The word pontiff derives from the Latin pontifex, which in itself is the combination of pons for bridge and fex (facere) meaning to make. Probably building bridges was the most high-tech activity in the Roman times and therefore it found its way to denote the most prominent priests in ancient Rome. Later the honorary title was appropriated by the Christian Church to refer to a bishop and today is most often used in relation to the Pope.
But, it is Vladimir Putin that has emerged as the real pontifex-bridge maker of our times. He is of course so in many figurative senses but also in very concrete action. Putin has built more bridges in Russia than all the other leaders combined through history. Now, I said Putin has built bridges but naturally he has not built them personally but ordered them to be built and created the conditions for that. The reader will know that Putin's detractors, both domestic and Western, want to assign every ill that happens in Russia - and for them nothing good has ever occurred in Russia in the last 15 years - to Putin personally. This being the case, we might as well commend Putin for all the progress, in fact, to a big degree it has come about through his personal agency.
The case of bridges is doubly interesting in view of the Western media narrative, which would like us to believe that if there has been any progress at all, then it has merely touched the glistening oil-fueled capital, Moscow. "Go ten kilometers outside the Moscow outer ring road and you will see the real crumbling Russia", they say. Therefore, I will offer this snapshot to the impressive infrastructure investments in bridges, which have occurred during Putin's tenure at the helm of Russia. Somebody's got to tell it, because the Russian government is not very good at parading its achievements.
Of the 25 longest bridges in Russia, 16 have been built in 2000 or later, that is, after Putin first took office. The combined length of all those bridges is 61,379.5 meters, of this total the new ones (since 2000) stretch 40,000.5 meters, or two thirds of the total length.
For clarity of comparison, I included in the sample only bridges that reach over a river or water body, excluding any kind of overpasses or overhead roads. If those would be included then the comparison in favor of the after 2000 would be altogether devastating. Same of course if all the bridges beyond the 25 longest would be included.
And yet, my figures did not include the crowning glory, the bridge under construction over the Kerch strait which will stretch 19 kilometers joining the liberated Crimean peninsula with mainland Russia.
Below follows, a photo-tour to the 16 longest bridges built since 2000.
1. The crowning glory, the Kerch Bridge to Crimea, 19 km, to be finished 2018.
Comment: This one must upset the neocons in Washington terribly!
2. President Bridge, over the Volga at Ulyanovsk, 5,825 meters, 2009
3. Bridge over the Amur Bay, Vladivostok, 4362 meters, 2012
4. Rail road bridge over the Yuribey, 3893 meters, 2009
5. Bolshoy Obukhovsky Bridge, St. Petersburg, over the river Neva, 2884 meters, 2007
6. Volgograd Bridge, 2514 meters, 2009
7. Saratov Bridge, over the Volga, 2351 meters, 2000/2009
8. Temerintsky Bridge, Rostov-on-Don, 2255 meters, 2010
9. Yugorsky Bridge, over the river Ob, Siberia, 2110 meters, 2000
10. Bugrinsky Bridge, over the Ob, Novosibirsk, 2097.5 meters, 2014
11. Russian Bridge, Vladivostok, 1886 meters, 2012
12. Krasavinsky Bridge, over the river Kama in Perm, 1737 meters, 2005
13. Kineshma Bridge, over the Volga, 1646 meters, 2003
14. Academic Bridge, over the river Angaru in Irkutsk, 1615 meters, 2013
15. Kola Bay Bridge, Murmansk, 1611 meters, 2009
16. Boguanchi Bridge, Krasnoyarsky region, 1611 meters, 2011
17. Bridge over the rivers Kama, Arkharovka and Kurlyanka, 1608 meters, 2002
- In fact, the bridge is much longer, factoring in its total length stretching 13,967 meters; only the part over the river Kamu was 1,608 meters. (But for modesty I included only the 1,608 meters in the calculations).
Not the end, only the beginning....
Reader Comments
http://thesaker.is/israel-threatens-russias-food-security-via-secret-free-trade-agreement-by-scott/
http://nonalignedmedia.com/2016/04/zionist-putin-holocaust-skepticism-immoral/
http://nonalignedmedia.com/2016/03/end-times-jewish-cultists-see-putin-as-the-moshiach/
http://nonalignedmedia.com/2016/03/israeli-president-israel-russia-ties-unbreakable/
Enough of this beSOTTed nonsense about Putin: he's a Zionist, and his country has a Rothschild run Central Bank. No-one is coming to save us from our Zionist-run governments; especially not the good friend of Rabbi Berel Lazar.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:A_young_Russian_boy
http://new.euro-med.dk/wp-content/uploads/putin-chabadists_thumb.jpg
Adios fools -- don't say no-one tried to warn you.
http://nonalignedmedia.com/2016/05/ken-okeefe-in-toronto-zionism-jewish-supremacy-and-world-solutions/
Interestingly enough, TheSaker has started to try and counteract the accusations that Putin is a Zionist. Here is his mealy-mouthed spin on the Zionist praise of Putin (totally ignoring the context of Putin's Zionist laws that condemn questioning the Zionist narrative)...
http://thesaker.is/meeting-with-president-of-the-world-jewish-congress-ronald-lauder/
Question to you: If Putin is a Zionist, than why has he spent the last 7 months or so dismantling one of Israel's biggest and most important "projects" - by assisting Assad in defeating the head-choppers that would help bring about Israel's 'Plan B'?
If Assad can't be forced to leave, Balkanize: Israel's 'Plan B' for Syria
From Yinon to Yaalon The U.S. and Russia are ostensibly trying to arrange a truce in Syria. As The Daily Mail reported, Israel recently voiced doubts about its success: ...Israeli Defence Minister...[Link]
And don't you dare suggest Syrian integrity to Russia (even if you happen to be the, you know, the popular leader of Syria!)
[Link]
So Russia forces Syria into talks with the Zionist-backed invaders? All this did was give the Western mercenaries time to regroup and rearm. Even an idiot could predict this. Of course, Russia let Turkey dictate that the Syrian Kurds not be included, which led to the Kurdish declaration of "federalism". Russia shrugs, "not our fault". Yeh right.
And the "keep your enemies closer" narrative is about as convincing as the "lesser of two evils" con playing out in every single US election. It doesn't work anymore.
No point in arguing with the beSOTTed. At least I can feel I did try to warn you -- Putin is a Zionist. Did you even read the links?
Adios.
Putin's.Regime.Is.Zionist.
Don't fall for the East vs West kabuki.
The good reason Russia doesn't just 'stick it to then man' on every single issue every single time is that, unlike you, it has a realistic estimation of the powers and principalities that rule this world from the shadows.
It wasn't about saving Syria -- it was about saving the Oded Yinon plan and it's successors.
Some people really HATE Putin!
Anyway, I've had enough of this. Seems obvious to me but you keep thinking Putin is a "goodie". How childish. I used to think the same but the standdown order was UNJUSTIFIABLE.
Use your brains.
Cya.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
America has built about 1,000 bridges since 2000: [Link]
But of course, those include bridges over drainage ditches and covered wooden bridges for the tourists, as well as magnificent bridges-to-nowhere in Alaska. (Gotta spend your tax dollars somehow. Remember a few weeks back - April 15? Hope your rectum is not still sore from that one.)
That, and paying interest on the extra trillions Baby Doc Bush spent stuffing the pockets of Dick Cheney and all his other Repugnican pals while murdering over a million Iraqis.... but their lives don't count, probably only worth a few thousand dollars each in an American court of law. In 2000, the National Debt that we owed the Chinese and the private banking consortium known as The Fed was $4 trillion. Now it's $19 trillion plus.
Your own personal share of that debt is $62,000. And the same for your grandmother of 85 and your kid of two months old. $62,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country. (Including the illegal immigrants.)
Just think, when President Trump sends all those illegals back where they came from, your share of the National Debt may even climb to $80,000.
Why worry? Be happy.
"...send all those illegals back where they came from."
No. The Latinos do all the hard labor we cannot do or do not want to do.
Who would pick all our crops, and clean trash off our highways, or empty our garbage?
They work harder than any American, and are mostly law abiding, except for the drug-runners in cahoots with the DEA.
Without them we would be up poo-poo creek without a paddle.
I predict Trump, once he is President, will suddenly wake up and get real with his bombastic nonsense.
I'm not worried. I think he will be a lot better than people are afraid of. At least he is less likely to start a war with Russia than Killary the Goddess of Chaos.
(I hope.... He's up against the Neocons, who are lusting for WWIII.)
- LG
Whether we believe him or not, whether he will change once he becomes President or not, almost all of the commentators and pundits are missing what is staring them in the face: The American people are so utterly disgusted and sick of being screwed by every politician of any conceivable party, that they will vote for anyone who is not one of the cabal of corruption, lies and exploitation.
The more outrageous things Trump says, the more the Establishment hates him, and the better the public likes him. Every time the hated political class foams at the mouth and rants about Trump, his popularity soars.
There is an immensely significant and important message there, which I am afraid the political classes and the elites who run them, have not understood. This is that the American public is at breaking point, and will not take much more of the bullshit they have been feeding us for the past 36 years.
A few people understand. This man does: [Link]
That's an interesting article. I recommend you spend 5 minutes reading it. It has everything to do with why Trump is going to be the next President, like it or not. (Unless, of course, they kill him first, which is quite possible, viz. JFK, RFK. MLK, 9-11, and a hundred more like that.)
- LG.
You don't think Trump is corrupt, lies, and exploits??!
"The more outrageous things Trump says, the more the Establishment hates him, and the better the public likes him. Every time the hated political class foams at the mouth and rants about Trump, his popularity soars."
LG, Trump IS 'the Establishment'.
"There is an immensely significant and important message there, which I am afraid the political classes and the elites who run them, have not understood. This is that the American public is at breaking point, and will not take much more of the bullshit they have been feeding us for the past 36 years."
Yeah, which is why they are ripe for Trump and the sh*tstorm coming with him.
Don't get me wrong; I don't wish to discourage you from supporting Trump. I'm indifferent about who or what wins.
Yes. Just like the German people, who had been screwed over mercilessly at Versailles, had disbanded their army according to that treaty, while France and Britain did not, which was a violation of the treaty, and Germany had been invaded by 100,000 French troops in 1922 in an attempt to steal the coal and steel of the Ruhr, and lots and lots more along those lines, the German people were just as ready for Hitler as the American people are ready for Trump.
I am NOT saying and I do NOT believe Trump would build concentration camps or conduct a program of Latino or Islamic extermination. What I'm saying, and if you read that article I linked to you will see I am not alone in this, is that the icky-poo is about to hit the fan in America, because of the greed, cruelty, violence and lies of those who have ruled us (and the planet) with an iron fist for 240 years and more. There are a few thousand of them, (the CIA is only their tool, the enforcement arm of the criminal cabal,) and 300 millions of us.
The latest figure is that 62 individuals own half the wealth of the planet. 147 super-corporations own 25,000 of the world's largest corporations. People everywhere are getting hungrier and more desperate. The climate is going haywire. Every year we add 85 MILLION more humans to this planet, net of births and deaths. People who have nothing left to lose are dangerous, and easily led by a man on a white horse like Trump. Elsewhere on SOTT, Michael Snyder has an article about all the possible end-times scenarios facing us. With so many looming on the horizon, at least one HAS to strike, probably followed by others. Many psychics have said there will be no election, and that our world will be unrecognizable by 2017. I don't necessarily believe their visions, as I think there are many possible futures, not just one, but I am preparing just in case.
Joe,
You got it 100% right. The number of people in small cabals within our most trusted and respected organs of government, who knew the JFK assassination was going to happen, runs into the hundreds. There is almost no group - CIA, FBI, Secret Service, the oil barons of Texas, LBJ, the Mafia, the corporations for whom the CA works, the Israelis, it is stunning how many - who did not know about it or have a hand in it.
Step back from that and ask yourself - how was it possible to keep that, (and more recently, 9-11) a secret? The answer, I am so sorry to say, is that we as a human species are a mess. We live in fear, are driven by greed, and prone to violence at a moment's notice. Anyone who tries to change it gets killed by the mass of evil, fearful, cowardly, and violent animals calling itself "Humanity." Like we mentioned, JFK, RFK, MLK, Gandhi, and even Jesus of Nazareth Himself.
And don't tell me Christianity triumphed in the end. What passes for Christianity in our world (and has passed as such for almost 2,000 years) is so far removed from the teachings of the Gentle Nazarene as to be almost unrecognizable as such.
As you say, demons and psychopaths with reptilian brains have been ruling us since recorded history, and probably long before that. We are ruled by murderers, and the only way to get rid of them is to kill them, but none of the good people ruled by the murderers is willing to become a murderer and kill them for us. So I don't see how to change it.
- LG.
Just look at what our tax dollars have done to the infrastructure of Libya, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Lebanon, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, and about 50 other countries since WWII. Rather than fix our infrastructure, we destroy theirs.
And the scores of millions of human beings we have killed in the last 100 years? Well, human lives by definition cannot be reconstructed with fat contracts for Halliburton and Bechtel, so, to put it quite plainly, human lives are of no monetary value.
Mere "collateral damage."
Worthless.... Literally - not worth even one red cent.
Not worth David Rockefeller or Lloyd Blankfein thinking about, even for one second.