MOSCOW, November 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will allocate 28 billion rubles (about $1.15 billion) for a project to build a high speed passenger rail link between St. Petersburg and Helsinki, the Russian railway monopoly said on Tuesday.
The project will establish an express train service between St. Petersburg and Helsinki, cutting the travel time from 5.8 to 3.5 hours, as well as allowing for the growing volume of freight to Russian ports on the Baltic Sea, and improving the environmental situation in the resort suburbs of St. Petersburg.
The project will require a total of 79.7 billion rubles ($3.2 billion), of which 28 billion rubles will be allocated from the federal budget in 2008-2010 and the remaining 51.7 billion rubles ($2 billion) will be provided by the railway monopoly, Russian Railways said.
