In Vladivostok, the longest suspended bridge in the world has been opened

Vladivostok (Russia) - Today, the longest suspended bridge in the world, the Bridge to Russky Island, was ceremoniously opened in Vladivostok. The Moscow Times reported this on their website. The construction cost exceeded 28 billion rubles (17.5 billion crowns). The bridge is now in testing operation, and it is expected to be opened for public transport from August 1.
     Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, during the opening of the bridge, praised the Russian workers and specialists who worked on the construction. "Everything went perfectly. Foreigners cannot be trusted to do things properly. Unfortunately, we may not know how to build houses, but in any case, we know how to construct such buildings,” he said.
     The Bridge to Russky Island, with a span of 1104 meters, surpassed the previous longest Chinese bridge, the Sutong Bridge from 2008 (1088 meters). With pillars reaching a height of 320.9 meters, it also became the second highest bridge by the height of its construction behind the Millau Viaduct in southern France (343 meters).
     The structure is part of a network of three large bridges that will connect the local airport with the urban agglomeration. The bridges are part of an urban motorway, which is expected to become the communication backbone of the over half a million inhabitants of Vladivostok in the future.
     "I am confident that it will serve a large number of people living in Vladivostok and on Russky Island, as well as those who come as tourists," said Medvedev. "It is simply a magnificent construction, embodying the spirit of engineering."
     According to the media, the ambitious construction project was accompanied by numerous surprises and unpleasant incidents. In the summer of 2010, the construction of the infrastructure was halted for several months due to the discovery of mass graves, containing the bodies of hundreds of victims of the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, from the interwar period. At the end of this spring, part of the already completed expressway was washed away by floodwaters, causing significant damage due to poor project design and negligence on the part of the builders.
     All problems during the construction of the bridge, which will also be used by politicians at the APEC summit in September, have been resolved according to Russian authorities. Medvedev today expressed the same conviction, stating that any shortcomings will be addressed.