Russia-South Ossetia Gas Pipeline Seen As Landmark of Integration

Text of report by heavyweight Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 30 May

[Report by Marina Perevozkina: "Ossetians United With the Pipe" - taken from HTML version of source provided by ISP]

Slowly but surely, South Ossetia is consistently integrating itself into a single economic organism with Russia. A ceremony of welding the first “golden” coupling in the main gas pipeline Kavkaz (Dzuarikau-Tskhinvali) running from North Ossetia to South Ossetia was held yesterday [ 29 May] in the Kudar Gorge on territory of South Ossetia, in the town of Kvaysa. The event was devoted to celebration of the 16th anniversary of proclamation of South Ossetia’s independence. The festivities were clouded by yet another terrorist act: A car was blown up on the OMON [Special-Purpose Police Detachment] car parking in Tskhinvali.

According to South Ossetian sources, the car was purchased in Georgia. The explosion wounded six staffers of the South Ossetia MVD [Internal Affairs Ministry].

Before the explosion, all the republic’s leaders had driven out of the capital in the Kvaysa direction by a roundabout road and contact with them was difficult.

On 29 May 1992, in the heat of the Georgian-Ossetian armed conflict, the republic’s Supreme Council adopted the act proclaiming independence of the South Ossetian Republic. Yesterday, to mark the 16th anniversary of that event, the first “golden” coupling was welded in the gas pipeline on territory of South Ossetia that will soon carry the blue fuel from Russia to the unrecognized republic.

The construction of the Dzuarikau-Tskhinvali gas pipeline, which costs more than 15 billion roubles [R], began in 2006. Its total length should be 163 km, including 92 km running on territory of North Ossetia. What makes this project unique is the fact that the gas pipeline will be laid across the Main Caucasian Ridge, in the mountainous region on complicated terrain, in the seismic zone. Some of its stretches will run at an altitude of more than 3,000 m above sea level. Specialists note that no other gas pipeline of this kind has ever been built in the world. In the words of Albert Dzhusoyev, general director of the general contractor company OAO [open joint- stock company] Stroyprogress, the pipeline “will become the world’s highest.”

The need to build this gas pipeline is connected with the fact that at present the unrecognized republic receives gas from Georgia via a branch of the Tbilisi-Kutaisi pipeline at about $300 per 1,000 cubic meters. In addition, the price of this gas consists of the price paid by Georgia plus a margin for gas transportation and VAT [value-added tax]. Thanks to the launch of the new gas pipeline, Tskhinvali plans to receive the blue fuel at Russian domestic prices: $40. It is planned that most of the construction work will be completed in 2008.

“The economic significance of this event is that it brings near that happy day on which South Ossetia becomes provided with gas, which will allow it to resolve social problems and speed up the process of restoring the republic’s war-devastated economy,” Ruslan Bzarov, a history professor at North Ossetian State University, said in an interview to Nezavisimaya Gazeta. “But this event has a huge social and political significance, too. This gas pipeline is a symbol of Russian support for South Ossetia. It also symbolizes Ossetian unity. Standing behind it is the image of Russia, which is considered by the Ossetian people as their national state. Unification of the Ossetian people is a goal that our civil society has set for itself.”

In the context of Russian-Georgian relations, the gas pipeline construction, in the historian’s opinion, is viewed as a move in a direction chosen by Russia. “All is going according to plan, all is going in compliance with intentions declared by Moscow. No doubt, it is yet another important stage in the integration of South Ossetia into the Russian economy.”

Originally published by Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow, in Russian 30 May 08.

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