Russki Island Bridge

Here on Russia's eastern edge, seven time zones from Moscow, a huge project is beginning to take shape.
Two miles worth of steel and cable will connect the mainland to a small island where there is not much besides a few thousand residents, some age-old ice fishing grounds and patches of locally prized curative herbs.
The comparison, of course, is hard to shake: the Kremlin is building its very own Bridge to Nowhere. And not even the financial crisis is putting a stop to it.
The government plans to spend well over $1 billion on the span, which is to be one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, and at least $6 billion on related projects in this thinly populated region, near China and North Korea.
The projects are supposed to spruce up Vladivostok to serve as the host for the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting in 2012, and come on top of another $6 billion that the government is allocating for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the southern resort city of Sochi.
The costs for both ventures are likely to soar because of inadequate planning and widespread corruption in Russia, officials acknowledged.
The government is pouring money into the Vladivostok and Sochi events despite acute pressure on the federal budget from the financial crisis and rising concerns about the overall neglect of infrastructure in Russia. Poor quality roads, ports, power plants and other facilities have long been a drag on the Russian economy, as any multinational company that tries to do business in the country can attest. The spending looms large because the government has sharply cut the rest of the infrastructure budget in response to the financial crisis. As a result, the work in Vladivostok and Sochi is drawing criticism that the Kremlin is focusing on trophy projects that might burnish national pride, but will not yield long-term economic benefits.
"Obviously, this spending on Vladivostok and Sochi doesn't make any sense," said Ivan Tchakarov, chief economist for Russia at Nomura International, a securities firm.
"If Russia wants to diversify from the oil and gas sector, the only way to create sustainable growth is to create real infrastructure - such as, for example, doing badly needed repairs to Russia's transport systems, including the dilapidated railway network, and spending on ports and the electricity grid." Before the financial crisis, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin proposed a $1 trillion program to modernize infrastructure, but those plans have been largely shelved, officials said, in favor of spending on social and employment programs, which are aimed at helping to soothe tensions in distressed parts of the country.
Financial analysts estimated that Russia spent roughly $42 billion for infrastructure in 2008, about 13 percent of government spending. This year and next, however, that figure is expected to drop to 5 to 7 percent, they said, and that includes the outlays for Vladivostok and Sochi. The Kremlin is eager to use the Vladivostok meeting in 2012 to demonstrate that Russia is as much an Asian power as a European one.
Yet it seems highly unlikely that the region could turn into an economic engine in the near future. It is thousands of miles from Russia's political and business core, and has less than 5 percent of the country's population. The region's manufacturing and maritime industries have been in steep decline since the Soviet Union's fall, while the area's population has plunged by 25 percent, to six million people from eight million. Still, the government hopes to impress participants at the 2012 summit meeting by holding meetings on Russki Island off the coast of Vladivostok. It is currently reachable only by ferry.
In Soviet times, Vladivostok was closed to foreigners because it was deemed a strategic port, and the island was a secret military facility. Officials intend to build a conference center, hotels and a university campus there.
Already worried about costs, they recently canceled plans for a medical center and a theater for opera and ballet in the city. The government is also renovating Vladivostok's airport, and erecting a smaller bridge between two sections of the city to ease bottlenecks. Improvements will be made to water treatment and other facilities. Yevgeny V. Khokholkov, a vice governor of the region, said federal investment was desperately needed to stem the flow of people abandoning the Far East for the European part of Russia.
Mr. Khokholkov said the bridge to Russki Island and related projects would symbolize the country's commitment to Asia. "The center of development in the world economy is shifting here," he said. "So it is important for Russia to develop this territory as much as we can." Residents of Vladivostok have long complained about neglect from Moscow, but even some supporters of an increased federal role here question the wisdom of the summit meeting master plan. "Without a doubt, it will do some good things for our city," said Alan V. Gutnov, an analyst at the Far Eastern Marine Research, Design and Technology Institute. "But personally, I believe that all that money could be spent more effectively if invested in the economy of the Far East. These projects won't create many jobs in the future." On a visit to Russki Island in February, residents expressed ambivalence about the 2012 meeting, saying that they realized that the region was suffering economically, but that they worried that the projects would destroy the environment. Standing on the deck of a ferry as it chugged through a channel in the ice, Natalya A. Andreyeva, 51, an emergency room doctor, said the island should be turned into a national park. "Visitors seriously pollute the island," Dr. Andreyeva said. "Boatfuls arrive, and after that I personally myself will go and clean the beaches. It's terrible what happens. Why is it worth spending those billions? Good ferries and boats would be enough." As the ferry approached Russki, the landscape changed.
All over the ice, heavily bundled people sat on chairs, holding small fishing rods above small holes in the surface. Some had been there many hours, as if there were no better pastime than staring into the horizon, bracing against the wind and hoping that a fish takes a bite. Among them was Yuri T. Minayenko, 78, a retired driver who moved to Russki Island from Ukraine after the fall of Communism, looking to spend his final years here. "I love the quiet," he said. "If they construct that, there will be more people, more problems, more cars, more commotion and everything else. I don't want that. As an old man, I want silence. That's all."