At a meeting with construction workers during the ceremony, Mr Putin said that the Government was planning to allocate 300 billion roubles for building and repairing bridges in 2010. "This is a little less than this year but more than in the financially stronger last year," he said.
Mr Putin reminded the audience that a programme for building off-grade bridges - unique facilities of individual design - has been carried out in Russia since 2005. The construction of many of these 18 off-grade bridges started in Soviet times. Many of them have already been built or will be completed this year. However, Mr Putin reassured his audience that the construction workers would not become jobless. "This is a large-scale programme, and we intend to continue with it. You will have enough to do," he promised.
While inspecting the bridge over the Oka River, Mr Putin could watch online on the monitor the construction of three other bridges - in the Volgograd, Saratov, and Ulyanovsk regions.
Minister of Transport Igor Levitin told Mr Putin that apart from construction workers, the programme would require 100,000 professionals from other fields, thereby providing considerable workload for the domestic economy.
In addition to that, bridge construction is important for developing and introducing new engineering technology which is being used in Sochi and Vladivostok.
Mr Levitin made a special mention of the bridge over the Volga River in Ulyanovsk.
"This bridge is more than 5,800 metres long. It is Europe's longest bridge over water," he said.
Looking at its image online, Mr Putin remarked: "This is a magnificent bridge."