OREANDA-NEWS. On 07 July 2009 was announced, that the island of Valaam will receive a reserve power station, and Ladoga lakeside will have reliable power supply. In the settlement of Laskela there goes construction of hydroelectric power station that will allow to solve the employment task partially and enable development of local enterprises.

Residents of the settlement of Laskela have not seen such construction since the XIXth century. In 1899 there, on the Janis-Joki river Finns have biuilt a power station to supply a paper-mill with electricity. The engineering miracle was destroyed during the war and restored in five years. Since then nobody thought of repairing the station, until builders and water-power engineers came to Laskela.

Chief of Podvodrchstroi Joint-Stock Company Alexey Andronov: "The former station consisted of one 0.75-megawatt turbine. The new one will consist of six 0.8-megawatt turbines. In total it makes 4.8 megawatt that will allow to supply Laskela itself and nearby settlements with electricity.

To subdue the river elements is a hard task. Despite of experience, hydrobuilders say that there's a great difference of depths and current. Engineers, divers, bulldozer drivers have come from St.Petersburg. Local residents are entrusted with easier work. Forty local people have managed to find jobs. As a result, the line in the employment service of the settlement have become noticeably thinner. Carpenter of the building brigade, inhabitant of Laskela Vladimir Potashkov, considers: the more building sites develop, the more people find their jobs.

While turbines are waiting in the sun, workers prepare the platform. A dam of six water-carrying constructions will be renovated. Construction of the bringing channel comes to the end nearby. It will bring water to the buckets of generators. The automobile bridge through the river will become wider. Automobiles there will move simultaneously in both directions. The project customer is NordHydro JSC. The project on electrification of the island of Valaam with cable to be laid through the bottom of Ladoga is being developed now. The power station in Laskela should become a reserve source for the monastery.

Chairman of the board of directors of NordHydro JSC Mikhail Zavorovsky tells about work of the company in Ladoga lakeside as a whole: "In Sortavala region we'll restore from 4 to 8 objects. These are the objects that belonged Finns when they lived and worked on this land. After the war they have been destroyed. Now we are restoring them. We have already passed all the primary phases. We understand which objects it is necessary to restore, and we'll do it in view of modern technologies."

NordHydro JSC plans to restore small hydroelectric power stations on the river Ukhta in Kalevala region, in Muezersky region specialists have reconnoitered three places for construction of stations. Research goes on in the vicinities of Pitkaranta. The capital of Karelia is not set aside, too. Probably, the river of Lososinka will start generating electricity. As they consider at the enterprise, only small generators are capable of providing high reliability, and the future belons to them.