At the ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation), we decided to stop getting annoyed every time we hear that “the Zenit Arena stadium cost 43 billion rubles” and settle the matter once and for all.
Friends, it does not cost 43 billion rubles. That figure comes from St. Petersburg Vice Governor Albin, who said that “the stadium cost approximately 43 billion.”
I don’t understand what “approximately” is supposed to mean for a large, expensive facility built with public money. So we simply added up all the state contracts related to Zenit Arena.
That gives us the minimum cost of the project—the amount that went through the public procurement system: 48,217,681,401.68 rubles.
Forty-eight billion. And, I repeat, that is the minimum estimate. As the table shows, we used not the contract totals but the money actually disbursed. And in cases where the information is missing, we did not count those amounts at all, even though they were quite likely spent.
For example, just this month Zenit Arena was allocated another 1.6 billion rubles, but there is no payment data yet, so we are not adding that amount for now. Still, it is clear that in a couple of months another 1.6 billion can be added to the “48 billion” price tag.
So the sense of inner dissonance we feel when looking at these sums and at what was presented to us last Saturday should be even stronger.
That’s what I talk about in my new video.
Zenit Arena really does show us the organizational and technological ceiling of Putin’s system. Vast sums allocated on demand. Personal attention and oversight from the president. One of the country’s most important construction projects.
And after several years and repeated missed construction deadlines, what they show us is workers dragging polyethylene onto the “ultramodern retractable roof” so rainwater will not leak onto the pitch.
So what can be said about genuinely complex projects? We have no chance of seeing any nano-biotechnology or quantum computers. Building stadiums without stealing 50% of the allocated funds sits at the very bottom of the pyramid of a state’s capacity for breakthrough technological projects.
There is a direct connection between the polyethylene on the roof of Zenit Arena and “Rogozin’s robot” running on Wi-Fi. This is the system’s ceiling.
To make anything better, you have to steal less.