Dredging of the Vyatka — a pre-election joke by the governor?

      At the same time, the governor, campaigning for the elections, has returned for the fourth time to the topic of water cargo transportation and tourism, although all previous similar projects for the delivery of non-metallic materials and the organization of cruises, also initiated by all his predecessors, were ridiculed by hydrologists. And today, the inefficiency and economic irrationality have been proven. If all previous regional leaders — Vladimir Sergienkov, Nikolai Shaklein, Nikita Belykh, and Igor Vasilyev — did not return to the idea of cargo and tourist navigation on the Vyatka after financial calculations and explanations from specialists, then the current authorities are likely deaf to common sense. Because, according to Alexander Sokolov, the idea... is "highly realistic," especially compared to the construction of a railway. Moreover, the evidence of the "futility of the venture" — especially for its public presentation — has significantly increased over the years of "Kostroma governance."

      Sunk Millions

      For example, the deepening of the riverbed in the area of Kotelnich, which occurred during the spawning period of 2024 — with potential budget expenditures of several tens of millions of rubles, ended in complete failure. In August, the river became so shallow that the local "galosh" — a small PS-450 passenger ship with ten seats, which transported people from Zaton to Kotelnich and back — ran aground. However, earlier, in June — almost immediately after the dredging work, timed by the governor to the "resumption of regular navigation on the Vyatka in honor of the 650th anniversary of Kirov," the third barge loaded with Chimbulat gravel ceremoniously ran aground. And the residents of Kotelnich entertained themselves with the spectacle of a straining tug trying to push the multi-ton vessel from the "summer low water" to the next — about a hundred or two hundred meters — shallows.

      However, if we look back at the history of new navigation on the Vyatka, we can find a "dredging case" that occurred back in 2009. When a dredger cleared the fairway from Kirov to Sovetsk, where on the high bank at the confluence of three rivers — the Vyatka, the Pizhma, and the Nemda — was the dacha of the then head of the Kirov Ministry of Internal Affairs, Vyacheslav Buchnev (on January 3, 2015, he — then the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Mari El Republic — committed suicide in his own office). It turned out that the general preferred to reach his cottage by water, aided by the owner of a private dredger. But after the flood the following year, the depth of the fairway was assessed as "the height of a chicken crossing the river."

      By the way, without delving into the financial details of another scheme by the "first person," a well-known local politician "laughed for a long time at the Kirov project from Varangians to Greeks": "It would be one thing if a utopian, fictional concept was born — like the loud idea of building a world-class campus in Kirov. But when there is a serious discussion about the actual intention to connect the Northern Sea Route — via the Vyatka — with the Caspian Sea, this, my friends, is from the story of New Vasjuki. It's good that elections are coming soon, otherwise they would have agreed to asphalt the Great Silk Road with federal funds," the political representative still chuckles.

      Selling Unnecessary Things Expensively

      However, at one of the first presentations of the future Vyatka navigation by Sokolov, where journalists were invited for pomp and protocol, the then head of the Ministry of Transport, Yuri Loginov, carelessly "lowered the water concept below the plinth." Uninformed about the purpose of the event, Loginov referred to the project as stillborn, citing arguments from a report prepared together with the Minister of Natural Resources Alla Albegova. "The forests along the banks of the Vyatka are almost all cut down — therefore, the river meanders wherever it wants and becomes shallow due to drained swamps. So with disrupted natural water circulation and fast currents — all excavations will be filled in within a few days," noted Loginov.

      Thus, even for the deepening of the riverbed only on the 270-kilometer stretch from Kirov to Sovetsk — to give it the status of navigable, the 7 billion ruble costs for the Novovyatsky tunnel will seem like "a drop in the river." Probably, to provide at least some economic justification for the deepening work, in December 2024, Deputy Governor Alexey Zherdev announced that throughout the five-year period necessary for the comprehensive completion of the work, very high-quality sand would be dredged: "It will be extracted cheaply and sold expensively, so it turns out quite profitable."

      However, Alexey Alexandrovich, who left the post of deputy governor on February 24, probably "fantasized" about the high quality. According to an expert conclusion received by the Ministry of Transport, "this sand is unsuitable for PGS construction and can only be used for road filling." At the same time, the regional leadership did not pay attention to the fact that river sand, like minerals, is federal property. And its unlicensed sale is punishable by law.

      Divers are Searching for Treasures

      By the way, when assessing the cost of dredging work: from the Kama to Vyatskiye Polyany 270 kilometers, from V. Polyany to Sovetsk — through Malmyzh — 160 km, and another 270 from Sovetsk to Kirov (not counting the mileage of the northern channel), specialists only mention "very approximate prices" — hundreds of billions of rubles. At the same time, no one thought — neither in technical nor in financial terms — that cleaning the bottom could not be done solely with dredgers.

      Since since the times of timber rafting (the last rafts were driven down the Vyatka in the middle of the last century) and log rafting, the riverbed has accumulated echelons of cut trunks and logs that have been lying in the water for half a century or more. They are called morainic wood, comparable in price to precious stones and metals. So not only divers and special equipment, which we do not have, are needed, but also time — several seasons, so that before the start of dredging work, a map of the riverbed appears.

      "Of course, I would like to see the project itself — taking into account the cost of work and technical specifications, but no one is mentioning it. So it turns out that the execution of the most complex and costly hydraulic engineering works is discussed as a banal Saturday cleanup — 'let's go, comrades, dig.' Especially considering that the region is unlikely to have even one dredger on its balance sheet, and private owners might have a couple, it is clear why in the 'gray house' they talk about deepening the riverbed, at best, as a 'governor's joke.' Although this is not a joke, but some kind of public mockery," shares the opinion of one of the members of the "political cabinet."