The handing-over of the passenger port "Marine Façade" to St. Petersburg City Administration was held today May 27, 2011, the PortNews correspondent reported.
The ceremony of the port transfer into the ownership of the city was attended St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko, Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg Vadim Tyulpanov, head of the Federal Agency of Maritime and River Transport Alexander Davydenko. Marine Façade Company’s President Shavkat Kary-Niyazov turned over the port’s symbolic keys to Mrs. Matvienko.
"So far the city has never had such gifts. St. Petersburg was in many ways a pioneer, now it has the only one in Russia specialized passenger port," the Governor said.
She recalled that "Marine Façade" has already been receiving passengers. This year the port expects to handle up to 630,000 passengers versus 400,000 tourists a year earlier. Now the port has all the necessary control procedures available at Ferry Terminal # 3.
Construction of the new Passenger Port of St. Petersburg "Marine Façade" started in 2006. Investments in the passenger port project totaled RUB 18bn: 10 billion rubles from private funds and 8 billion – from the federal budget. The port is able to accommodate cruise and ferry vessels with length up to 311 m and maximum draft of 9 m. The approach channels length is 10 km, the projected depths of approach channels and waters - 11 m. The length of the quay wall is 2,108 m.