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'Dancing Bridge' Missing $5M

The Audit Chamber has established that 152 million rubles ($5 million) of state money spent on the construction of a “dancing bridge” over the Volga River in Volgograd was used “improperly,” RIA-Novosti reported Wednesday.

The chamber's head, Sergei Stepashin, reported his findings to President Dmitry Medvedev. He did not elaborate on where the money went but added that the cost of the project topped estimates by 1.5 billion rubles ($50 million) because of bad planning.

The bridge, which was under construction for 13 years, was opened last August but closed in May after its concrete started moving up and down in one-meter-high waves.

It has since opened for traffic, excluding trucks, despite the fact that a government probe has failed to explain the phenomenon.

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