The project is absolutely planetary scale - so described the construction of the bridge from the mainland to Sakhalin, and from Sakhalin to Hokkaido, President Vladimir Putin. The decision to build a bridge to Sakhalin is practically adopted, said his plenipotentiary in the Far Eastern Federal District Yuri Trutnev. It is planned to bring the railway to the Pacific coast and build a transition to Sakhalin, Interfax quotes First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. The second part is a bridge from the southern part of Sakhalin to Hokkaido - Russia suggests that Japan build together, he continues, it is a question of a "mixed automobile-railway crossing".

Even after the Crimean project, the bridge to Sakhalin is surprising: it will be built in the middle of "nothing," says a federal official. In addition to crossing the Nevelskoy Strait, which is only 7 km (the narrowest isthmus in the Tatar Strait), it is necessary to build access roads to Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Nysh Station on Sakhalin, Tass learned from Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov: only 500 km of the railway .

Sokolov estimated the construction of a bridge with access roads of 500 billion rubles. in the prices of 2013. This is approximately 615 billion rubles. in the prices of the II quarter of 2017, PwC partner Dmitry Kovalev estimated. Initially, the amount was lower: in June, Putin estimated the cost of construction "lower than the Kerch bridge, it's about 286 billion," saying that the estimates are preliminary and do not include access roads. The cost of the Kerch bridge is 223 billion, but with the costs of security, land purchase and entrances to the bridge - over 300 billion.

Representative Rosavtodor categorical: Putin earlier (get a comment of his spokesman yesterday failed) was referring to the railway bridge, not the car. "We are correcting the Feasibility Study (feasibility study), it is ready," the first vice-president of the Russian Railways Alexander Misharin told TASS. The adjustment will be completed in December, says a person close to RZD. Representatives of the Ministry of Transport and RZhD declined to comment further.

 The cost of building a bridge and 500 km of double-track railway - up to 500 billion rubles., Estimates Mikhail Blinkin, director of the Institute of Transport Economics and Transport Policy. Given the difficult conditions - a complex climate, high seismic activity, poor infrastructure development or lack of it - the amount is quite adequate, says Dmitry Baranov, a leading expert at Finam Management, who may need to create a consortium.

The Kerch bridge, with which Putin compared the bridge to Sakhalin, is structured as a state order, the only performer is Stroigazmontazh by Arkady Rothenberg. For the bridge to Sakhalin could take and "Stroygazmontazh" - he will need to occupy the capacity, which will be freed at the end of the Kerch bridge, the consultant consulted infrastructure projects in June. It is premature to talk about Stroygazmontazh's participation in the construction of a bridge to Sakhalin before the project is launched, in addition, the company is focused on the construction of the Kerch bridge, this is a priority project.

The railway will pay off only on condition of a comprehensive project to Hokkaido, Blinkin notes. The corridor will have special significance only if the transition to Hokkaido is built, Sokolov acknowledges, this will be the construction of the next decade.

In Crimea there are 2.5 million people, and on Sakhalin - 500,000, and there is no such need for mobility of people and goods - it's expensive, meaningless, in a sparsely populated region, says Infranews CEO Alexei Bezborodov, this money can be connected among themselves, bypassing Moscow, many regional centers, improving the economic interaction of regions. The amount of 500 billion rubles. significantly more than many items of federal budget expenditure in 2017, including health care, is comparable to the cost of education. Economic sense in the construction of the bridge is not, according to the director of the regional program of the Independent Institute of Social Policy Natalia Zubarevich. The Japanese business traditionally uses tanker shipments, she argues, the more the bridge is simply not needed to Sakhalin, where it is more useful to develop a ferry connection with the island and roads in the north of Sakhalin. This is primarily a political project - to connect Sakhalin with the mainland, she concludes.