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Moscow - Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin will send supporters on an epic car journey across 7350km to assess the state of Russia's notoriously poor roads.
Opinion polls show more than half of voters are unhappy with the state of Russia's roads, an issue that could become a theme in the December 2011 parliamentary election and a presidential election in March 2012.
Putin, 58, told officials that members of his All-Russian People's Front, a movement he created to boost the ratings of his ruling United Russia party, would inspect the roads from the Pacific port of Vladivostok to Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.
FOOLS AND ROADS
"They will see how the roads are being built and what they look like," he said. "We are here today to speak about an eternal problem, one of Russia's eternal problems - roads."
Putin's comments play on a popular proverb which says Russia has two eternal problems - fools and roads.
Car ownership has doubled to 40-million through the past decade but many roads remain dirt tracks and even major highways are littered with pot-holes.
Putin's government says Russia needs to spend the equivalent of R19-bilion over the next decade to double the rate of road-building and cope with vehicle ownership which is forecast to reach 60-million by 2020.
Foreign and local investors are eyeing Russia's ambitious plans to upgrade old Soviet infrastructure, including roads, airports, hospitals and schools.
POLITICAL STUNTS
Putin has not commented whether he or his protege, President Dmitry Medvedev, will run in the March election. The former KGB boss has been sharpening his image among voters with a string of stunts, baring his torso for a well-publicised medical check-up and revving a Harley-Davidson trike at the head of a bikers' motorcade.
Earlier in 2011 he drove 2165km in a yellow Lada along a newly paved road linking for the first time the European part of Russia with the Far East.
Putin was stunned when told by an activist that some of the road covering had all ready disintegrated, a frequent problem for hastily constructed roads which have to endure the strains of the bitter Russian winter.
"For me it is a surprise. I was there last year and everything was paved. Are there unpaved parts? Or parts of the road are under repairs?" Putin asked.
Opinion polls show more than half of voters are unhappy with the state of Russia's roads, an issue that could become a theme in the December 2011 parliamentary election and a presidential election in March 2012.
Putin, 58, told officials that members of his All-Russian People's Front, a movement he created to boost the ratings of his ruling United Russia party, would inspect the roads from the Pacific port of Vladivostok to Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea.
FOOLS AND ROADS
"They will see how the roads are being built and what they look like," he said. "We are here today to speak about an eternal problem, one of Russia's eternal problems - roads."
Putin's comments play on a popular proverb which says Russia has two eternal problems - fools and roads.
Car ownership has doubled to 40-million through the past decade but many roads remain dirt tracks and even major highways are littered with pot-holes.
Putin's government says Russia needs to spend the equivalent of R19-bilion over the next decade to double the rate of road-building and cope with vehicle ownership which is forecast to reach 60-million by 2020.
Foreign and local investors are eyeing Russia's ambitious plans to upgrade old Soviet infrastructure, including roads, airports, hospitals and schools.
POLITICAL STUNTS
Putin has not commented whether he or his protege, President Dmitry Medvedev, will run in the March election. The former KGB boss has been sharpening his image among voters with a string of stunts, baring his torso for a well-publicised medical check-up and revving a Harley-Davidson trike at the head of a bikers' motorcade.
Earlier in 2011 he drove 2165km in a yellow Lada along a newly paved road linking for the first time the European part of Russia with the Far East.
Putin was stunned when told by an activist that some of the road covering had all ready disintegrated, a frequent problem for hastily constructed roads which have to endure the strains of the bitter Russian winter.
"For me it is a surprise. I was there last year and everything was paved. Are there unpaved parts? Or parts of the road are under repairs?" Putin asked.
