NAZRAN, August 16 (Itar-Tass) — Ingushetia actively works on drafting documents to submit them to the Russian Ministry for Regional Development so that the republic could join the project to set up a tourism cluster in the North Caucasus, Ingushetia’s leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov told Tass on Tuesday.
According to him, the project for the development of that cluster in Ingushetia envisages the allocation of up to 40 billion roubles from the federal budget for the construction of about 100 tourist facilities, including road, transport and other infrastructure. Documents are 80 percent ready.
Ingushetia plans to develop not only alpine skiing, but also ethno-cultural tourism. “We intend to also develop hiking and horse riding tourism, restoring and correcting tourist routes that existed back in the Soviet times,” Yevkurov said.
“We will also develop extreme tourism such as rafting, alpine climbing and sky surfing,” he said. He also stressed that “there are unique monuments of history and architecture at every turn, including a church dating back to the 9th century, in the mountainous Jeirakh region of Ingushetia”.
All this “presents an opportunity to attract tourists for holidays irrespective of whether there is an alpine skiing track here,” Yevkurov said.
He noted that according to experts, Tsori is the most promising and suitable place in the North Caucasian Federal District, as no other regions can boast such a good and long alpine skiing track. He stressed that the Jeirakh region, where Ingushetia intends to develop tourism, is a unique place, whose beauty must be available not only for local people, but for people from the whole world.
Yevkurov also noted that the possibility to develop year-round tourism is an additional advantage in Ingushetia.
The construction of five alpine skiing resorts in the North Caucasus – Matlas in Dagestan, Mamison in North Ossetia, Arkhyz in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Lagonaki in the Krasnodar territory and Adygeya and Elbrus-Besengi in Kabardino-Balkaria – is a priority project of the federal authorities. There will be also modern spa and beach clusters.
The alpine skiing tracks will be 898 kilometers long. There will be 179 ropeways and hotels for 89,000 people. The cluster will be able to daily accommodate 150,500 people.
The North Caucasian Resorts State Corporation was formed for implementing the project, and Akhmed Bilalov was put in charge. The investments may reach one trillion rubles within ten years, and about 330,000 jobs will be created.
The Russian government will consider Ingushetia’s entry into the project in September.