Timur Utsayev, Grozny. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
The priority areas of development in Chechnya have been identified - tourism and agriculture. The sports-tourism complex "Kezenoi Am" was opened on the shore of an alpine lake recently, and the all-season ski resort "Veduchi" and the tourist complex "Grozny Sea" are being built. At the same time, in Grozny work was started on the complex organization of tourism services by opening the state multifunctional center "Tour-Ex".
Elina Bataeva, the director of the center, told Vestnik Kavkaza about the work of the center.
"There are many questions tourists do not know the answers to, including on the Internet. The Tourist Information Centre not only helps provide people with information, but also to keep statistics of tourists who come to the country. Foreigners visit our center daily. Although the statistics show that the number of Russian tourists greatly exceeds that of foreigners, the latter are used to the existence of information centers in other countries and regions and they are basically looking for us. Foreign tourists can get advice in their own language or at least in English. All our specialists speak foreign languages, which simplifies the stay of foreign tourists here. We have excursion catalogues in the Russian and English languages, where you can learn about the sights, tours, routes and hotels. Locals come to us too, many of whom do not even know how many hotels we have, where they could accommodate their guests, where they could take them, where you can rent a car," Elina Bataeva said.
Business, cultural and cognitive are main types of tourism in Chechnya. Every weekend at least 250 tourists arrive on buses from Stavropol alone. We also have such a thing as event tourism. Many festivals and sports events are held in Chechnya. Pilgrimage tourism is also popular, because we have a large number of sanctuaries, holy places, and, of course, there is our mosque, which simply amazes everyone, not just Muslims. People come to visit the mosque or sanctuaries. "
According to Elina Bataeva, the largest number of tourists come to Grozny at the moment. As for the mountain areas, the main flows go to Vedensky, Itum-Kale and the Cheberloevsky District - there are many attractions. "In the past year, many people went to Lake Kezenoi-Am, because the conditions have been created there. Despite the fact that the road is long and tedious, tourists began to visit it much more than even the Itum-Kale district. And with the creation of the tourist base at Kezenoi- am, where the flow will significantly increase, well, as long as they will not open Veduchi," Bataeva said.
In October, Chechen members of the international club Most Travelled People came to the World Extreme Traveler Congress. All the travelers included in this international club have traveled to a great number of countries, even those places marked with WARNING in European publications such as Lonely Planet and WikiTravel. "Disinformation in the most popular English-speaking guidebooks is one of the first reasons that only a few Europeans are coming to the republic, and that’s not just tourists. But the best travelers of the world still coming to us would help reduce societal biases. All the participants in the congress speak well of the country and the people they communicatedo with," Bataeva stressed.
