Media: Russia will not be able to complete Saint Petersburg - Veliky Novgorod highway before World Cup 2018
A section of the M-11 highway between Novgorod and St. Petersburg that had to be completed before the 2018 World Cup will not be finished until 2019, stated Maxim Sokolov, the head of the Ministry of Transport, as reported by a local news website, Driver of St. Petersburg.
The Minister added that this year, only a 200-kilometer section of the highway on the approach to Veliky Novgorod would be open.
"Another 140 kilometers of the road from Veliky Novgorod to St. Petersburg are in the active phase of construction. I recently flew round this part in a helicopter. We expect the section to be launched in 2018 to 2019," Sokolov said.
Kasparov.ru reported in the past that the construction of a high-speed paid federal highway M-11 between Moscow and St. Petersburg, which should open before the 2018 World Cup, was close to failure in 2016 when it came to its last strips near St. Petersburg. The last two sections of the road were the 7th and 8th from Veliky Novgorod to St. Petersburg.
Construction work in late 2016 was nearly suspended. For several months, the general contractor for the construction of the M-11 highway, an Italian-Turkish company called ICA (ICA Astaldi-IC Ictas) delayed payments for the work done to dozens of large and small subcontractors.