In the direction of the unity of the country

In fact, from the outside, of course, this looks even a little funny: in recent years, in our country, in fact, there has not been a single significant discussion during which the topic of the need to maintain the unity of our country with you, cultural, spiritual, historical, regional, linguistic, ethnic, - which, with the obvious multi-ethnicity of the population, is certainly a thing.

Only for some reason the topic of the unity of the geographical and, sorry for the very mundane economic matters, of the logistic, is not discussed. Which, no matter how boring and casual it sounds, and provides those levels of communication, which are then filled with the very same historical and cultural meanings for us. And without the proper level of development, for example, a “boring” road infrastructure, it is certainly possible to realize the idea of ​​the same unified cultural space.

But - much more complicated. Let’s explain.

The day before yesterday, on Wednesday, an event occurred, although more than expected, but from this no less significant: the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin opened for traffic the last, eighth section of the M11 Moscow-St. Petersburg highway. Thus, in fact, stating: the most ambitious infrastructure project in Russia today (372 billion rubles of budget and 148 billion rubles of private investments, sorry, I didn’t sneeze) can be considered implemented. The 684-kilometer highway, which has already received the official name M11 Neva, is fully completed and put into operation.

We are waiting for the next “record" from the construction of the Moscow-Kazan highway. Including, by the way, and the level of attracted investments. But this is so far, by the way.

In the meantime, the opening ceremony of the movement along the new M11 Neva highway was held in St. Petersburg, in the Pushkin district, in the presence of not only the president of the country, but also the governors of all six regions through whose territory a new toll road runs from St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region to Moscow , - and, of course, with one “clean” economy, such attention to the essentially commercial understudy of the famous E95 is simply impossible to explain: everything is much more significant, important and more complicated.

However, let's take it in order.

If we talk about economic strategy, the Neva highway, the infrastructural significance of which is enormous in itself (also, another transport artery, not only combining two urban agglomerations, gigantic even by European standards, with a total number of over 26 million people, but also giving the metropolitan region direct access to the seaports of the Baltic Sea) is also, in fact, the final part of two trans-Eurasian transit corridors at once, natural from the point of view of the strict science of economic geography: East - West and North South.

And by the way, yes: this is including a bypass route for the same “Chinese transit” (and not only for it) past the traditional “south-west route”.

There is no need to invent anything, just remind dear readers that the main transport and logistics hub of the USSR was located on the rebellious and unstable territory of present-day Ukraine.

And traffic flows, albeit accompanied by a continuous “roar of engines”, like money, prefer stability and silence.

And based on the fact that the majority of analysts think that the main battle, the main arena of confrontation of the 21st century is not so much a battle for resources as a possibility of their transportation, it’s very easy to understand not only the acute rejection of this project by the “democratic public”, starting from the already forgotten , fortunately, the problems of the Khimki forest, but also why Putin personally led the opening of the new route, led by a very representative governor's delegation: in this situation, not only economic, but also geopolitical the value of the opened highway is quite difficult, with all the desire, to overestimate.

It is only important to understand that today's opening of the movement is not even the final stage of work.

But only, in fact, the initial one: the point here is not even the need to develop the related infrastructure, which Putin directly reminded the governors, or, say, the construction of the third stage of the M11 highway (the so-called northern bypass) around Tver: recall now, approaching city, cars again forced to return to the M10, which goes around Tver from the south.

At the same time, by the way, the construction of a bypass in the north of the regional center will not only unload the current highway, but also provide access to new planned directions: to Yaroslavl and further to Vologda.

This is all great, and the Tver, which turns into a regional transport hub, is decently gaining, which is already one of the main, perhaps, beneficiaries of the Neva: the Tver governor Igor Rudenya, in the presence of the president, was proud to report on the creation of the region, thanks to commissioning Neva, 17 thousand new jobs.

That for such a problematic region as the Tver province, very, very much. But! All these are important, but judging by the scale of what was conceived in the country, they are rather local tasks.

I will say more: even the Moscow-Kazan highway project, which is already in fact included in the Comprehensive Plan for the modernization and expansion of the trunk infrastructure for the period up to 2024 and which is part of the Europe-Western China transport corridor being created (through the friendly territory of Kazakhstan), is itself in itself is only a local task, albeit amazing in its scope.

The real level and scale of the problems facing the country and, in fact, already now solved tasks only (!) In the infrastructure becomes clear when it is possible to look at the situation comprehensively and build this mosaic in a row.

We’ll just list, probably missing something: the M11 Neva highway, the Krymsky bridge, the long-launched M4 Don, designed by Kazan, the first stage of construction of which (before Vladimir) will begin literally next year, 2020. The Central Ring Road, currently under construction, and port infrastructure in the Baltic and the Black Sea coast.

The road infrastructure of the Far East, the bridge to Russky Island, bridges across the Lena in the Yakutsk region and across the Ob in Salekhard, railway projects such as the Northern Latitudinal Railway - when you see all this in a complex, then it’s already breathtaking, sorry, really. It is as if the giant country is pulling together its colossal spaces with new highways, linking the banks of not only rivers but also sea straits with bridges, punching tunnels in the mountains and filling endless northern swamp spaces with dams.

By and large, we somehow did not notice this, but in fact, such a large-scale road construction has not been carried out in our country for a very, very long time: I’m afraid to make a mistake, but it seems that from those notorious and “terrible” Stalinist times.

And you don’t have to try to praise it or, God forbid, scold it - you just need to comprehend it. And to ascertain a fact - a new reality is emerging. As a future already in fact in our field of vision, sprouting like young but dusty grass through the old asphalt of those ancient and, unfortunately, not repaired for a long time, probably from the Soviet era, local “regional” roads.

Which, too, by and large, should be changed over time.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.