Whew... I wrote to everyone up to page four of the comments saying “thank you.” I really am grateful, but I just can’t do any more. I’m tired. I’ll get to the rest tomorrow morning. I was sure there would be at least 23 people, and I thought there might even be more, but I didn’t expect it to be THIS many more. An interesting comparison from megakhuimyak This is all about that long-suffering tender for the construction of a section of Moscow’s Fourth Ring Road. The cost of building 1 kilometer comes to more than 700 million US dollars, which is just completely insane. For comparison: in October, a new Astana–Borovoe highway opened here. The road is 224 km (139 miles) long, of which 215 km are six lanes and 9 km are four lanes. The road has 23 interchanges and 9 bridges. It is also being equipped with a video surveillance system, speed monitoring, and emergency call service. The total cost of the road was 115 billion tenge, or 960 million dollars, which works out to about 4.29 million dollars per kilometer. *In Moscow, Luzhkov (then mayor of Moscow) would have built only 6 meters and 13 centimeters (about 20 feet 1 inch) of the Fourth Ring Road for that kind of money. \\\ Of course, over there it’s just a road, while here it’s one continuous overpass. Of course, over there it’s out on the steppe, while here it’s in the city. But still, it’s remarkable. Here, one kilometer; there, 224.