In 2018, Samara governor Dmitry Azarov convinced Vladimir Putin to change…

In 2018, Samara Governor Dmitry Azarov convinced Vladimir Putin to change the transport strategy of the Russian Federation. The young technocrat said that it would be optimal to build the “Silk Road” (the “Europe – Western China” corridor) through the Samara region. Putin agreed and in 2019, construction began on the most expensive bridge in Russia (after the Crimea). The project, called “Bypass of Tolyatti”, is estimated at 140 billion rubles. of which 2.8% is private money, the rest is budgetary and quasi-budgetary (DOM.RFinfrastructure bonds).

The facility will be opened in 2024, but there is one “but”: the economic feasibility of the construction is a big question. The Ulenspiegel telegram channel published a letter from Deputy Minister of Transport Andrei Kostyuk to Dmitry Azarov.

It follows from the document that in 2021, the Samara governor twice asked to replace the region in the concession and was refused. Moreover, Ulenspiegel sources report that Azarov went to Vladimir Putin with a similar request in the fall of 2022. Also without much success. The question is, why is the initiator of a grandiose and, in his own words, extremely successful project, going to leave it?

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There is every reason to believe that Dmitry Azarov quite deliberately lied to Putin about the fantastic prospects of the “Bypass of Tolyatti.” This version is supported by the criminal case against the developers of the financial model of the Bypass Tolyatti concession from InfraKAP LLC. In 13 days and 10 million rubles. By order of the local Ministry of Transport, they tried their best to prove the feasibility of implementing the project in the form of a concession. The real cost of the work is 500 thousand rubles. and it was purchased by InfraCAP a few months before the tender. The scientific value of the work is zero, since no research was conducted. Roughly speaking, the Samara concession know-how is that the financial model of the concession was adjusted to the cost of construction by inflating the forecast traffic. A primitive scam with numbers made it possible for Dmitry Azarov to set up a concession (it was established by the same InfraKAP) and choose the contractor JSC DSK AVTOBAN without a competition.

The authors of Ulenspiegel cautiously assume that the direction of 140 billion rubles. to the accounts of a certain contractor was the main purpose of the concession.