Medvedev suspend un projet d'autoroute controversé - Pierre Avril

Dimanche dernier, 2 000 personnes s'étaient réunies place Pouchkine à Moscou pour protester contre la poursuite du chantier, une affluence jugée exceptionnelle.

Забавно то, что наверное 4900 человек пришли просто на концерт, а оказались записаны в оппозицию и теперь эхо москвы будет трубить на весь мир, что на антиправительственную акцию пришло 5000 человек.
Оппозиция такая оппозиция. Неужели никто не понимает, что все это не ради свободы собраний делается.

Poutine soutenant le projet, tout comme celui de l'autoroute, qu'il a jugé hier «indispensable».

Question: I would like to ask you to comment on the situation regarding the Khimki Forest. This issue came up yesterday. The State Duma proposed a new initiative. How would you comment on that?
Vladimir Putin:
First, there is always a natural contradiction between development and nature conservation. But it is clear that we need to build that new motorway just as we need to build other infrastructure facilities, for example, new homes, to improve people's quality of life.
Everyone knows what major transport issues Moscow and other large cities face. We need a new motorway between Moscow and St Petersburg, the country's two largest cities. This is absolutely evident both from the economic standpoint and in terms of public opinion. The question is where to route this motorway. This is naturally a very important question.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that we have always paid great attention to nature conservation issues. Just take for example how long discussions about building the pipeline to the Pacific Ocean lasted. Eventually, a decision was taken to build the pipeline 400 km away from the drainage basin of Lake Baikal.
Just recall how meticulous we were in our discussions of where to locate the Olympic venues in Sochi. Eventually we made concessions to environmental organisations and I myself took the decision to relocate certain venues. We even set aside additional funds for this.
Nor should we forget the discussions about the Nord Stream pipeline. We worked in very close cooperation with experts and international environmental protection organisations and managed to make the best possible decision.
All this reflects our approach to these issues, and demonstrates what we have done in previous years. Unfortunately, and this is clear, environmental issues are sometimes used for commercial gain.
Both then and now we have had every reason to believe that the campaign against the construction of port facilities in Russia's north-west, in the Gulf of Finland, was fuelled by our competitors. We have reliable information on that.
Environmental issues are sometimes also used for political ends, as was the case with the Nord Stream project. In these situations it is best to arm yourself with patience and try not to let yourself be guided by others' ambitions, first of all, the authorities' ambitions. However, I must say that representatives of various environmental organisations have their ambitions, too. It is a universal vice.
We have also faced situations when certain people came to us and said: "Nothing personal, just business. You'll have to pay. And you'd better do so immediately." And they named very specific sums.
I don't mean to suggest that we are in a situation like this now.
I believe that the decision made on this was sound and correct. It was an issue Dmitry Medvedev and I discussed.
I would like to repeat that this decision is in full keeping with our approach and our actions to date. Is that all? All the best.

In a rare reversal, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has backed down on his opposition to halting the construction of an $8 billion highway through a centuries-old oak forest north of Moscow — even as loggers said they already cut down almost half of the trees in question.

Putin said he was open to an alternative route Friday, a day after President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt to the deforestation needed to make way for the highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

“The question about what route the road will take is an important one,” Putin told reporters during a tour of the Far East, according to a transcript on the government’s web site.

But he also said the highway was a “necessary” project.

Meanwhile, Teplotekhnik, the contractor hired to clear the forest, said it had cut down about 60 hectares of the 144 hectares scheduled for destruction, Vedomosti reported Friday.

Putin and Medvedev made no public comment about Teplotekhnik’s announcement by Sunday.

Yevgenia Chirikova, leader of the Khimki forest defenders, told The Moscow Times that restoring the destroyed trees would take more than 70 years.

Putin’s government previously supported the partial destruction of the forest. But speaking to reporters Friday, Putin stressed that this was not the first time that he had changed previously approved construction plans because of environmental concerns.

He said he was referring to Transneft’s Siberian pipeline, which he personally ordered to be moved from Lake Baikal’s shores ahead of its construction in 2006.

Alternative routes for the highway are to be discussed at public hearings this week. But activists fear that the initial route might still win out.

“I fear that the result of the hearings will be predictable: The ‘right’ people will stand by their decision [to destroy the forest], and both the prime minister and the president will agree with those experts,” said Gennady Rodin, one of the forest’s defenders.

He said Khimki City Hall was pressuring local businessmen and state employees to sign a petition in support of the deforestation.

The government could consider two possible routes that have been drawn up for the highway and that go around the Khimki forest, said Mikhail Blinkin, an expert with the state Transport and Road Infrastructure Research Institute.

One route runs parallel to the railroad from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and the other passes through the Molzhaninovsky district in northern Moscow, he said.

“Both are more expensive,” Blinkin said, adding that the first route will require resettling about 30,000 residents, while the other involves paying companies that lease land in the area.

The Molzhaninovsky route was considered by the authorities in 2006 but dropped because Inteko, the company owned by Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s wife, Yelena Baturina, was planning to develop the district, Vedomosti reported Friday, citing an unidentified source close to the state company Russian Roads. Inteko abandoned the plans last September, the report said.