Midway through construction, however, financial problems caused the project to grind to a halt.
Such reticence is understandable in a city where many residents assume that officials use construction projects to siphon state funds.
Narula is the son of billionaire Indian construction magnate Harpinder Singh Narula, and his startup employs 50 people recruited from Google, Facebook, Goldman Sachs and games studios Lionhead and Ubisoft.
But traffic has declined since the 1980s, especially after the construction of a new port across the harbour.
A senior Russian government official – who spoke to Reuters – said separately that Russia has started supplying grain, equipment and construction materials to Iran in exchange for crude oil under a barter deal.
Meanwhile, collectors of recherché celebrity litigation may find much to delight them in the tale of one Charles Sarris, who is suing a stage equipment company for injuries sustained during the construction of a giant pink tongue for Miley Cyrus's current Bangerz tour.
The move – elaborated on in a telephone call between Tsipras and president Vladimir Putin – could see Moscow pouring as much as €2bn into the construction of a pipeline that would transfer natural gas to Europe from Greece's border with Turkey.
Construction is set to start in 2015, with the first coal mined in 2018.
In 2004, Lord Coe, chairman of the Olympic bidding committee, Ken Livingstone, London's then mayor, and John Biggs, then deputy chair of the London Development Agency, signed an "Ethical Olympics Pledge" in return for local support, giving guarantees on housing, jobs and training, and the promise that 30% of construction jobs would be set aside for local people.
The minister's letter concedes it has never been universally loved, but points out that in 1979 and 1980, soon after it opened, it won a string of construction and design awards.
One article even opened with the words: "Police were called in to investigate a construction firm after a 23-year-old woman accused builders of sexual harassment – for WOLF-WHISTLING".
