Prime Minister Vladimir Putin speaks with road workers at the Kamdorstroy Amur base (1,371th km of the Amur highway)

Transcript of the conversation:
Remark: Mr Putin, can I stand up to introduce myself? My name is Alexander Putintsev.
Vladimir Putin: Let's all stay seated, alright?
Remark: Thank you. I've been working as a DZ-98 motor grader driver for more than nine years for the company Trud.
Vladimir Putin: A grader is a big vehicle, right?
Remark: Yes, there's one over there in the corner.
Vladimir Putin: Ah, yes.
Remark: Our company Trud will finish work in two to three weeks - we will finish the asphalt on this stretch of road. I would like to know if you have any plans for such large-scale work in the future. For example, we have an organisation - it now employs almost a thousand good road specialists. I would like to know whether there will be the same scale of construction in the future. Is anything planned? Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: Mr Putintsev - and I want to address everybody here - it's too early for me to congratulate you for finishing the job, because the work is not finished yet, though I travelled more than half the motorway and looked at it. It is clear that it is almost done. Most likely, the route will be commissioned by the time that we agreed on with the minister - before October 1. I can see that there are small gaps. The biggest gap was probably 14 km long. But in general, the cushion has been prepared and everything has been done to fill it with the right asphalt mixture.
So I would like to thank you and everyone who worked on the road - I won't have another opportunity since I'm leaving and will not attend the opening. Currently, there are 2,000 people working, and I cannot meet with everyone, but to be honest I'd like to meet with everyone, to shake hands and say thank you.
The quality is good here where you've worked. I don't mean the first stage, the first section of road from Khabarovsk - this work was done in the mid-1990s, 1994 to 1995. If you were there - some of you were - you'd see as specialists that this section of road clearly needs to be re-built. This road was made using old techniques and materials.
Yes, I see that the road workers maintain it in good condition: they fill in all kinds of breaks, cracks and potholes in a timely manner. But the road passes through towns, is rather narrow and has no bump stops. Well, in general, this is a road of the past.
Now, to answer your question, I can say that first, we need to maintain this route and complete 100 km to Chita. As far as I know, there is an old segment to Chita, and it must be put in order. Then we will have to rebuild almost half of the road from Khabarovsk, somewhere out to Skovorodino. And this will also be a major undertaking.
But, of course, none of this is the main thing. Here we have finished almost 2,500 kilometres, but the traffic here, as you know, is less than in the Khabarovsk-Vladivostok area. But the road there is much, much worse than this.
I spoke with long-haul lorry drivers, and they claim there is a long segment of road there - I myself never went there, but I know it from the materials, and the drivers confirm it. There were plans to allocate budgetary funds amounting to more than 18 billion roubles for the years 2011-2013.
Then we need to sort out the Lena motorway, which goes to Yakutsk and from Yakutsk to Magadan. We are providing more than 5 billion roubles per year in three years for these segments. The first segment will get 5.2 billion roubles, and I think the second is getting 5.1 billion roubles. Three thousand kilometres - it works out to somewhere around 10.5 to 11 billion roubles. And we need to eliminate gaps in the hard surface of the road that connects the cities of Chita and Chelyabinsk.
All of this together means we need to fund this work for three years to the tune of approximately 40 billion roubles. This suggests that there will be work here for a long time to come and jobs will be guaranteed.
Remark: Mr Putin, they say that we will finish everything, but no one knows where we will go after. Will we have work?
Vladimir Putin: I just answered that question.
Remark: There is a larger question here - will we be the ones working or will someone else?
Remark: Everyone is worried, everyone is scared of being unemployed.
Vladimir Putin: No, as I said - don't worry, everything will be fine. There will be plenty of work. The only issue is that your company, which offers road-building services, is offering these services at the lowest prices. But this contract work is awarded through tenders. But in general, the work will go on, and there will be a lot of it.
  To be continued...