Russia's rich follow Putin to ski playground
It takes more than a little imagination to see this Russian ski resort in the same bracket as St Moritz or Aspen. At the bottom of the piste on a drizzly afternoon, workers up to their ankles in mud use an excavator and a length of old fire hose to pull a tourist bus out of the pothole that has swallowed its back end.
But things are changing. A few hundred metres from the stranded bus, Turkish contractors are building a cluster of luxury chalets. Nearby, skiers board a brand new Austrian-built ski lift. At the top, shiny new piste-grooming machines flatten out the snow.Sochi has become the place for Russia's elite to be seen - and to spend some of the huge sums sloshing about in the oil-fuelled economy. "Every day we have two or three meetings with major Russian investment companies that want to build hotels, apartment complexes," Filippov said. Land prices have shot up. Filippov said 18 months ago a 100 square metre plot at Krasnaya Polyana - a ski centre in the mountains above Sochi - cost $US15,000. Now it will go for $US40,000 or more.
No comments:
Post a Comment