Inclusion of pre-Caspian Dagestan into North-Caucasian tourist cluster remains in question

At the sitting in Makhachkala on July 15 on the issue of the project of a tourist cluster in Northern Caucasus, the federal authorities did not yet give their consent to include the Dagestani seashore into the project. The main reason was in the absence of the final conclusion on supposed financial expenses.

The sitting held under the guidance of Elvira Nabiullina, the Russian Minister for Economic Development, brought to Dagestan the following officials: Ilyas Umakhanov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation; Yunus-Bek Evkurov, President of Ingushetia; Akhmed Bilalov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the OJSC "Resorts of Northern Caucasus"; Maxim Bystrov, Deputy Plenipotentiary of Russian President in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD); Jean-Pierre Thomas, Special Representative of the President of France for Development of Franco-Russian Relations; and Jean de Gliniasti, French Ambassador to Russia.

"A parallel formation of the mountain and marine recreational systems will improve the efficiency of the project and its attractiveness to tourists and vacationers; it will actually make the project a year-round one. It will be interesting for all the holidaymakers who come to resorts of Northern Caucasus," said Magomedsalam Magomedov, President of the Republic of Dagestan, and added that the geographical location and natural-climatic conditions allow hoping that Dagestan may become a real alternative to the Black Sea coast.

"The idea of the Caspian coastal cluster is very interesting; but in order to make a final decision, we need more information in order to analyze the expenses, planned to be allotted from the state budget. Because to go on with the project we'll surely need additional infrastructure and correlate the expenses with the benefits that we hope to get: what the increase of tourists' inflow we may get; to what extent the all-season tourism in Dagestan may be ensured, when we combine the ski winter-spring tourism with the summer one in the coastal zone," said Minister Nabiullina.

The "Nafta Moscow" of Suleiman Kerimov will invest 1.4 billion US dollars in construction of sporting and tourist infrastructure in the Republic of Dagestan.