The republic of Sakha will get 10 million rubles ($300,580) from the federal government as co-financing for the development of a tourism cluster, Interfax reported Monday. The project's managers expect to get another 196 million rubles from the government at a later date.
The Federal Tourism Agency has selected the republic of Sakha as one of 18 regions that will get state funding to build tourism clusters — a part of a 2-billion-ruble federal program to develop domestic tourism by 2018.
The tourism cluster "Severnaya Mozaika" (North Mosaic) in the republic of Sakha is located 33 kilometers from Yakutsk's city center and takes up 20 hectares of land.
The site will have hotel cottages, restaurants, saunas, a downhill ski area and houses in the style of different ethnic groups that will host various entertainment programs, according to its website.
The 10 million rubles from the federal budget are earmarked for connecting the cluster to utilities. The republic's government will add another 3 million rubles to these efforts. This is only the first phase of the project's infrastructure work while the total cost of such work is expected to be 256 million rubles, of which 196 million rubles will be solicited from the federal government, RIA Novosti reported.
The project is meant to be a public-private partnership where the government covers 30 percent of the costs — mostly those linked to transportation infrastructure and utilities — and private investors finance the remaining 70 percent. Investors obtain a sublease, which can later be converted to ownership, and connected to necessary infrastructure.
Completion of the infrastructure construction work is planned for 2015.
Other regions that will receive state funding to develop tourism clusters include Altai, Astrakhan, Bashkorostan, Belgorod, Buryatia, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Pskov, Rostov, Ryazan, Stavropol, Tuva and Yaroslavl.
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