Arkady R. Rotenberg, a billionaire who has made a career of taking on Mr. Putin’s favored projects, stepped up. A judo partner with the president since their youth in St. Petersburg, he was already under Western sanctions. The padding of huge government construction projects has often served as the conduit for the Kremlin to enrich its friends. Mr. Rotenberg and his brother Boris have been accused of taking in 15 percent of the spending on the 2014 Winter Olym- pics, at $51 billion, the most expensive Olympics ever. Arkady Rotenberg has denied exploiting his friendship with the president for personal gain.
Spanning the Kerch Strait has been proposed for more than 100 years, but combinations of costs, war and Mother Nature doomed every previous effort. The strait runs between two mountain ranges, sending fierce winds through its confines. Rivers have carpeted the seabed with 80 meters of fine silt. Ice floes crash through during the spring thaw and the area is prone to earthquakes.
For the new bridge, thousands of pylons were driven into the seabed for stability. Various parts were built using aerodynamics to ensure that the winds flow around the structure. “All this discussion about geology, ice, wind, waves — it would have been relevant 50 years ago,” said Mikhail Y. Blinkin, the director of a transportation policy institute at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. “Now, it is just a question of cost.”
The bridge has sucked up a significant portion of the budget for road and bridge construction throughout Russia, experts said.
Mr. Skvortsov confessed that he once thought an upgraded ferry service would be more practical. When finished, the bridge should be able to carry 40,000 vehicles and 94 trains a day. That is more cars in one day than the 38,000 the ferry transported during the entire month of December 2016, although 305,000 were transited that August, the peak tourist season. The Russian annexation of Crimea changed the calculations, however.
Some Crimeans consider the bridge the most tangible sign that Russia is improving their lot. “For more than 20 years everything was just collapsing,” said Nadezhda Nesterenko, 39, a postal worker, “and now finally something is being built.”
A $7 billion display of Russian might and expertise.