Three metro stations in the period of five years – exactly for each election of the governor of the city of St. Petersburg.
In 2019, the process of opening the Frunzensky Radius was not without scandals. In 2024, the launch of an entirely new line is in the balance, a new company owned by Smolny is in charge of the process, only scandals seem inevitable again.
At the end of 2018, Governor Georgy Poltavchenko was replaced by interim Alexander Beglov, who immediately began to promise to open up to 7 metro stations “soon”. The acting officer had full confidence that the promises would be fulfilled, so-called “by himself” – “Danube”, “Prospect of Glory” and “Shushary” were already being built at that time, and “Mining Institute”, “Teatralnaya” , ” Kazakovskaya and Putilovskaya were in a high degree of preparation. But not everything went according to plan, with delays and scandals, and these scandals, it must be said, still persist today.
So, three stations in the Frunzensky radius could not be opened for the September 2019 elections. They were supposed to be delivered at the end of 2018, but the Metrostroy company realized the plan only 22.4%. As it turned out later, this happened mainly due to a lack of funding for facilities (of the promised 36 billion rubles, 27 billion was allocated) and due to the fact that the city and its changing contractors did not fulfill their obligations to build the Yuzhnoye depot. The depot itself behind Transstroy was made by the company Etalon-LenSpetsSMU, which had no experience in the construction of such facilities.
In addition, the forces of Metrostroy were sent a little earlier for the urgent delivery of another object – the Zenit Arena (later renamed Gazprom Arena) – as they say in the company, they actually had to complete the stadium for the 2018 World Cup at their own expense. It is curious that this object was previously constructed by the aforementioned Transstroy.
As a result, it was not possible to make an event of the solemn ribbon-cutting of the Frunze ray before the gubernatorial elections in 2019. Subsequently, thanks to the efforts of Smolny officials, Metrostroy was artificially in bankruptcy – they simply did not pay several contracts with the company and terminated the contract unilaterally. Smolny at the same time created his own metro construction company, Metrostroy of the Northern Capital, funds were allocated from the city budget, which were included in the authorized capital, and officials, as well as equipment , were simply lured into a new business.
But things did not skyrocket. In 2022, when the MSSS was already 2 years old, it was realized that it was far behind the station commissioning schedule and, despite increased funding, needed more investment. Recall that 4 more stations, which Beglov promised in his election speeches to put into operation “over the next five years”, had already been practically built by their predecessors at that time. By the way, the governor himself today chose the tactic of constantly “hanging” all the sins on the “former contractors” – apparently, he is preparing in advance for a grandiose failure with the commissioning new stations.
By the way, in 2024, not 4, but 3 stations are already promised – Yugo-Zapadnaya and Putilovskaya as part of the new brown line and the Mining Institute as part of the orange line. “Teatralnaya” has not been brought to the surface over the years – it still has no way out, and now the people of Petersburg will have to wait until about 2026.
However, there are also problems here. First, as already noted above, in 2022 Smolny himself noted that the MSSS pocket business was not fulfilling the plan, despite increased funding. Secondly, there is not even a transition project between Putilovskaya and Kirovsky Zavod yet, officials are unlikely to dare to open a new metro line that does not even connect with the rest, so the situation here remains a big question.
Thus, Beglov’s election promises could become another deja vu for the residents of St. Petersburg – three stations have been announced, of which it is possible to speak with moderate confidence about the launch of only one – the Mining Institute .
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