Local residents, as well as tourists traveling on vacation to the Temryuk district or Anapa, are no longer threatened by many hours of detours: the bridge across the Kuban River in Varenikovskaya is open. In August last year, a major overhaul of the bridge was completed, which allowed to open a direct path through the Kazachiy Eric and Kuban rivers. According to reporters, the main work at the facility has been completed. The final touches that remain to be done do not prevent cars from overcoming the overhaul bridge across the Kuban in Varenikovskaya.
Workers have yet to work on arranging footpaths. But nevertheless, the main thing has been done: repair of the bridge across the river. The Kuban, as promised, was completed by August 1, and the journey was open to the joy of motorists, both locals and tourists, turning the steering wheel towards the beaches of Anapa.
When will the bridge across the Kuban in Varenikovskaya be opened?
This question has worried many for six months. For a long time it was impossible to drive here. The bridge in Varenikovskaya across the Kuban River is located on the section of the Anapa-Varenikovskaya-Andreeva Gora highway. In February 2016, the Stroyproekt experts recognized the facility as emergency. The movement of vehicles on it was prohibited. The bridge near the village of Varenikovskaya can safely be called strategic. It is a kind of connecting link between the three areas. After the crossing was closed, the inhabitants of one coast of the Kuban had to get to the other, making a huge detour nearly a hundred kilometers long. Drivers of reanimobiles from Anapa and Novorossiysk in order to avoid traffic jams on the highway used the bridge across the Kuban in Varenikovskaya. “When will they open?” - This question also worried drivers of Anapa-Krasnodar regular buses, tourists and local residents hurrying to work.
How long the repair would last was unknown to anyone. At the time the bridge was closed, detour routes were developed. Several directions were suggested to bypass the blocked section near the village of Varenikovskaya: from Temryuk past Krasnodar and Kropotkin to the border of the Stavropol Territory, from Temryuk to the village of Fontalovskaya, from the village of Peresyp to the village of Solyony, from Krymsk to the village of Dzhiginki, from Novorossiysk to Kerchsky the strait, from Krasnodar to Verkhnebakanskaya.
Sore point
"The bridge near the village of Varenikovskaya (Kuban) will not withstand the influx of tourists!" - The local Cossacks really sounded the alarm. We were worried for themselves, and for the 5 millionth region, and for tourists who had to, like the locals, make a huge detour. The bridge across the Kuban near the village was closed for repairs, but according to observations, work was not carried out on it for some time.
As activists told local media correspondents, they saw the first workers here back in the fall, in 2015. The tender for the repair was received by one of the Moscow companies. Workers wintered in the Kuban and left, tearing down concrete on the road and abandoning the unfinished repairs.
“Unscrupulous contractors”
The contracting organization carried out work extremely slowly. It became clear that they could not cope not only by the end of the term, but also by the end of 2016. In this regard, the Ministry terminated the contract and repeated the procedure for determining the contractor.
According to media activists, they became aware that the contract with unscrupulous contractors was terminated. For two years, this company is prohibited from carrying out repairs in the Krasnodar Territory.
Fears
Most of all, the inhabitants of the village of Varenikovskaya were afraid of the summer. The village is located 30 km from the Azov and Black Seas. Usually during the holiday season the track is overloaded. Many cars will be forced to go through the village, which as a result will be paralyzed: the settlement is not ready for such a traffic flow.
But the most alarming thing was that a person’s life often depends on the serviceability of the bridge near Varenikovskaya. Ambulances from Anapa, Raevskaya and Novorossiysk mainly have to cross the river in these places. Residents worried that due to the prolonged repair of the bridge, the ambulances would linger in the resulting congestion.
Other repairs
Simultaneously with this repair, repair of bridges across the Kuban was carried out in the village of Strelka (60 km from Varenikovskaya) and in the city of Temryuk. For some time there was a possible reverse movement. Residents feared that when the bridges were completely blocked, the road through the village would be a great test for everyone.
Do you really have to remember the ferry?
Such an opportunity was not pleasing to the stanits. Varenikovskaya is the first village in the region on the left bank of the Kuban. Once there was an exchange between highlanders and Cossacks. Then they arranged a ferry crossing. “Will residents again have to remember the ferry and boats?” - Cossacks were perplexed. In the courtyard of the 21st century, and everything was going well, the villagers share with the journalists, because the district was cut off and something had to be decided.
Repair completed
The question of when the bridge across the Kuban in Varenikovskaya would be opened was also interesting for the local media for six months. They followed the ups and downs of repairs and reported them in the news. Now they can tell the residents and other motorists the good news: they have already opened a bridge across the Kuban in Varenikovskaya.
Builders reconstruction of the bridge across the Kuban was completed ahead of schedule. The daily travels of residents and tourists are thereby prematurely reduced by several hours. Now journalists are happy to note that only road workers who complete the installation of the fence remind of the long-term repair.
How did the object give up?
According to Yury Surzhenko, the deputy minister of road facilities and transport of the Krasnodar Territory who visited the bridge and checked, the contractor put a lot of effort into delivering the property on time. Back in September last year, a contract was signed for the overhaul of the bridge. But the first contractor to start work turned out to be unscrupulous. The contract was terminated, repeated tenders were held.
There are no complaints about the work of the new contractor. Completion of all work was scheduled for late November. Despite this, the movement started in August. Previously, motorists (tourists and locals) spent at least an hour detour, now they go to the resort and to work on the shortest route. Navigation systems of tourists lead to the resort of Anapa, bypassing the bridge across the Kuban in Varenikovskaya. “When will the object be opened?” - It was a very topical issue both for residents and for organizers and repair contractors. Experts are sure: despite the traffic, the repaired bridge will now last a long time.
Thanks to motorists
The first connoisseurs of the scale of the work done were local residents, who were especially interested in the question of when they would open a bridge across the Kuban in Varenikovskaya. Drivers driving along the repaired bridge thankfully honk people in bright road uniforms. After all, their work saved the villagers from the need to overcome the extra 100 km bypass on the way to their relatives or to work.
Repair Features
Excessive traffic density of heavy trucks has led to the fact that the asphalt pavement on the bridge has acquired a wave-like shape and began to crumble. Riding along such a road has become life-threatening.
It is known that no overhaul of this bridge has been undertaken since 1978, that is, from the moment of construction. Initially, one project was conceived that did not involve the replacement of beams. But when the old pavement was removed, the contractors concluded that the old pavement required an urgent replacement. Therefore, new beams were installed, a convenient roadway of 9.5 m wide was equipped.
Workers confidently guarantee quality. In parallel with this repair site, another bridge was opened across the Cossack Erik on the bypass and Temryuk. This facility, contractors told reporters, has also not been repaired for more than forty years. Now, locals and vacationers who were actively interested in when they would open the bridge across the Kuban in Varenikovskaya can significantly reduce the trip time from the city of Krasnodar to resorts on the Crimean peninsula and the Azov coast.
Problem
The road accessibility of seaports and resorts, as Governor V. Kondratyev emphasized at a January meeting , is extremely inadequate. The total length of the coast is 400 km, but only two roads lead to it: A-146 (Krasnodar - Novorossiysk) and M-4 Don (Krasnodar - Dzhubga).
Highways are systematically repaired, which creates additional difficulties for car tourists in the holiday season. Phased repair does not increase the capacity of access to the coast. In order to relieve stress from highways, it is necessary to transfer them to the status of roads of the 1st category, that is, turn them into three-lane, the governor emphasized. The official instructed the specialists to develop a strategy for the development of the network of roads of the region. The Minister of Resorts of the Territory E. Kudeley was also connected in one traffic jam on highways and problems of road repair. The root cause of congestion, according to the minister, lies in the shortcomings of the system of formation and distribution of budget funds.
Subtleties of the question
The issue of the ups and downs of repairing the bridge near the village of Varenikovskaya has not lost its topicality after the resumption of car traffic on the repaired highway. Vigilant users of networks noticed some subtleties that reporters passed by. The group of authors of one of the articles suggests the Internet community to pay attention to the following. In their opinion, if the repair work on the bridge, initiated by the first contractor, which is defined as “negligent” in the media, was stopped due to the emergency condition of the facility, the contractor is not at all to blame. A state contract with a contractor who has received a tender for repairs is surely terminated if defects in the structures of the structure that were not found during the pre-project inspection of the object are detected. Such defects cannot be eliminated during the repair work; major repairs or reconstruction of the bridge are necessary.
Journalists allowed themselves to indiscriminately accuse the contracting organization of disrupting the repair work, not understanding all the intricacies of the issue. Meanwhile, meticulous researchers found information that this object has been “being traded" for the fourth time over the past year and a half. This gives reason to suspect that previous contracts suffered the same fate. This whole story testifies to the incompetence of not the contractor, but just the customer, i.e., the Ministry of Construction, which is also responsible for architecture and road facilities, which did not provide quality control during the design of the bridge, as well as in the conclusion of previous transactions. As a result, the emergency condition of the bridge, which has become known to everyone, has become known.
Many questions in this matter remain to designers who have unfairly performed their work, and to the customer who accepted this work with errors in assessing the condition of the object. But if its “non-repairability” had been installed on time, the bridge could have been built under another funding item and saved money, as well as time and nerves of taxpayers.