Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov were unable to see the sights of Murmansk through the steamy windows.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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The Final Push North
Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to Murmansk yesterday and gave a short but impassioned speech in the city council. He began by speaking of the development of the Murmansk trade port and continued with the intriguing idea of stopping the investment of Russian money in the Estonian port of Sillamae. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov reports from on board the ship Polaris.
The president boarded the Polaris in Murmansk to travel to the atomic submarine 50 Years of Victory, on which a city council meeting would be held. As we sailed, Murmansk Region Governor Yury Evdokimov talked about the bright future of the Port of Murmansk, which recently united the trade port and seaport under a single administrative center, a feat the governor was endlessly proud of.
The governor showed the president the points of interest as they passed. “That, you see, is a military facility. Over there, that dump, excuse the expression, is a wharf. It has lost all military usefulness.” He was pointing a some black pilings that may have been a wharf at some time.
Because of the large number of people in the relatively small cabin, the windows began to sweat instantly, and the president was unable to see the pilings, or the tanker that “unloaded its ten-millionth ton of oil, so we gave it a party.”
A few minutes later, a waiter came into the cabin and began to clean off the windows with elegant passes of a scraper. He moved with the grace of an artist at his canvas. And the windows sweated up again at the same moment.
“Northerners are living better and better every year,” Evdokimov was saying. “The day is not far off, when they will come here and say, What have you built for us here?'” He was referring to the cargo terminals right in the center of Murmansk. I think what concerns city residents most with their rapidly improving lives is probably the outdated coal terminal that lets off a dose of coal dust into the city everyday that no miner every even imagined in his worst dreams.
The governor said that the decision had already been made to relocate that facility to the Western shore of Kola Bay.
“And what is that?” Putin asked distractedly, glancing at a slide displayed on the wall. “The oil terminal?”
“Return that slide!” the governor told the projector operator. “The one of the oil terminal. There!... Well, we are planning a small oil refinery there.”
He talked about what a great job Russian Railways was doing, even though it couldn't build a 30-km. line to relieve congestion on the freight lines.
“And what's that?” The Stockman deposit?” the president asked.
“Return that slide!” the governor quickly barked. “No, not that one!”
“Stockman, Stockman!” First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov put in.
Ivanov and the president had perked up at the familiar words “oil terminal” and “Stockman deposit.” The governor was asking them to pass immediate legislation on the development of the Murmansk Sea Trade Port and the City of Murmansk.
“If everything is decided at the city council session you are leading, Russia will burst forward!” Evdokimov exclaimed. “And no one will even think of making money on our cargo turnover, or file suit over ecological issues, as they did in Turkey… Because this is ours!”
I noticed that a member of the Murmansk regional government sat down behind the president as Evdokimov was speaking. He was one of the organizers of the event. He was trying to look serious even as he shot glances at the local press photographer, obviously trying to signal him to take his picture. The photographer then made an honest effort to get the official and the president in a single shot, but a post got in the way. Finally, the relieved expression on the photographer's face told me that the official would have something to impress his relatives and distress his colleagues with.
Transportation Minister Igor Levitin said that Murmansk would become a port that worked for the whole world soon.
“And what about Nakhodka and Vanino?” Ivanov snapped.
“Yes, them too,” the minister replied. He went on to say that a Port of Murmansk management company was being set up to develop the hub port. Rosneft, the Murmansk trade port itself, the Federal Property Management Agency, the regional administration, and others would be involved in the management company.
“Vladimir Ivanovich, will we build a rail line to it?” the president asked Russian Railways head Vladimir Yakunin.
Just then, a group of photographers entered and the sweat disappeared from the windows as the sun peeked though the clouds.
The president was telling Yakunin that, in spite of the high costs involved, that 3-km. rail branch would have to be built.
Yakunin looked at the president and spoke about the advantages of the decision to unite the administration of the two ports in Murmansk.
“Great!” the president exclaimed. “In one ear and out the other.”
Yakunin also said that Russian Railways did not see he 100 million tons of freight turnover planned by Murmansk Region coming.
“And you won't see it until a rail line is built,” the president interrupted him.
“That's absolutely right,” nodded Yakunin. “We see the possibility of doubling freight transshipment. But that's all we see.”
That is, they have calculated that no more than 40 million tons of freight will come through.
“The long-term plans of the Russian coal industry is to reach 118 million tons of coal,” Yakunin continued. “Some of that coal will go for domestic use, someof it will be exported.”
“And what about the loads that pass through foreign ports?” the transportation minister asked.
“Don't forget about them!” the president put in.
“That's what I'm talking about!” Yakunin said heatedly. “Forgive me, but in the year and four months since you visited Ust-Luga, where you gave instructions to consider a free economic zone for ports, nothing has been done!”
He said that Russian ship owners were beginning to invest in foreign ports, including the Estonian port of Sillamae.
Putin watched him fixedly.
“There, they say, Have a tax break. No profits tax for ten years. Rent it for 40 years… And they are being supported by people who manage the coal business and who have sought political refuge in England!”
Putin sat with an expression on his face similar to that of the bronze soldier who was just moved from downtown Tallinn to a military cemetery.
“And so we get a 21-percent increase in volume in foreign ports from us in the last quarter, while the volume in Russian ports only increased 5 percent! The conditions must be created for shipping through Russian ports!”
The conditions that could be offered to the market with state support were discussed for two more hours at the city council meeting. But nothing noteworthy was agreed on.
But it seems that those conditions will nonetheless be created. There are other mechanisms than the market, of course, at Vladimir Putin's disposal while he remains president of Russia.
Andrey Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of May 03, 2007
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