Fly as you wish: The runway in Pobedilovo can be under repair for 540 calendar days.

      The repair of the runway at Kirov's Pobedilovo airport has turned into a story of promises and delays. While Governor Alexander Sokolov and his team spoke about record repair times, Kirov residents are receiving mass flight cancellations, losing money on purchased tickets, and urgently trying to find other travel and flight options. Moreover, these alternatives are often several times more expensive than the previously purchased tickets for the dates before the announced completion of the repairs.

      A cry from the heart

      Recently, a post appeared in the "VKontakte" group "Parents of the City of Kirov" from a Kirov resident who bought tickets from Kirov to Sochi for June 21 and back on July 30 last winter. At that time, the authorities assured that the airport would open on June 8, and everything would be ready, so there was nothing to worry about. Tickets were sold without issue, and people planned vacations and booked hotels.

      Then… the deadlines were quietly pushed back to June 20, as reported by both the airline and the regional government. Now the airline "Pobeda" is sending messages to passengers that flights are canceled until the end of June. According to the low-cost carrier, the runway repair at Kirov airport will last until June 30. However, there is no mention of the postponed deadline for the runway completion until June 30 on the regional government's website.

      Now people will have to urgently look for routes through neighboring regions with transfers, lost time, and exorbitant ticket prices just before departure. And it’s not guaranteed that these tickets will even be available. Yes, the airline will refund the ticket price, but this amount will not cover the cost of airline tickets right before departure. And the money that Kirov residents spent on hotel bookings at their future vacation spots will not be refunded: after all, it’s not the hotel’s problem that "the plane cannot fly."

      Missed deadlines

      Let’s recall that back in January, the authorities announced that the airport would be closed from April 22 to June 7, 2026. At that time, we were told an almost fantastical story that the major repair of the runway, costing more than 2 billion rubles, would be completed "in a record short time – just a month and a half."

      Then it turned out that even the start of the work did not go as planned. In April, the repairs were unexpectedly postponed due to the weather. And then it got worse. On May 20, Deputy Prime Minister of the Kirov Region Alexey Petryakov announced that a defect had been found in the runway's foundation, so the deadlines were extended to June 20, and flights would supposedly resume from June 21.

      But just two days later, "Pobeda" effectively buried these promises, announcing that the runway repairs would last at least until June 30.

      "One and a half months of repairs" versus deadlines of 540 days

      It should be noted that this whole story about "quick repairs" and record deadlines has never aligned well with the documents from the very beginning. According to the draft contract for the major repair of Kirov airport (Pobedilovo), posted on the "Goszakupki" website, the work can take… 780 calendar days from the date of the contract signing. And in one of the appendices to the contract, where the repair timelines are specified, it is separately stated that the repair of the runway – the very runway in question – can last 540 calendar days.

      So while Kirov residents were being told about "one and a half months," the documents quietly contained timelines of almost one and a half to two years.

      In simpler terms: the contractor can take their time. All possible delays, stoppages, and extensions are already "written into the papers." Therefore, the stories about the runway being "paved in a month" appeared more like fantasies of the regional government rather than a real production plan.

      The contractor for a billion: what is JSC "PO "Vozrozhdenie"

      A separate story is the contractor itself. The contract for the repairs was awarded to the St. Petersburg company JSC "PO "Vozrozhdenie," which won the tender for more than 2 billion rubles, becoming the only participant in the bidding.

      The company is, of course, large and well-known. "Vozrozhdenie" has been involved in major road and infrastructure contracts across the country for decades. Their portfolio includes highways, interchanges, bridges, and airports. However, along with this, the company has a long history of scandals, lawsuits, and claims.

      JSC "PO "Vozrozhdenie" has regularly appeared in arbitrations with government customers for hundreds of millions of rubles. In various regions, questions arose regarding the contractor's timelines, work quality, and additional project costs. A few years ago, stories about inspections by the Federal Tax Service and the Federal Security Service surrounded the firm, and the media reported on claims regarding the execution of large government contracts.

      Fly to…

      And now, ordinary passengers are paying for all this optimism regarding "record deadlines." People are sitting with canceled flights and trying to figure out how to get to their vacation spots, weddings, medical treatments, and business trips. Because a train to the south takes two days of travel, and tickets for flights from neighboring regions already cost as much as half of the average Kirov salary, and not nominally, but actually received.

      And the most telling aspect here is not even the postponed deadlines: anything can happen on a construction site. The most telling aspect is how Kirov residents were habitually "fed" beautiful dates and triumphant reports, even though the documents initially laid out completely different timelines, within which the contractor could easily fit. The most important thing is the quality and safety of people, not the speed of "paving" the runway, which was announced by the regional authorities, and, let’s note, not the contractor. However, as they say, "the main thing is to crow, and let it not dawn afterward," and the repeatedly postponed repair deadlines can be explained by increased attention to the quality and safety of the runway.