Putin Announces Another ‘Mega’ Project But Experts Say Russian Building Industry ‘More Dead than Alive’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 16 – Like his Soviet predecessors, Vladimir Putin loves to promote giant projects that attract a great deal of attention. His latest is to build a bridge between the Russian mainland and Sakhalin Island, a project that will attract enormous international attention and allow him to give out more state funds to his corrupt supporters.

            But both despite and because of such projects – and this one comes even though the bridge to Crimea is not yet finished (bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-15/putin-treads-where-stalin-failed-with-mega-project-in-the-works) – independent Russian experts say their country’s construction industry is “more dead than alive” (svpressa.ru/realty/article/183562/).

            The construction ministry continues to put out upbeat claims, but statistics show that the overall changes in the economy have not had the consequences for the construction industry that many predicted and that in fact, except for figures boosted by increases in cost for elite housing, there have been significant declines in amount of new housing and even prices for other kinds.