A unique tourist project began its operating in Ingushetia – in the Dzheyrakh area of the republic it is planned to revive the Soviet health resort Armakhi and construct a new mountain-skiing resort Tsori. Yunus-bek Yevkurov, the head of Ingushetia, and his team gathered a press conference as a PR-step on promoting the project.
Yunus-bek Yevkurov called the Dzheyrakh area the cradle of Ingushetia, reminding that “in Soviet times it hosted a lot of tourists from the Soviet Union and foreign countries, this is a place where sometimes our astronauts would undergo their recovery treatment, a place that can indeed help with many diseases. The medical committee that studied it before the creation of the tourist cluster confirms this. We are particularly focused on tourists with limited capacities because it can help with their recovery. The resort of Aramkhi is already a brand, we just need to revive the past traditions. A proposed place of another resort – Tsori – is a new one, there was no resort there before. This place was chosen for skiing, this place has good prospects and is no worse than any other Caucasian resorts. Both of these places, as you can see on the slides, are amazingly beautiful, allowing tourists not only to ski or to get medical treatment but provides a wide range of other possibilities.”
Yuri Tyrtyshov, the deputy director of “Resorts of North Caucasus,” said that this place is a wonderful ski resort. It has very good slopes, right for skiing, with little forest, not very steep but picturesque. The altitude of the slopes means that they will have enough snow. The routes start at almost 3000 m, a little less – 2950 m and go down to around 1200 m, these altitudes guarantee snow and the possibility to ski. Tsori is very beautiful and is good enough to develop other types of tourism apart from skiing. “I think that every Russian should go to this place. It has unique architectural monuments from different cultures, military towers, religious monuments – for instance a Christian church of the 8-9th century, and it is in a very good condition and still used. It is a unique place, although rarely mentioned. We can speak of historical tourism, religious tourism and another direction, mentioned today, is the development of the health sector. Not all the people coming to the ski resort do active sports – some of their family members or even active sportsmen may want to undergo some health treatment. There is a good basis for this with the great mineral waters that really help, I can tell you this from my own experience, this works very well. I am still in good shape. This place is very useful for our country. I think it is an important case, when we have both the desire and the possibility to develop this region. If somebody had suggested developing resorts in Ingushetia five years ago it would not have sounded reasonable. But now, I can tell you, the situation is prepared politically and economically, the federal and local authorities have the necessary capacity, but, on the other hand, there is a demand for it. And this is not only demand from Russians – I am sure that the neighboring Caucasian regions will go to this place, together with the tourists from the entire country, and foreign ones as well,” Tyrtyshov said.
Akhmed Palankoyev, the senator from Ingushetia, the head of the “Akropol” company, added some technical points. “Apart from the beauties of the place, historical monuments, mineral waters, the unique combination of herbs and trees – as far as I know this area is even in the Guinness Book. But there are some technical advantages – infrastructure. Roads. Accessibility. Several weeks ago we invited people from the “Russian Extreme” program to ski, snowboard, fly gliders and jump with parachutes. All the group was satisfied and we want to continue similar trips. In addition to the natural beauty, we will have good support from the state – the infrastructure, roads, gas and electricity will be constructed with state money. I think it is a unique situation for business with land in such a beautiful place with these advantages, with the created infrastructure and even the taxation benefits, I think it is a dream project. Maybe people do not understand yet that the situation is very interesting, but I am sure there will be demand very soon. Concerning Turkey, at the end of Marh I am going to negotiations in Turkey. As we know, Turkey also has a ski resort and big investors in tourism and it works, so I think we will manage to attract partners because the Turks are very active and work in Russia and I have an advantage because I am dealing with the Turkish directorate in the Trade Chamber and have good contacts.”
