Wednesday, October 27 2021 12:45

ArmInfo. Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin spoke about the construction of airports by Azerbaijan in the occupied territories of Artsakh.

Thus, he stated that Azerbaijan, which is in hysterical euphoria from  the seizure of a significant part of Karabakh, decided to build  powerful infrastructure projects there: airports, factories,  institutes, power plants.

According to him, at first glance, this is not bad at all. "Let's  take an example of actively building new airports in Karabakh:  Varanda (Fizuli), Kovsakan (Zangelan), Berdzor (Lachin) and Akna  (Aghdam). One airport has already been built (in Varanda), two are  underway and the third is under construction for the next year." The  first thing that attracts attention is that there are 9 airports in  the whole of Azerbaijan, of which 4 are in Karabakh, "the blogger  noted.

At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that even after  studying the maps, it becomes obvious that domestic flights are  relatively poorly developed in Azerbaijan, the vast territory from  Baku to Zagatala (almost 550 kilometers) does not have a single  airport at all, although about 2 million inhabitants live there.   According to him, the same story is in central Azerbaijan and in the  south.

"There are more than 600 kilometers from Baku to Lankaran on the  border with Iran and there is not a single airport, although there  are also a number of large cities and more than a million inhabitants  in total.

But in tiny Karabakh, where no one lives at all and there is no one  except the military, they are building 4 airports at once, having  invested in this (according to various sources) from 5 to 7 billion  dollars. In other words, 99.9% of the population of Azerbaijan has 5  airports, and 0.01% in Karabakh - 4 airports," the blogger said.

Lapshin thinks that the nonsense of these mega-projects is that  Karabakh is a very small region. "From Fizuli airport to Zangelan  airport on the road exactly 102 kilometers, it is about an hour and a  half drive.  From the airport in Lachin to Zagnelan 55 kilometers. In  other words, they ran into airports wherever only the terrain  allowed, without even thinking about economic feasibility. I would  advise them not to limit themselves to this, and to build about five  airports in Karvachar every five kilometers, and one airport in  Fizuli is not enough, it is necessary to open the Fizuli-2 airport a  kilometer from there, "the blogger said. 

He also drew attention to the cost of servicing these new airports,  where empty planes of Azerbaijan Airlines will fly "for show" and at  the expense of subsidies. He pointed out that on average, from open  sources, it costs $ 50-70 million a year to operate a modern mid-size  airport.

"Multiplying by 4 we get that Azerbaijan will spend more than $ 200  million of budget money on already built airports a year. Each empty  flight flying to these airports costs an average of $ 30,000. They  will surely drive empty planes there every for show. The math shows  that entertainment is expensive.  And this is in frankly  poverty-stricken Azerbaijan, where pensions are just over $ 100 a  month, there are no child benefits at all, the education and  healthcare system is completely destroyed, and a third of the  population is working in Russia, "the blogger said, expressing his  conviction that all these airports - a story about banal corruption  and embezzlement of budgets.