Can Someone Explain This? Russians Lay Asphalt On Snowed Roads

We all know that Russians are head-strong and they do stuff which ordinary people might want to think a gazillion times before they did it. Their Prime Minister himself is such a badass guy. Anyhow, we all have enjoyed the ‘in Soviet Russia’ jokes that exist due to this stubbornness of Russians. English Russia covered an article today on something that is even strange by Russian standards.

The tagline for the post said; ‘Snow has fallen? Time to lay asphalt!’ We were shocked and consulted Civil Engineers who work with us and well it doesn’t really make much sense. However, look at the pictures and see how Russians are getting at it; actually asphalting on snow covered area.

However, we have come down to two conclusions; the first states that maybe the area gets a lot of snow, perhaps for the whole year and its difficult to find a time when the Roads are snow-free.  While our second theory suggests this is just a way of making money since the road will be broken in about 3-4 months and a new contract will be given to re-construct the road.
Do you have any other explanation to this? We would love to hear it in comments.