Marina Kovtun, Murmansk Region Governor: “the issue of railway construction within the MTH framework was too politicized”

Murmansk Region Governor Marina Kovtun tells IAA PortNews about a disputable situation with building a railway link to the western shore of the Kola Bay within the framework of Murmansk Transportation Hub project and about implementation of Arctic Harbour project in the port of Murmansk.

- Murmansk Transportation Hub project is challenged by a disputable situation at Molochny settlement, the residents of which oppose the railway construction. How is this situation supposed to be solved?

- The residents’ argument was that the distance between the railway and the houses will not meet the norms, the railway will run through summer cottage area… However, this discussion was senseless as the project had undergone neither ecological nor state expertise by that time, while it is only the expertise to assess if the project meets ecological and technological requirements. 

The main conflict here arose from assignment of land plots. The residents demanded that the plots are not to be assigned though the plot is needed exclusively for the state expertise of the project to be held. As of today the plots are assigned for temporary use. The project can and should be amended only after the finding of the project failure to comply with technological and ecological regulations. Presently, it can be said that there is no subject to dispute about. This issue was too politicized during the election process of 2011. The population received no actual answers as there was no actual project. 

I hope, when Rostransmodernizatsiya obtains the expertise approval (and there is a possibility not to obtain it – we have lots of examples with projects debugging and amending caused by experts’ remarks), the project will be shaped. I expect that by autumn 2013 we will have a final solution of this issue – then the project will be determined by expertise requirements, not by residents or regional government, and no issues will be left.

- Another significant milestone infrastructure project is planned for implementation in the Murmansk region - the Arctic Harbour. Please, tell more about this, where is this project now?

- Last year saw the dredging works and currently the pier is being extended. A project has been developed for modernization of the passenger ship terminal – our marine facade. This project is to be implemented before 2016, by 100-year anniversary of Murmansk.  Sea border crossing point is to be set up. With this, our passenger terminal will be capable of handling cruise vessels with large displacement. We hope that it will be an additional impetus to the development of tourism and cruise shipping as Murmansk is an attractive city for cruise tourists. 

Norwegian shipping business has for a long time been considering Murmansk as one of the points for cruise vessels. However port infrastructure did not meet the requirements and cruise vessels had to call on the fishing or commercial ports which used to make the tour less attractive. As a rule, the tourists do not want to return to places associating with bad experience.

The plan and financing of this project have already been approved. Its implementation will let us stay alongside with other leading ports capable of handling cruise vessels.

The Arctic Harbour project is being implemented under private-public partnership. There is a number of private investors, Olympic City, in particular. But the key role is played by FSUE Rosmorport which has already planned to reconstruct our passenger ship terminal. 

Interviewed by Vitaly Chernov