June 23, 2010 By Grigory Pasko

Grigory Pasko: Rebuilding Vladivostok

pasko062.jpgIn early 2007 the Vladivostok newspaper Konkurent published an article under the headline “Putin and the price of the question,” which dealt with the preparations to host the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2012 forum. The newspaper quoted various statements by Putin and his stated plans for the “socio-economic development” of Russia’s Far East. However, further on in the text it becomes clear that the discussion is not really about actual development, but rather how much money should be thrown into new construction to host the summit. Without citing a source, the article claimed that 100 billion rubles would suffice. What needs to be built for them, so it says, is two bridges – across the Golden Horn bay and to Russky island; a complex of buildings for the conducting of the forum and the accommodation of its participants; a road from the airport; the airport itself… Primor’ye governor Sergey Darkin for some reason added that it is also planned to build petrochemical, aluminum, and airplane-building plants, an atomic power station and the Pacific Ocean Federal University. What these things have to do with the APEC summit, he did not clarify, from which one can make the conclusion that all this is needed specifically for «development of the Far East».