July 30, 2013. The reconstruction of the federal highway between Perm and Yekaterinburg might become a frozen project. Russia’s Defense Ministry does not grant the road developers permission to cut down trees in the vicinity of Zvezdny, a restricted entry administrative territorial unit, even though the ministry had allowed the builders earlier to put up an overhead road and the driveways leading to it. As the Defense Ministry is not reacting to any queries, the contractors might not be able to meet the commissioning deadline, Kommersant-Prikamye reports.

Permdorstroy, the company that is working on the road reconstruction, had to halt the road-building works because of a missing permission from the Defense Ministry to cut down about 17.55 hectares worth of trees. However, the law requires the Ministry to grant the developer this permission.

Permdorstroy is in charge of reconstructing the section of the highway from Km 13 to Km 33 in Perm Territory; the government contract for the purpose comes to 1.77bn RUR. Under the terms of the tender, all the jobs must be completed by August 2014.

In the meantime, the lack of a permission from the Defense Ministry is also delaying the construction of an overhead road that Mostootryad 123 is currently working on.

Incidentally, these are not only the drivers but also the authorities themselves who have publicly said the condition of the Perm-Yekaterinburg highway is ‘not very good’.