Did the Kirov authorities exchange the Yaran–Kotelnich railway branch for the deepening of the Vyatka?

      Let us remind you that yesterday, August 24, 2026, the governor of the Kirov region, Alexander Sokolov, announced plans to attract large-scale federal funding for deepening the bottom of the Vyatka River. He added that this would allow transporting goods from north to south, including by river.

      At the same time, Sokolov seems to have completely forgotten that a year ago both he and other government officials actively supported a completely different option for transporting goods through the Kirov region — namely, extending the railway branch from Zeleny Dol to Yaransk to the Kotelnich station, which would connect the northern and southern parts of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Many media outlets, including federal ones, reported at that time that this decision was supported not only by the Kirov authorities but also by the authorities of Mari El and Tatarstan. The then Minister of Transport, Alexey Petryakov (now Deputy Prime Minister), even published a post stating that the issue was being discussed at the level of the Federation Council and that students from St. Petersburg had even developed a project for the railway line from Yaransk to Kotelnich. However, it seems that these plans have been conveniently forgotten both "from above" and "from below."

      Governor Sokolov briefly noted that deepening the Vyatka is "much more realistic" than constructing a section of the railway. He also added that the Vyatka is not congested at all, while in the eastern part of the Trans-Siberian Railway, "you can't even stick a finger in, the density of the railway composition is such."

      It should be noted that the issue of the troubled branch has been raised for several years now. We first wrote about it in 2013, but at that time the work was postponed due to insufficient development rates in the region. The issue was raised again in 2015, 2019, and 2024. A couple of times, loud statements were made by the government of Mari El, which has no relation to the Kirov region where the work is supposed to take place. Now, however, nothing is heard about it.

      We should also note that in recent years, Russia has seen numerous corruption scandals related to deepening river bottoms. For example, in the Astrakhan region, a multimillion-dollar contract for dredging work was awarded without a competition, and the court annulled it, according to "Kommersant." In the Arkhangelsk region, the CEO of a company received money for deepening a river, having not completed the work in full, and was convicted of fraud, reports portnews.ru. In the Novgorod region, employees of a budget institution transferred tens of millions for dredging to an affiliated firm that had no relation to the work. And there are many such cases.