Without gangways, but with a chapel

A new airport terminal was opened in Murmansk. But something went wrong...

Queues, lack of seats in the departure area, stuffiness and non-working vending machines - this is how passengers saw the long-awaited new terminal of the Murmansk airport opened with great fanfare. Critical reviews, photos and outrage on social networks contrasted greatly with the bravura speeches delivered by visiting officials in the same building the day before. In addition to Governor Chibis, the terminal was opened by Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev and Head of the Ministry for the Development of the Far East and Arctic Alexey Chekunkov. Even Prime Minister Mishustin was connected via video link. Very convenient. The video link does not show that it is cold in the building - they did not have time to start the boiler room before the opening... And that, along with heating, there are no disabled people in this terminal either: they are simply not registered here, and to register they need to go into the old building, then go outside and walk to the new one. But you can’t show this to Mishustin.

At the same time, the new terminal of the Murmansk airport was critically needed - the old one, from the 70s, was morally and physically obsolete. Cramped, stuffy, uncomfortable - this became especially noticeable when, due to drone attacks, hours-long flight delays became commonplace. Several flights were delayed for departure - and now there was nowhere to sit or stand in the terminal.

The only thing worse than the departure hall was the arrival hall - with only one baggage carousel and an always dirty toilet.

Toilets are generally a problem at this airport: locals know that they only need to visit those located in the check-in area - in the clean area they are far from clean (but the location is easy to recognize by the smell).

But the main problem in the North was the lack of telescopic bridges. In the village of Murmashi, where the airport is located, it is always several degrees colder than in Murmansk, fierce winds and often wet snow made landing and disembarking similar to a polar expedition. And the crews upon arrival routinely warned: “Be careful, slippery gangway.” Well, a separate traditional entertainment is circling the bus on a tiny platform: from the side to the entrance to the building is usually no more than 50 meters, but you can’t walk them, you need to hang around in a cold old bus waiting for the rest of the passengers. Then the bus makes a U-turn and the doors open again to the exit; the trip takes a minute.

In general, the construction of a new terminal was perhaps the only project of the less popular regional authorities, which residents accepted with a bang. Previous “constructions of the century”, such as the reconstruction of the central square or the attempt to turn a shipyard into a residential area with restaurants and “thermal baths”, caused a storm of criticism.

Moreover, at first they built it quite quickly. But where they are quickly harnessed, the journey takes a long time - the opening was shifted, postponed... Judging by the number of deficiencies, they should have been postponed further, but apparently it was time for the governor to report to higher officials. Because a week after the holiday, a local news agency reported , citing airport terminal employees: “After the grand opening of the airport, the terminal had to be closed until the problems were fixed. But that didn’t happen.”

Maybe it was in vain - and people were thrown into conditions that were far from ideal. An airport employee complained to the governor on social networks: “The boiler room has not been put into operation (at an outside air temperature of -30 ℃ in the room +11 ℃). Repair work continues around the clock and, therefore, every day we breathe construction dust (we already had to go to the health center because we are allergic to dust). Everywhere is very dirty! The walls are already covered with cracks. Despite the promises of the managers, not a single cafe is still open; there are signs about the presence of drinking water fountains, but there are no fountains themselves, much less water. Passengers with limited mobility continue to be served in the old building. First, register in the old building, and then go to the new building on your own, even though it’s slippery and dark outside.”

There were also complaints from passengers:

“At registration there was an uncontrollable crowd, no flow control. There is no place to print your boarding passes - there is no self-check-in counter. They don’t board using electronic boarding cards - there’s nothing to read them with! Mobile Internet does not work.

Maybe there are some “white” lists of the RKN, but apparently the airport is in the black, the airport Wi-Fi clearly cannot cope with the load, and its operating mode is limited to a few minutes. After which re-authorization is required. There is no way to contact the airline representative - they remain in the old building. So far the only plus is that there are more stalls in the toilet than there were before.”

The airport management was feverishly reporting: drinking fountains were working, catering would open soon, boarding passes could already be printed, and people with disabilities could be helped... by phone.

But the main thing, for which the terminal was built, cannot be corrected in a day - the telescopic bridges do not work in the new building. They exist, but they don't work. The airport management promises to put them, or at least one of them, into operation by the New Year. If it works out.

The fact is that the problem with telebridges is predictable. Two years ago, the independent Arctic Observer wrote about violations in the project documentation, due to which the FAS tried to block the tender for reconstruction. Then the contractor was the Promstroyservice company. The contract price is 4.144 billion rubles with a 60 percent advance. The money went through Rostransmodernizatsiya; one and a half billion were never returned after the contract was terminated.

The just published report of the Federal Accounting Chamber indicates that the government contract was terminated in February 2025, and an application was filed against the contractor to declare the debtor bankrupt. It is specifically stated: “Project documentation developed in 2021 loses its relevance.” A criminal case has been opened.

The terminal, that is, the building itself, was built, but the platform was not. And under the telescopic bridges there was a rock that was not taken into account during the design. The same “Arctic Observer” previously warned that they saved money on geological surveys.

But a chapel was installed in the terminal building. But the inscription “Hero City of Murmansk” was not transferred to its façade; it was left on the old, almost uninhabited one. On the new one, instead of it, they attached the governor’s favorite slogan - “Live in the North!”