/Pogled.info/ The new M-12 “Vostok” expressway has been put into operation, connecting Moscow and Kazan, and this has already been called “an epoch-making event for the whole country”. M-12 became the third long expressway built in Russia in recent decades. And it has every chance to become the most important of them – after the expansion to the Urals and Siberia.
“With God’s blessing!”. With these words, Vladimir Putin opened traffic on the Moscow-Kazan highway. “I thank all the specialists, workers, engineers, designers who participated in the construction of this important transport route. “Thank you for the tremendous work, the fast pace of work and, of course, for completing the construction seriously ahead of schedule,” the president said.
With the launch of the new expressway, Russia received a truly spectacular transport complex. The last sections put into operation were the so-called sixth (from the Nizhny Novgorod region to Chuvashia) and eighth (70 kilometers to Kazan) stages of the route. The M-12 “Vostok” highway is 810 kilometers long, more than four lanes in both directions with a dividing line between them, and corresponds to the first level of highways. It will reduce the travel time from Moscow to Kazan from 12 to 6.5 hours – and this is far from its only goal.
Technical characteristics of the M-12 highway
The highway bypasses all the cities located along its route, there are no intersections along its entire length, and all intersections with other highways are equipped with multi-level interchanges. More than 60 eco-crossings have been built for animal migration.
The infrastructure to serve motorists still lags behind road construction. However, in the near future gas stations, tire repair shops, mini-hotels and eateries will be placed every 50-80 kilometers of the route, many of them are already under construction.
In particular, over the 80 kilometers that the highway in its current form passes through the territory of Tatarstan, six transport nodes have already been built at the intersection with main roads. Six multifunctional zones are planned to be opened near them in the format: “First rest, then refuel”. In these recreation areas, children’s and sports grounds, restaurants, supermarkets will be built, pharmacies, maternity and children’s rooms, laundries will be opened. Along the entire route from Moscow to Kazan, there will be 34 such multifunctional zones, a number of which are already operational.
M-12 crosses many rivers along its length. The four most significant bridges are: the chain bridge over the Oka (connecting Vladimir and Nizhnegorod regions near Murom), the bridge over the Sura river connecting Nizhny Novgorod region and Chuvashia, as well as the bridges over the Sviyaga and across the Volga, located on the territory of Tatarstan.
The last bridge is the biggest. Its length reaches 3362.03 m. In general, this is the most complex and expensive engineering facility along the entire Moscow-Kazan route. The total weight of the metal structures of the bridge is 45 thousand tons.
History and prospects of construction
In the late 1990s, there was a noticeable increase in the car fleet in Russia. This not only increased the load on the existing roads, but also put the task of quality improvement of the road network on the agenda. It became clear that it was necessary to build new highways at the highest technical level. To attract private capital to the construction of such roads, the concept of toll roads was adopted (it can be introduced only if there is a duplicate free section).
The first such route was the federal highway M-4 Don, leading from Moscow to Krasnodar Territory. The first toll section with a length of 20 kilometers was opened in 1999. Currently, there are 11 such sections along the M-4 Don highway with a total length of 682.9 km.
In 2013, the first section of the M-1 Belarus highway was put into operation. It was planned to gradually build a paid alternative to the E-30 road, which would allow motor tourists traveling to Europe to reach Belarus with greater comfort and less time. However, for obvious reasons – deterioration of relations with the EU – priorities were revised and construction of the highway was not continued. A similar situation developed with the federal highway M-3 “Ukraine” (previously Kyiv highway). A large-scale reconstruction was also planned, which also had to be postponed indefinitely due to the deterioration of relations with Ukraine.
The M-11 Neva highway connects Moscow with St. Petersburg. The first paid section of it appeared in 2014. Now its length is 669 km and allows you to get to the northern capital in 5.5 hours (instead of the previous nine hours on the existing free roads). In 2024, the route should be finally completed after the construction of the northern bypass of Tver.
The M-12 highway is the fifth planned and the third built. They began to think about it in a practical sense after Russia joined China’s One Belt One Road project in 2015. As a result, the concept of the Moscow-Kazan-Siberia-West China transport corridor (or -wide: Europe – Western China). The task of implementing the first stage of the creation of this transport corridor (the construction of the Moscow-Kazan expressway) was set in 2018 by Vladimir Putin in his instruction “On the national goals and strategic goals of the development of the Russian Federation for the period until 2024 .”
By 2020, the highway project was ready. The opening of the highway was expected in 2027. However, the outbreak of the pandemic led to a decrease in car traffic. Talks have begun to delay the start of construction until after COVID-19 to minimize investor risks.
The Russian authorities, on the contrary, showed political will and not only did not postpone the implementation of the project, but also insisted on speeding up the work.
In 2021–2022, the construction of the highway is carried out simultaneously in several sections. In September 2023, the route opened to Arzamas. The launch of the bridge across the Volga and the last section of the highway on the territory of Tatarstan does not mean the end of work on its development. On November 1, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a decree to extend the M-12 highway to Yekaterinburg and further to Tyumen. In the meantime, renamed to federal highway M-12 “Vostok”.
Putin spoke about future plans as early as February 2023 in his message to the Federal Assembly: “It has already been decided to extend the Moscow-Kazan expressway to Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Tyumen, and in the future to Irkutsk and Vladivostok, with access to Kazakhstan , Mongolia and China, which will also greatly expand our economic ties with Southeast Asian markets.
The effect of launching the M-12 section Moscow – Kazan
Currently, the final point of the highway is Tatarstan. The region has high hopes for the launch of the new expressway. “With the commissioning of the route, Kazan will once again confirm its role as a bridge between East and West. The new road will have an effect on the economy of the cities located next to it, opening up new opportunities,” Kazan Mayor Ilsur Metshin said on the eve of the opening of the highway. According to him, the opening of the M-12 will attract an additional one million tourists a year to Kazan. “The new road will change the face of our cities,” noted Metshin.
In Tatarstan, the route passes through several cities, including Mendeleevsk and Chistopol, one of two historic settlements of federal importance located in the republic. By the way, it has its own Kremlin, which served as a defensive fortress during the Kazan Khanate. On the way, you can stop in the city of Bulgar to see a monument of Islamic architecture – the ruins of the Bulgar fortress, built in the 8th-10th centuries.
The new highway will connect the largest regional centers and agglomerations (Moscow, Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod regions, the republics of Chuvashia and Tatarstan) with the network of high-speed roads in the European part of Russia (M-11 Neva, M-1 Belarus and M-4 Don) , which significantly expands the geography of convenient road trips.
Travelers really have a lot to see on the way to Tatarstan. 85 kilometers from the highway is Nizhny Novgorod with its museums, the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin and the beautiful embankment. There are 146 historical monuments in Arzamas (and it is only about 10 kilometers from the M-12). There are 61 kilometers from Arzamas to Diveevo, and 71 to Sarov. Both cities are part of the pilgrimage and tourist sector. It remains to add that the cost of a trip on the highway from Moscow to Kazan for passenger cars will be 4,481 rubles, and when using a transponder it is even cheaper, 3,809 rubles.
Side stitching
The importance of the road is not limited to tourism, to one region or even to several of them. “The opening of the M-12 “Vostok” expressway is a serious, epoch-making event for the entire country,” admits the head of Tatarstan, Rustam Minikhanov. “Never before in the history of Russia have such large-scale infrastructure projects been built in such a short period of time,” he added.
The route of the M-12 highway is laid in such a way that, without passing through megacities and industrial centers, it nevertheless passes through territories saturated with production potential. According to the calculations of the planners, there are industrial clusters along the route that contain 70% of the Russian automobile industry, 50% of the space and defense industry, 40% of metallurgy, 30% of machine-building and equipment-building, 25% of oil refining, chemistry, petrochemical and gas chemistry and production of mineral fertilizers, 20% of food and agricultural production.
For all these industries, the possibility of using the new freight route promises additional economic benefits.
“M-12 will allow us to build new supply chains for various sectors of local industry, including those most closely related to the automotive industry. For example, GAZ is located in Nizhny Novgorod, and KamAZ is located in Tatarstan. We calculated that the macroeconomic effect will be about 2 trillion rubles,” noted the head of the state company “Avtodor” Vyacheslav Petushenko.
As a result, the M-12 highway will allow us to connect the vast space of our country – from Moscow to the Urals (and taking into account the M-11 highway – from the Baltic Sea to the Urals) and further, right up to Irkutsk and Vladivostok . In this way, the development of the territories remote from Europe and the economic activation along the eastern borders of the country are encouraged.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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2023-12-23 14:49:50
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