A short and instructive story about how we threw 10 billion rubles to the wind.
For the Olympics, Russian Railways (RZD) built a separate rail line linking the airport with Adler, and from there with Sochi and the Olympic Park.
This was not some makeshift temporary fix, but a major infrastructure project. Nearly 3 km (1.9 miles) of track, 2 tunnels, and 3 overpasses.
As with other infrastructure investments, the idea was that the Games would end, but the trains would keep whisking Sochi residents and tourists to the airport in 6 minutes.
Yesterday, BlogSochi published an excellent selection of photos of this line and its station. At the moment, not a single suburban train is running on this line. They have all been canceled. The airport can now be reached only by taxi or bus. The Airport railway station has been placed in "mothball" mode.
Marble, glass, chrome, automated ticket machines, tunnels, and overpasses — this is what it all looks like now:
This little extravagance cost us 10.8 billion rubles in public funds.
Four years of construction, two weeks of passenger service. It is hard even to imagine how much this line cost per passenger. If we assume that every single (!) Olympic visitor used the line at least once—which is absurd—that would put the cost of transporting one passenger at around 27,000 rubles. For a 6-minute trip.
For perspective, the total amount owed to Russian Railways by ALL suburban passenger companies in 2014 was 6.4 billion rubles. The logic behind RZD's decision-making is hard to decipher. Somehow, wasting 10.8 billion in Sochi was considered acceptable, while uncompensated debts for suburban rail service led to commuter trains being canceled across the country.
Tomorrow at 20:00, the second installment of the joint report from Sochi by TV Rain (Dozhd) and the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) will be released, including an interview with the very same RZD representative who, when asked "how much did the combined Adler–Krasnaya Polyana road cost," says "pause," stands up, and walks away.
You can watch the full version here.