Izveztia: "Pulkovo Airport: the new gates to the northern capital"
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took part in the groundbreaking of a new terminal at Pulkovo Airport that will eventually handle 22 million passengers each year.
At the construction site, the workers reminded Mr Putin of the old tradition of throwing a coin when something new is built. The prime minister didn't have any coins, and as members of his delegation started checking their pockets for change, only VTB CEO Andrei Kostin happened to have one.
After borrowing the change, Mr Putin threw it into the concrete as it poured onto the first pile. Foreign investors also took out coins, and even a few euros made their way in.
The experts controlling the process said that the concrete slab would soon become a "buried treasure."
"In that case, we'll have to dig it out later on," the prime minister joked.
Under the construction plan, the terminal will be completed by 2013.
"This is the first project for the reconstruction of an airport to be based on a public-private partnership," Vladislav Borodulin, director for the strategic development of the consortium Air Gates of the Northern Capital, told Izvestia.
The airport was leased to the consortium, which includes the VTB Bank and the companies Fraport AG and Horizon Air Investments for thirty years. During this time the modernisation and reconstruction of Pulkovo Airport will be conducted in two stages. In the first stage, the consortium will build a new passenger terminal with a traffic capacity of 13 million people. Thereafter, it will be increased to 22 million by 2025.
Reconstruction of the Pulkovo-1 Airport will begin in the second stage of construction, after which it will be connected with the terminal, thereby uniting domestic and international flights. In turn, the Pulkovo-2 Airport will cease to exist as an international airport. About 1.2 billion euros will be devoted to the project until 2013. As a result, Pulkovo will oust Vnukovo Airport as Russia's third-largest hub after Moscow's Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo.
Pulkovo Airport meets the world's highest aviation standards. "The airport's two runways have an enormous throughput capacity. Domodedovo is considering the reconstruction of its runways, and Sheremetyevo is planning to build a third one, but we are fully ready in this respect," Mr Borodulin said.
Anastasia Savinykh and Pavel Arbatov
