MOSCOW, December 18. /TASS/. Construction of the railway segment of the Crimean Bridge has been formally completed, the Russian technical regulator Rostechnadzor said on Wednesday.
"Since February 2016, the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision (Rostechnadzor) exercised state construction supervision over building the railway segment of the Kerch Strait transport crossing. The statement of conformance evidences the facility has been built and complies with design documents. Construction of the railway element of the Crimean Bridge has been officially complete," the authority says.
The first train will leave from St. Petersburg to Sevastopol on December 23. Its travel time will be 43.5 hours. On December 24, the first train will depart from Moscow to Simferopol. Its travel time will be 33 hours. The train from St. Petersburg will be the first to cross the Crimean Bridge.
The 19-kilometer Crimean Bridge, the longest one in Russia, links the Taman Peninsula (Russia’s Krasnodar Region) and the Kerch Peninsula (Crimea). It will provide uninterrupted transport link between Crimea and other regions of Russia.