Ukraine accused Russia of isolation due to the Crimean bridge

August 1, 2017
Today, the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Maxim Sokolov arrived in Kerch on a working visit. He got acquainted with the progress of work on the construction of a transport crossing across the Kerch Strait, telling reporters that the construction of the bridge is on schedule.

In light of the upcoming installation operation, the official assured that this would not bring significant difficulties for seafarers. “The Ministry of Transport has issued a corresponding order to restrict navigation in the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal. It stipulates that the installation of bridge arches will take place from August 1st. During this period, permits for passage through the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal will be issued directly by the port captain,” said Maxim Sokolov. Maximum restrictions on entry into the channel will apply when the arch is installed on already constructed supports. This will not take more than 72 hours, the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation assured.

Active work continues on the Kerch Bridge. Soon, bridge builders will begin transporting the arches to the fairway supports of the future bridge. Recently, construction workers completed the major assembly of the bridge's road arch.

Construction of the Kerch Bridge (August, 2017).
Oleg Shamansky

The work took place on the Kerch coast. It closes at a height of 45 meters from the base of the structure. In general, the arch consists of 200 large elements: blocks of orthotropic slabs, arched vaults, and so on. To assemble them, workers had to make 4.5 km of butt seams of the first category and tighten 175 thousand pieces of high-strength bolts.

It is important to note that the arched span of the railway bridge is already ready for installation in the design position. Once the arches are installed on the fairway supports, they will ensure the unimpeded passage of ships through a free space 185 meters wide and 35 meters high from the water.

Transportation of the arches will take place from August 3 to September 4 of this year.

Meanwhile, a pontoon is on its way to Kerch, which will be used to transport the arches to the fairway supports. The watercraft should be in Kerch soon. In parallel with this, work on the fairway continues. The supports to which transportation will take place in a few days are almost ready.

August 2, 2017
Bridge builders carried out a technical rollout of the railway arch of the Kerch Bridge to a distance of several meters. Thus, the readiness of all systems and mechanisms was checked for the subsequent “loading” of the Kerch Bridge arches onto special pontoons for their subsequent transportation to the fairway of the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal. It should be noted that good weather conditions are important for successful transportation of arches.

During the transportation of the arches, which will take no more than three days, shipping traffic in the strait will be suspended, and the procedure itself will take place in several stages:

First, the finished railway arch will be lifted from the slipway using powerful jacks. Then it will be installed on a specialized rolling mechanism.
After the manipulations have been completed, the arch will be lowered to the sea along piers, at the end of which supports will be installed, where the multi-ton structure will be located.
Next, a floating crane will come into operation, which will allow the end elements of the arched span to be undocked.
The end elements themselves will be transported to the construction site separately and installed after the arch has been raised to the design height. Thus, the structure will be ready for loading onto pontoons. The next step is to work directly with the pontoons.
The compartments of the four pontoons will gradually be filled with water, which will act as ballast.
Pontoons filled with water will be placed under the arched span, where ballast water will be gradually released.
The pontoons will rise above the surface of the water and the floating system will take over the arch.
Now the arch, submerged on pontoons, faces a five-kilometer path along the water surface. This procedure will be provided by a towing tug, pusher tugs, auxiliary and shunting tugs, as well as work boats for communication and coordination.

How the Arch is moved:

1 is a hydraulic station and in front of it are cable jacks. There are steel cables running inside the devices 2. When the carriage with the Arch approaches, devices 2 are removed and only monolithic plates 3 remain.

Note that from the Kerch fortress there is a clear view of the construction of the Kerch Bridge. The observation deck from the fort is one of the most popular places among those who want to admire the grandiose construction site.

August 17, 2017
In the morning, the editors of the KERCH.COM.RU website began to receive reports that it was impossible to visit the site at the base of the bridge: people in the uniform of the National Guard were preventing this. Those especially interested in the construction are explained that the area from Cementnaya Slobodka to Solnechny and the dachas is closed to the public until September 4th. The reason for the cordon is said to be mine clearance. Law enforcement officers are jealous of visitors, especially those who carry optics. They are very interested in documents and the purpose of the visit.

August 18, 2017

Fairway. Windy weather continues. Kerch froze in anticipation of the main event - the installation of the arch on the fairway.

August 20, 2017

Installed jacks 650 tons

Installation of cable jacks for lifting arches.

Operating principle of a cable jack.

August 21, 2017
Kerch: transportation of bridge arches delayed due to wind

The maritime operation to install the arches of the Kerch Bridge is being delayed due to strong winds. Today, August 21, the wind continues to gust up to 14 meters per second, which is contrary to the rules: when loading the arch onto the floating system, the wind speed should not exceed 5 m/s; during transportation – up to 10 m/s.

The spans of the road bridge on the sea side gain height from Tuzla Island to the fairway. 360 degree panorama on most.life

August 22, 2017

Storm warning: windy and hot

The Crimean Bridge across the Kerch Strait is one of the most discussed topics in both Russia and Ukraine. Opinions fall into two camps. Some hope that this will lead to an increase in the socio-economic importance of the Republic of Crimea, others are convinced that this is a failed project. I will not make assessments or make predictions; let everyone draw their own conclusions.

I am concerned about the environmental issue. How much will the construction of a bridge and new roads from Kerch to Feodosia affect the flora and fauna of these places? So far I can say that we have never seen dolphins on the city beach of Kerch on this trip. And relatives said that the croaking of toads can no longer be heard in Nizhny Solnechny.

Also of concern is the issue of excavations in the area where new roads are being laid. Now along the Kerch-Feodosia highway you can find separate sections with groups of geologists who are trying to dig up something valuable from the time of Panticapaeum, until asphalt was laid on this place. If you think logically, then on the way from Kerch to Feodosia far from the coast you will not find anything significant except taverns and lonely houses of nomads. But who knows :)

But all this is the domain of specialists in these fields. Therefore, I will simply give some small and well-known statistics on the Crimean Bridge and post a few photographs that I took during the period August 7-11, 2017.

The bridge across the Kerch Strait, officially named the Crimean Bridge (on August 12, a monument with this name was erected on Mount Mithridates), will have road and railway passages.

Bridge website www.most.life
The total length of the bridge is 19 km.
Height - 35 m.
Traffic lanes - 4 for cars and 2 for railways.
The length of the arches is 227 m, the height above sea level is 35 m, the height of the structures is 45 m. They are installed at the passage of ships.
The total weight of the bridge's span metal structures is more than 250 thousand tons.
Cost - 227.92 billion rubles.

The bridge will connect the Kerch Peninsula (Crimea) with the Taman Peninsula (Russia) and pass through the island of Tuzla. Previously, there were recreation centers on the island and we vacationed there a couple of times in 1991 and 1992. Then adults told me and my brother, when we were still little, that on one side the island was washed by the Black Sea, on the other by the Azov Sea. Long Sandy shore with recreation centers was located, of course, on the Black Sea side. And I remember how now, near the shore there were a lot of jellyfish, that adults carried us kids in their arms to shallow water away from this transparent white mass of stinging sea creatures. Pleasant memories... but that's not what I'm talking about :)

Views of the bridge from the Arshintseva Spit (horsea beach). Due to the construction of the bridge, I still couldn’t see the silhouette of Tuzla. They look at the bridge towards the island.

Now all transport moves along a temporary technological bridge, which makes it possible to build the Crimean Bridge at sea using “land” equipment. The technological bridge is often confused with the main one, since its bridge spans are little visible and have not yet been built everywhere. We were lucky to observe the construction from the side of the cape, where the Kerch fortress is located. The main bridge runs above the service bridge, which will be removed after construction.

In total, 595 supports need to be built for the bridge. As of July 24, 2017, the construction of 40 supports for the automobile part of the bridge remained to be completed. Piles for them are driven even at night, which can be heard through the open windows of houses near the city embankment of Kerch. For the supports, 7 thousand piles need to be loaded and more than half of them have already been driven. On August 16, the last pile for the road bridge was driven.

Views from the observation deck near the Kerch Fortress.

On July 31, 2017, the road and railway arches were completely ready and builders began preparing to move them onto the pontoon system for installation on supports. It took six months to collect them. Now this is one of the attractions of Kerch, against which visitors from different parts of Russia take photographs, while the arches stand so close to the shore.

Video 1.

Views from the observation deck near the Kerch Fortress.

A good observation deck, from where you can see not only the bridge, but also the Kerch embankment and Mount Mithridates. As we were informed, the passage to this observation deck may be blocked, since the road actually passes through a construction site, where it can accumulate freight transport. We found ourselves in one of these traffic jams on August 8th. And on August 11, the road through the construction site was blocked during working hours, but after the 19th we managed to get there by car again.

Video 2.

At the end of August - beginning of September 2017, the arches of the automobile and railway bridges should be installed in the central shipping span over the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal. The arches will be installed in their place using floating pores, which were manufactured in Sevastopol and arrived in Kerch on August 2.

And we had a walk on sailing yacht August 9. Just on this day, floating systems for transporting the arches of the Crimean Bridge to the installation site were tested. At first the captain walked away from the bridge, but when our aunt told him that we were foreigners and wanted to see the bridge closer, the issue was immediately resolved. So here are some photos from the sea.

Video 3.

And we just found a floating system with the help of which the arches will move from the assembly site to the installation site on the bridge.

The weight of the arches at the time of transportation to the fairway: more than 6 thousand tons - railway (the white arch is narrower) and almost 5 thousand tons - road.

View of the arches from the Kerch embankment.

In addition to the construction of the Crimean Bridge, the Federal Target Program provides for the construction of a 4-lane highway from Kerch to Simferopol bypassing Feodosia, which is called "Tavrida", as well as electrification and strengthening railway Dzhankoy - Feodosia - Kerch with a length of 207 km. Therefore, we hope that Dzhankoy will not die as a city. Now the once hub of all roads from Ukraine to Crimea looks very depressing and forgotten by everyone.

The opening of the road bridge is scheduled for December 18, 2018, simultaneously with the Kerch-Simferopol highway, and the railway bridge will be opened in 2019. Will the Crimean Bridge become a mega-structure, which will be featured on Discovery and National Geographic, and which will turn Crimea into tourist centre almost all of Russia, or it will be a complete failure of Russia and Putin. Time will show.

The Kerch Bridge violates international law and will lead to the isolation of Ukraine. This was stated by Deputy Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories Georgiy Tuka.

“With such actions (the construction of the bridge. - Gazeta.Ru) the Russian Federation violates all international norms. It actually dooms Ukraine to a certain kind of isolation by sea,” he said in an interview with Ukrainian media.

“The situation with the closure of the Kerch Strait in connection with the construction of a bridge to Crimea cannot be called simple; the issue is being investigated,” the official concluded.

Recently, talk about the Kerch Bridge from the Ukrainian authorities has been heard more and more often.

Thus, on August 4, 2017, the Minister of Justice of Ukraine Pavel said that he did not see the possibility for Russia to complete the Kerch Bridge, the builders of which, a few days before this statement, completed the assembly of the road arch, closing it at a height of 45 m.

“Russia cannot properly build smaller infrastructure facilities. I know that after the Olympics in Sochi, entire stadiums have already begun to be destroyed,” he said, without indicating which specific sports facility was defective.

"No self-respecting international company she won’t even put a nut or bolt there, because she risks losing her business in the EU, USA, Japan - in countries that have joined the sanctions against Russia regarding Crimea. These sanctions also prohibit companies from supplying any equipment there. We see what happened with . That is, in my deep conviction, this project has virtually no prospects,” Petrenko said.

He also expressed the opinion that everyone who will be involved in the construction of the Kerch Bridge will fall under international sanctions. However, Petrenko’s disbelief in the successful commissioning of the Kerch Bridge does not prevent his department from preparing a claim for damage to the Ukrainian budget due to this construction.

“Further construction and commissioning of the bridge across the Kerch Strait will lead to a significant reduction in ship calls in sea ports Mariupol and Berdyansk,

a decrease in the cargo turnover of these ports, a slowdown in their development, a decrease in the profitability of metallurgical enterprises in the region, a decrease in the profits of port operators and branches of the Administration of Sea Ports of Ukraine, which is unacceptable,” the head of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine previously stated.

After this, a deputy of the State Council of Crimea called the statement of Pavel Petrenko and others like him populist.

“The statement is certainly inadequate. It indicates that, unfortunately, the Ukrainian state is still not ready to recognize the objective reality that exists. They live in a foggy state in their own heads,” the parliamentarian said.

But such responses from the Russian side do not in any way reduce the increased attention of the Ukrainian side to the Kerch Bridge. Thus, at the end of June 2017, the head of the prosecutor’s office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea stated that Ukraine intends to turn to American specialists with a request to monitor the construction of a bridge across the Kerch Strait. The security official indicated that one of the pressing issues for Kyiv is possible harm to Cherny and Sea of Azov, which can be caused by the construction of this object.

A video appeared on the Internet of how builders on Tuesday lifted the railway arch of the bridge across the Kerch Strait weighing 6 thousand tons - one of the two largest structures of the facility - onto fairway supports, to a height of 35 meters from sea level.

This was reported by the information center of the Crimean Bridge project.

“The process of raising the arch to the designed height took about 12 hours. The arch will be secured throughout the day,” the press release says.

In the next month, builders will mount the end elements of the arch, and will also untwist it - lower it onto special supporting parts.

The maritime operation to transport the railway arch span from the technological site in eastern Crimea to the fairway began on Sunday morning. The movement of ships in the Kerch Strait was suspended for 72 hours. The ban does not apply to Navy and FSB vessels, as well as those participating in the bridge construction process.

The floating pores took on the weight of the arch on the afternoon of August 27. Then the floating system began moving from the shores of Kerch to the Kerch-Yenikalsky Canal. By the morning of August 28, the arch was delivered to the fairway.

The two arched spans – the railway and the road – are the largest elements of the bridge. The road arch is a thousand tons lighter than the railway arch; delivery of the structure to the fairway is scheduled for September. The arches will ensure the passage of ships through a free space 185 meters wide and 35 meters high from the water.

The nineteen-kilometer Kerch Bridge will be the longest in Russia and will connect the peninsula with the mainland of the Russian Federation by road and railway. Car traffic on the bridge will open in December 2018, train traffic in December 2019. The cost of the object is 227.9 billion rubles in prices of the corresponding years. The general contractor of the construction is the Stroygazmontazh company owned by Arkady Rotenberg.

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