Voice of America: Vlad in Vlad forges Russia’s first hot city on the Pacific Rim
The upside about an enlightened dictator is the enlightenment part.
With two pylons slightly taller than the Eiffel Tower, Vladivostok’s new $1 billion bridge to Russian Island is the longest cable stay bridge in the world. Opened last month, Vladivostok’s new bridge is already the city’s new symbol, comparable to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.
Five years ago, Vladimir Putin took a hard look at Vladivostok, the faraway city founded in 1860 by Czar Alexander II as Russia’s main port on the Pacific.
In 2007, President Putin evidently decided that in the era of Asian tigers, Vladivostok was the Pacific Rim’s ugly duckling.
In that year, the Russian leader lobbied and won the right to host the annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. With the most powerful leaders of Asia destined to converge on Vladivostok in September 2012, Russia’s five-year clock was set.