Along the tracks to the Japanese

Nikolai Aksenenko’s global plans have found understanding in the White House

The government appreciated the strategic thinking of the Ministry of Railways, approving the project for the construction of a railway crossing between the mainland and Sakhalin Island. However, Mikhail Kasyanov somewhat tempered the unprecedented enthusiasm of the Ministry of Railways, which is ready to urgently transfer its builders from completed projects to the shores of the Pacific Ocean and already in 2002 to allocate 5 billion rubles for these purposes. He strictly ordered the head of the Ministry of Railways, Nikolai Aksenenko, not to begin any work until a technical justification for the project was prepared. The prime minister said that everything should be laid out there: the amount of investment, construction time, and in stages, payback. The MOT must be submitted by February 2002. Mr. Aksenenko said it would cost $25 million.

In general, the entire construction project is valued at more than $4 billion. According to Mr. Aksenenko, the authors had a pessimistic option in mind. The optimistic one, naturally, should be cheaper. Payback, as the head of the Ministry of Railways said, in the best case, can be achieved no earlier than in 17 years. He recalled that the tsarist government, when it decided to build the Trans-Siberian Railway, did not hope to receive dividends from the project earlier than a hundred years later. True, Mr. Aksenenko apparently forgot that all this happened at the end of the century before last (in 1887).

Not all members of the cabinet were interested in the return on investment of the project, but mainly representatives of the financial and economic bloc. The head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, German Gref, said that the construction of a new railway line will generate income only if, in addition to connecting the mainland with Sakhalin, a tunnel is connected between Sakhalin and Japan. This refers to the construction of a passage under the La Perouse Strait to the island of Hokkaido. Mr. Kasyanov gave instructions: to hold consultations with the Japanese on this matter.

Mr. Aksenenko won over many cabinet members with his selflessness. “We are not asking the state for anything other than presence in this project. Write us one ruble in the budget, and we will be satisfied,” he said pathetically. The Ministry of Railways hopes that it will be able to invest in the project on its own. True, Mr. Aksenenko did not say where such large-scale investments would come from. It is known that increasing transportation tariffs is the easiest way in such situations.

The majority of cabinet members, despite the doubts of financiers and economists, nevertheless supported the project - for humanitarian reasons. Like, we need to extend a hand to Sakhalin, which is struggling to survive without a mainland. The head of the Ministry of Property, Farit Gazizullin, put a solemn point in the discussion: “As long as we have such large-scale people as Aksenenko, they must be supported.”

Vera KUZNETSOVA