As award-winning Russian ski resort Rosa Khutor celebrates its tenth anniversary with the opening of the brand new Doppelmayer cable automotive, Breaking Journey Information chats with normal director Alexander Belokobylskyi to search out out extra
Breaking Journey Information: The principle occasion of the anniversary winter season would be the launch of a brand new ski elevate from 2,320 meters above sea degree to the southern slope. What are you able to inform us about that?
Alexander Belokobylskyi: An deserted apiary. A wild river. A forest. Mountains. A skinny thread of grime highway. And nothing extra. Precisely like this, the place was the place the most important mountain resort within the nation, Rosa Khutor, is situated.
At this time there are 29 state-of-the-art lifts, over 100 kilometres of ski pistes, and as much as two million guests yearly.
On December 15th, the mountain complicated celebrates its first anniversary – ten years since opening.
BTN: The tenth anniversary of Rosa Khutor is a severe date for the very younger Russian ski tourism. Congratulations!
AB: Thanks, however I want to level out that it’s the tenth anniversary of the ski centre’s opening. The creation of the resort started a lot earlier – the corporate Rosa Khutor appeared again in 2003, and we began to assume over the challenge and the idea.
BTN: It seems that the thought of making a resort shouldn’t be associated to the Winter Olympics in 2014, as many assume. In any case, there have been competitions in Alpine snowboarding, and the most important variety of awards had been drawn.
AB: The thought of making a ski resort in Sochi’s mountains appeared even earlier than the town gained the bid to host the Olympics. The plan was to have a small resort with six lifts and a number of other inns. At the moment, nobody thought of a bigger challenge. This was as a result of lack of the mandatory accompanying infrastructure – there have been inadequate energy and water provide and an underdeveloped highway community.
Nonetheless, we imagine that our plans to construct a ski resort performed an essential position in the truth that Sochi was chosen because the Olympic capital. That is as a result of uniqueness of the place. It takes numerous venues to host the Winter Olympics. And if stadiums may be constructed virtually anyplace, if just for funding, then for snowboarding competitions, you want pistes with particular, inflexible parameters – with a transparent drop in altitude. You can not simply take a mountain and pile it on; you want particular terrain!
In line with the worldwide consultants’ estimates, it turned clear – Rosa Khutor pistes are perfect for the Olympic begins. Naturally, after receiving the correct to host the Winter Olympics, we revised our plans, and the resort turned a lot bigger.
The assist of the state, which undertook the creation of the mandatory engineering and highway infrastructure, was of nice significance. In fact, no enterprise might bear such bills.
BTN: While you come to Rosa Khutor as we speak, it appears like a fairy-tale gingerbread city: fairly homes with turrets alongside the river, a bridge, the city corridor. How did all of it start?
AB: Completely from scratch. After we acquired to the grounds, there was nothing right here. Firstly of the final century, there was a farmstead of Estonian settlers right here, but it surely was lengthy deserted. In entrance of us, there was solely a mountain river, a wild forest, and a slender grime highway, on which it was troublesome to drive to the cordon of the Caucasus Nature Reserve.
I actually was born in Krasnaya Polyana. At the moment it was a small village of four-to-five thousand individuals. And all the encircling magnificence, the mountains, the river, the air, the forest, basically belonged to this small group of individuals.
The village, regardless of its distinctive nature and local weather, was not growing. There was no highway. We had been linked to the town by one freeway with a piece that the residents known as “God Bless You!” 4 kilometres, sheer cliff down, sheer cliff up. Giant automobiles couldn’t move on such a highway in winter due to the snow, and we had been minimize off from Sochi for weeks. Then the development of the tunnels started, the laying of the brand new route. I keep in mind when the primary bus with vacationers arrived within the village. It was a grand occasion.
BTN: Do you remorse that your childhood village has modified a lot? And environmentalists are involved that the resort is encroaching on the Caucasus Biosphere Reserve.
AB: That is my homeland, and naturally, I care about every part that occurs right here. However this growth has benefited not solely Krasnaya Polyana however your complete area. Once I graduated from highschool, I needed to depart for an additional metropolis. There have been merely no jobs for younger individuals within the village.
As for environmentalists, defending nature is a significant a part of their duties. However we didn’t construct a metallurgical plant or an industrial plant. We constructed a resort. All those that feared that we might destroy nature now know that nothing of the kind has occurred. Every thing may be very harmonious.
Sure, we needed to minimize down some timber. However we planted tens of 1000’s of seedlings and replanted endangered crops monitored by specialists at varied ranges. Moreover, for some cause, nobody remembers that there was a forestry enterprise in Krasnaya Polyana, and timber was harvested on an industrial scale. However not anymore.
All our initiatives have handed the principle state experience, which incorporates environmental points. And, as follow reveals, the necessities of Russian legislation are sometimes stricter than worldwide guidelines. Even as we speak, we pay numerous consideration to the preservation of the surroundings. For instance, we have now a program for separate rubbish assortment, recycling, and vitality conservation. Ski pistes are sown with native grass to strengthen the slopes.
BTN: How troublesome was the interval of Olympic development?
AB: Naturally, the preparation for the Olympics was difficult. Our nation had no expertise in any respect with the Winter Olympics, no specialists. Overseas consultants had been concerned. In fact, some helped us wholeheartedly, whereas others did the alternative. Now it’s clear that we did numerous further work, someplace we had been pressured to spend extra money. For instance, there’s a highway that results in the end space. A single tunnel challenge was made for it. However the IOC specialists insisted on constructing a second tunnel. And sadly, there have been such moments. However we pulled all of it off and had a extremely nice Olympics.
BTN: After the Olympics, there have been severe fears that many pricey services would turn into redundant and deserted. In your case, they clearly didn’t come true?
AB: We did have some considerations in regards to the summer time season. It’s all clear in winter – snowboarding or snowboarding, however individuals don’t perceive what they’ll do within the mountains in summer time. One of many first steps was the seaside within the Imereti Lowlands, which we rented and began providing a package deal of lodging within the mountains plus a switch to the seaside. We determined to develop summer time actions. At this time, a lot of them are on the resort – these are suspension bridges, high-mountain swings, rope parks, mountaineering, seaside on the mountain lake, and far more. Because of this, our summer time site visitors as we speak is corresponding to the winter one.
Most of all, our company wish to stroll by way of the Mendelikha waterfall park. It is a number of landscaped trails with stairs, platforms, benches, which open seven waterfalls to vacationers directly. Each day they’re visited by three to 5 thousand individuals. The following hottest is the rodelbahn, a railroad with sleds on wheels, which is situated at 1,100 meters above sea degree.
We launched this attraction two years in the past and evaluated its monetary mannequin, however we couldn’t even assume that our expectations can be so exceeded. Now we’re going to enhance the rodelban, we’ll make lighting, and it’ll work within the night.
BTN: This summer time season was very uncommon. On the one hand, there may be the pandemic, which has undermined tourism, and then again, there may be the explosive demand for journey inside the nation. How did you survive the quarantine, and the way do you consider the outcomes of the summer time season?
AB: Naturally, like for different vacationer websites, the quarantine was a troublesome time for us. It’s good that we had a reasonably profitable winter season, respectively, it was potential to maintain all our workers. After the quarantine, the resort opened on June 20th. Climate circumstances made it potential to increase the summer time season till November 15th.
We plan to start out the winter season on December 25th. As for the figures in numbers, they are going to be about 1.6 million for this yr. It isn’t a lot lower than in 2019.
BTN: What are you ready for within the winter? How are the reservations going?
AB: Judging by the summer time season, by how drained individuals had been of sitting in 4 partitions in the course of the quarantine, we’re going to have a busy winter. At this time we have now an opportunity to point out those that beforehand didn’t know what Rosa Khutor was and went snowboarding in Italy or France that our nation additionally has high quality resorts.
We’ve good inns, trendy ski lifts, each summer time we refine and put together pistes, and we have now 102 kilometres of them, we have now very certified workers. So there may be every part to make those that come to Rosa Khutor this winter for the primary time need to come again once more. I can say that now the resort inns for the January holidays are already booked virtually utterly, the reservation for the remaining winter months is on the tempo of final yr.
The winter season’s predominant occasion would be the launch of the brand new ski elevate from 2,320 meters above sea degree to the southern slope. Skiers and snowboarders like to ski on the southern slope – it’s extra open, there are wider and gentler pistes. However thus far solely two lifts work there. They’re chairlifts, and so they can typically be closed due to adversarial climate circumstances. Consequently, queues accumulate, and it marred the snowboarding. The brand new elevate will likely be a type of doubler. It will likely be closed, gondola-type, with cabins for as much as ten individuals. This may considerably cut back the queues.
BTN: This would be the 30th elevate at Rosa Khutor. What number of workers does it take to serve your whole family?
AB: At this time, our resort employs greater than 2,500 individuals. Along with companions and tenants, this determine is about 3,500. And if we speak about company, it’s about 15 thousand individuals a day along with them on the resort. An actual small city! For us, our personnel are important. We’ve an enormous space, and we even have distinctive providers that aren’t accessible anyplace else within the nation. For instance, the avalanche service. We looked for specialists for it amongst meteorologists throughout Russia. We even have the nation’s first skilled lifeguard unit. It was sophisticated with personnel within the pre-Olympic interval. Sure, we attracted international specialists, however somebody needed to undertake their expertise.
For instance, the snowcat drivers. You could know learn how to drive on mountain slopes and never be afraid to drive such enormous and costly automobiles – every prices greater than one million euros. We thought of it and invited the blokes who used to take vacationers across the mountains in jeeps. And it was an awesome resolution. Within the pre-Olympic interval, our individuals confirmed actual heroism. We labored day and evening.
BTN: How do you intend to have a good time your anniversary?
AB: We all know learn how to manage holidays, however this yr we comply with the present scenario and comply with all the necessities of division of the Federal Service for supervision of client rights safety and human welfare within the Krasnodar area .
BTN: What’s new on the resort this yr?
AB: As you understood, we predict large, so our plan is to revive the pure, mountaineering tourism, which as soon as existed within the Soviet Union, and as we speak is common around the globe. Sadly, there are a lot of issues with the event of this path in our nation. There are such a lot of lovely locations in Russia, however it’s not possible to see them. Most frequently they’re situated in specifically protected areas.
To open them to travellers, main adjustments within the legislation are mandatory. However as we speak it’s time to clear up these issues. For the third yr in a row, we organised a convention devoted to the event of nature tourism in our nation, with revered consultants’ participation. Step-by-step we clear up this downside. It isn’t straightforward, however I’m certain that the time will come, and also you come to Rosa Khutor and can have the ability to take a backpack, select an acceptable route and stroll it.
Already as we speak, we have now greater than 70 km of mountaineering trails on the resort, however we need to considerably broaden the community of those routes and create a system of glamping, the place you may keep in a single day. Consider me, while you stroll within the mountains, by way of the woods, throughout silence, you get unforgettable expertise and feelings. It will likely be potential to strive this sort of recreation at Rosa Khutor subsequent yr.
Extra Info
Rosa Khutor is taken into account Russia’s Leading Ski Resort by voters on the World Ski Awards.
Discover out extra on the official website.
