Izvestia: “C-grade Construction”
Vladimir Putin evaluates preparations for the Sochi Olympics
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin inspected the Olympic venues in Sochi on Friday. The impression was mixed: construction had already started on some of the venues whereas some of the other completed venues had already tumbled down.
Oleg Deripaska and Transportation Minister Igor Levitin met Vladimir Putin at the new airport terminal. The construction on it began as early as the late 1980s, but it was completed only recently when Oleg Deripaska's Basic Element got involved. The new airport terminal, the technological novelty of which is quite doubtful, is in test service. The cafeteria is the only thing that functions at full capacity.
"Do you like the airport?" Igor Levitin asked expectantly.
"I do not like that an infused tea bag costs 80 roubles here," Vladimir Putin expressed his dissatisfaction.
"I am not responsible for the tea, he is," Igor Levitin replied, nodding toward Oleg Deripaska.
The latter only hunched his shoulders.
Vladimir Putin cast a glance at the models and stands of Basel Aero, which operates the airport, took a walk through the terminal, and then left for a gorge to inspect the newly constructed highway to Krasnaya Polyana. Oleg Deripaska headed for the Imeretinskaya bay, where a port is being constructed at the mouth of the Mzymta River. The port is needed to deliver materials for the Olympic Park and was ordered by the Basic Element and Rosmorport state enterprise. It is being built by Inzhtransstroy, which also belongs to Oleg Deripaska. The port's first stage was scheduled for commissioning that day, but the storm on December 14 ruined the schedule. Waves destroyed most of the facility, leaving cranes, dump trucks, a diesel power station, and construction materials on the sea floor. The most alarming incident was an overturned vessel that left three seamen missing.
Oleg Deripaska paced the dock and gloomily surveyed at what had been left of the port. Unstable, half destroyed pillars at the main breakwater resemble remains from ancient Rome; its central component is simply missing, the quays are deformed, the remnants of machinery stick out from the water. What was supposed to soon be an operating port and later an elite marina for hundreds of yachts looked just a bit better than Phuket Island after the tsunami. Oleg Deripaska got nervous, locked his hands behind his neck and started bending to the sides.
"How did it come to this?" Vladimir Putin asked on arriving to the bay. "Where is the money?"
He was told that the damage totaled 500 million roubles. Many experts believe that the sum is understated.
"Who will pay for this?" Vladimir Putin asked looking at the ruins.
"Everything is insured in Ingosstrakh," several people replied simultaneously.
"Lucky you!" Vladimir Putin glanced at Oleg Deripaska.
The phrase sounded ambiguous since Basic Element is Ingosstrakh's majority shareholder.
After that, officials told Vladimir Putin that the waves were unprecedentedly high and 'reached twelve meters' on December 14, that such waves came there ‘once in a hundred years' and that the designer-engineers proceeded from a maximum hypothetical wave of 7.5 meters. Locals, on the other hand, say that the waves were six to eight meters high and that such thing could happen there as often as once in three years.
The port commissioning was postponed. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak suggested that part of the marine cargo would have to be delivered by railway.
"Let us not change anything and let us do everything as planned," Vladimir Putin replied firmly, as if casting his words in cement.
After inspecting the vast construction site of the future Big Ice Arena, Vladimir Putin headed for the construction headquarters to chair a meeting.
"Are there not enough troubles for you this year?" journalists heckled Oleg Deripaska, who sat down opposite Vladimir Putin. "It began with Pikalyovo, then the Baikal paper and pulp plant, and now the port that is insured by a company of yours..."
"Pikalyovo will be the best single-industry town in the country, and Igosstrakh is Russia's best insurance company," Oleg Deripaska replied with a smile.
At the start of the meeting, Vladimir Putin underscored that "the IOC experts believe that everything is fine," but added that he would be more modest and give the construction a "C".
"A delay in a single facility can hamper the work as a whole," Vladimir Putin said. "The participants' personal responsibility is extremely high."
After the meeting, Izvestia asked Dmitry Kozak about who would be liable for what happened at the port. Some members of the State Duma Transport Committee had already said that there were mistakes in the project documentation and that technology regulations had been violated-for example, that used pipes were implemented to save time and cut costs.
"We live in a rule-of-law state. And talks of liability are premature till the commission ends its work," he replied.
Vladimir Putin left the meeting, and Oleg Deripaska and head of the Olimpstroy state corporation Taimuraz Bolloyev stood at a map of the Imeretinskaya lowland and bay.
"We will speed up the construction here and everything will be great," Oleg Deripaska showed something on the map while the latter was nodding his head and pointing at the map with a laser pointer.
Some people are simply unsinkable.
By Alexander Latyshev
