Didn't understand

The Public Chamber held hearings on the construction of the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway with the participation of both supporters of laying it through the Khimki forest and opponents of this route. However, the members of the OP did not come to any decision. Now, according to them, the issue will be discussed by experts chosen by President Dmitry Medvedev.

Kommersant indicates that before the start of the hearing, young people with posters gathered near the building of the Public Chamber in support of the construction of a route through the forest. Those of them who did not put gas masks on their faces turned out to be the same clique who, at the fake hearings in support of the construction of a highway through the forest in Khimki itself, drowned out the weak voices of protest by chanting slogans.

At the hearings in the OP, the head of the Federal Road Agency, Anatoly Chabunin, spoke in favor of continuing the stopped construction through the forest. He assured that it is planned to build noise barriers and crossings for animals, and that compensatory plantings will be carried out to replace cut down trees. Construction through the forest was also supported by the Ministry of Natural Resources - Deputy Minister Igor Maidanov considered that this option was the most balanced in terms of preserving the environment. Transport Minister Igor Levitin, whom opponents of the construction of a route through the forest consider to be personally interested in the implementation of this project, noted that residents always demand that the route be moved out of the city, and therefore into the forest, “after all, there is nothing else.”

For his part, the scientific director of the Research Institute of Transport and Road Facilities, Mikhail Blinkin, said that it is not clear what role in construction is played by the notorious French company Vinci, which is referred to when they say that it, as an investor, will suffer losses if construction through the forest is curtailed: in the documents, the participation of foreign capital in the construction of the highway amounts to a maximum of a few percent of the total cost, and Vinci’s role is reduced to technical consultations. Thus, it turns out that this is “a state project with an extremely original scheme.”

The leader of the Movement for the Protection of the Khimki Forest, Evgenia Chirikova, noted that road workers are keeping silent about the scale of deforestation: “In its presentation, Rosavtodor indicates that the investor will be paid with “roadside territories.” According to the law, this can be a strip of up to 150 kilometers where trees now grow.” The head of the Russian branch of the World Wildlife Fund, Igor Chestin, added that supporters of construction through the forest claim that alternative options for laying the route will be very expensive due to unprofessionalism: “Our roads are more expensive than in Europe, and the quality is much worse.”

Consensus was not reached, and the members of the OP remained immersed in deep thought. The only thing they decided to do was to propose conducting new examinations of the projects.