Interview to RBC. “The issue of high quality roads will be relevant for more than a decade”

Oleg Abramov, Director for Infrastructure Construction Engineering Support of Regional Projects at JSC Stroytransgaz, told RBC+ why Russia needs a transport route between Europe and China today.

- What importance does Russia give to high-quality roads in the current economic reality?

– Roads have at all times served as vital arteries for any country and any society. If there is a road, there is development of the territory along it. This is how new regions grow, and high-quality roads not only provide them with transport accessibility, but increase the tourism appeal as well. Given the size of our country and the remoteness of some territories, the issue of building high-quality road surfaces will be relevant for more than a decade.

— Why is the M-12 Moscow-Kazan highway one of the priority infrastructure projects today?

– M-12 is really the largest project in the field of transport construction in modern Russia. We are not just building a road. We are creating an international transport route that is designed to connect the countries of the Western Europe with key Asian markets all the way to Southeast Asia. Geographically, we are at the very centre of what was once called the Great Silk Road, which functioned millennia before the present-day world. The M-12 project for our country is as important as oxygen for a human being.

— Now the first stage of project execution is underway: by 2024 it is planned to put into operation an 80 km section running through the Moscow and Vladimir regions. What has been done already?

— At the moment, we are commissioning the first section of the route with the length of 48 km, which is ahead of schedule. The traffic will be launched on it by the year end. Stroytransgaz plans to complete the work on this section next year instead of 2024. This will take some load off the cargo and passenger traffic in the immediate vicinity of the capital, the road network of satellite cities, and will increase the average speed and safety. Some sections of existing roads along the Vladimir direction are rather worn out, and there are many settlements along this route; however, the number of traffic lanes is not sufficient at some sections. It is a virtually unending stream of trucks and vans, going non-stop and around the clock. Therefore, a new section for the metropolitan agglomeration residents will significantly improve the traffic situation, and those who are fond of domestic tourism will be able to get to one of the ‘pearls’ of the Golden Ring of Russia in a quick and comfortable way.

We design and build this road for category 1B, which implies two lanes in each direction with completely separate flows, with acceleration and deceleration lanes, traffic islands, no traffic lights or one-level intersections with other roads.

– What is the biggest headache of such a project – terrain specifics or human factor?

— In the context of modern construction projects – both of them. Firstly, we have never designed or built so fast, as we were given the task to complete the work in a quick and high quality manner and to commission quite large and extended sections. Let us say, when we only commenced the design surveys, the site of 80 km was teeming with over 20 machines involved in drilling, surveying, and engineering activities. When it came to building artificial structures, each site was, in fact, worked by a separate crew operating specialized equipment – piling and drilling rigs, high-capacity cranes, etc. When such equipment is needed by everyone at the same time, a market boom occurs and can even lead to a certain shortage.

The same applies to the logistics and supply of products and materials – after all, several sections of M-12 are under construction at the same time, and our colleagues in other sections, just like us, were looking for suppliers of building structures, inert materials, bridge beams, and rolled metal. We faced significant difficulties with setting up the appropriate supply chains, the absence of which makes it impossible to deliver materials on time, assemble them and avoid, figuratively speaking, being in the way of your neighbours who solve similar problems.

From the technical perspective, the current stage included several difficult locations at once. For example, the so-called PK-117 section where the road crosses the Kirzhach River. The river at this location has a rather steep bend of about 150 degrees, and according to the project, in one area the road goes virtually along the river. For roadbed protection against scour or erosion, we used left-in-place sheet pile to make a retaining wall several hundred meters long, which protects the road section from the possible river movement.

Another interesting and technically challenging location was PK-283. This is an ancient reservoir’s oxbow, of about 250 meters long, with very weak soil and peat up to 15–17 m deep. Soil replacement in such an area is hardly possible, so we decided to use an overpass over the wetland. The bored pile foundations reached 30 m in depth, the span length amounted to 63 m. That is, in addition to small crossovers and junctions with adjacent roads, we have two sections with rather complicated artificial structures that make it possible to overcome such surprises of natural occurrence.

— The COVID-19 pandemic and further events have exposed the shortage of skilled workers in road construction. Does the problem persist?

— For our industry, this problem is still acute. If the situation does not change fundamentally, we will face similar difficulties in the near future as well. There is a lack of basic specialists in construction, the industry has completely lost the school of vocational secondary education. There is a shortage of general road workers, masters, foremen, site supervisors, land surveyors, and as-built documentation engineers. A significant amount of those who come to work are either not qualified at all or have extremely low qualifications. This applies to both specialists in construction of artificial structures and to general workers.

Extensive amounts of as-built documentation and various checks imply a significant staff of engineers and technicians. And things are very complicated with them as well. We are trying to find a way out of the situation by involving graduates of higher education institutions. Where it is possible to clearly set the task, for example, prepare an as-built documentation package, we outsource it to third parties. The pandemic has really complicated projects execution, as our people work on a rotational basis, by living and working together for weeks. Disease spreading in such situations introduces negative effects immediately.

The current situation is a bit different. Most of our builders are young and middle-aged men. Recently, they faced a number of restrictions we are trying to cope with in a timely manner. Thus, the human resources remain one of the most painful issues so far.

At the same time, we pay great attention to meeting the contract deadlines. And the fact that the company will be able to commission the first 48 km of this route ahead of schedule proves that we have the right basic understanding of how to deal with such projects under the existing circumstances.

— Is the M-12 section the primary project of Stroytransgaz today?

— Yes, it is certainly the priority. Currently, the company's portfolio includes 60 facilities from the Far East to Kaliningrad. The flagship projects include construction of cultural and educational complexes in Kaliningrad, Vladivostok, Kemerovo and Sevastopol. 45 cultural facilities with a total area of over 600 thousand square metres are being built in four cities. They are constructed on the commission of the head of state and, I am sure, will become an adornment of our cities. These are complex structures with contemporary architectural solutions.

As of today, the company is participating in the construction of regional branches of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theatres, the Tretyakov Gallery and the Hermitage, as well as the country's leading cultural educational institutions, for example, the Moscow Academy of Choreography, the Central Music School, the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts – with secondary schools, educational theatres, boarding schools, dormitories and service housing for artists, teachers and employees. 1,400 new state-funded openings will be granted to art universities.

In general, this is an important project both in terms of scale and objectives. According to our data, cultural and educational complexes of this kind have never been built at the same time anywhere in the world.