MOSCOW, December 29. /TASS/: The Crimean Bridge has been built using the latest technologies and can operate for centuries, if it is maintained properly, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the TV program ‘Moscow. Kremlin. Putin’ on the Rossiya-1 TV Channel on Sunday.
On December 23, Putin took part in the ceremony of opening the railway service on the Crimean Bridge across the Kerch Strait that connects Crimea with mainland Russia.
The Russian leader said he experienced "a feeling of joy and satisfaction for the work done with a good result," when he was crossing the Crimean Bridge.
"Judging by what experts say, it will serve for many decades and maybe centuries to come. It is only necessary to provide timely maintenance and repairs and it [the bridge] may operate for centuries, of course, Putin said, stressing that the most advanced technologies had been used during the bridge’s construction.
There had been three attempts in history to build a bridge across the Kerch Strait but "all of them had been unsuccessful and all the structures had been swept away," Putin recalled.
That is why, there were speculations that Russia would fail again in creating such a transport pass, the Russian leader went on to say.
"Such technologies did not exist before but we developed them. After that, all worked well and qualitatively and actually everything was done using domestic technologies," Putin stressed.
The Crimean Bridge is the largest structure in Russia and Europe that connects the Kerch Peninsula (Crimea) with the Krasnodar Region (the Taman Peninsula). The bridge is needed for continuous transport communication between Crimea and other Russian regions. The transport link consists of two parallel motor and railway sections. The bridge’s motorway section was put into operation in May 2018 and freight traffic across it started in the fall of that year.
On December 23, 2019, Russian President Putin took part in the ceremony to open railway traffic between Kerch and Taman. Cargo train traffic is set to start on the Crimean Bridge in July 2020.
