Kerch Bridge: Vladimir Putin's "project of the century"
This Tuesday was inaugurated what was described as "the project of the century" of Russia.
It is the most ambitious engineering work in the country to date and a whole declaration of intentions of Moscow on its control of Crimea, the disputed peninsula that was annexed in 2014.
The new bridge over the Kerch star will link Chushka, at the western end of the Tamán peninsula, with the port of Kerch, on the eastern coast of Crimea, rising above the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov with a gigantic arch of 6,000 tons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin inaugurated the work by crossing it on board a truck.
For the Court of Justice of the European Union, the construction of this bridge constitutes a violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Putin intends to seal with this crossing the annexation of a territory that is vital for the commercial exchange between East and West, and that until March 2014 was controlled by Ukraine.
At 19 kilometers long, the new bridge of the Kerch Strait is the longest built in Europe to date, surpassing the Vasco de Gama Bridge of Lisbon, 17 kilometers long.
It has a passage for trains and another for cars, and rises 35 meters above the water.
The highway stretch will be operational as of Wednesday, while the railroad crossing is expected to be available by the end of next year.
It is the most expensive ingeria project ever built by a Russian company.
The company behind it is the construction company Stroygazmontazh, which belongs to Arkadii Rotenberg, a close friend of Putin.
The total cost amounts to 228,000 million rubles, about US $ 3.6 billion
