Orenburg Highway Duplicate First Phase to Be Built This Year

The first stage of the Orenburg Highway duplicate in the Laishevsky District is planned to be completed by 2026. This was announced by Russian Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin at a meeting of Tatarstan«s Ministry of Transport.

Also planned for this year is to start the next five stages of the duplicate.

«Probably, in a couple of years, our residents will feel this relief. But we will have to endure,» added the head of Tatarstan«s Ministry of Transport, Farit Khanifov.

This project has already sparked controversies even before construction began. Residents of the Kazan settlement of Otary fear that because of the duplicate, their houses will be demolished. They recorded a video appeal to the head of Tatarstan and collected 450 signatures asking not to touch their homes.

Local residents assumed that only one road alignment involved demolition. However, it turned out that both competing projects include the dismantling of houses.

Environmentalists, by the way, also dislike both construction options, as this will require large-scale deforestation and the destruction of an orchid valley.

According to plans, the Orenburg Highway duplicate should allow faster travel from the highway to the city center, and there are also plans to extend the road along the Volga and connect it in the Admiralteyskaya Sloboda with the duplicate of Gorky Highway.