France to help Russia create Caucasus ski resorts

By Alexei Anishchuk
DEAUVILLE, France | Thu May 26, 2011

(Reuters) - France will help Russia with its ambitious plan to create a constellation of ski resorts in the North Caucasus, a poor region plagued by insurgent violence, the two presidents said on Thursday.

Russia laid out a $15 billion plan last year to build five resorts in the stunning mountains of the North Caucasus, hoping to draw tourism and investment to an area where poverty fuels an Islamist insurgency a decade after the wars in Chechnya.

France voiced support in a joint statement released after talks between President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a G8 summit in the seaside resort of Deauville.

Sarkozy and Medvedev "agreed to list the creation of a tourist cluster in the North Caucasus as a priority ... in the strategic partnership between the two countries," it said.

"France has unique and varied experience and knowledge of full-scale development of highland regions ... and is ready to share its experience with Russia," the document said.

Russia and France are considering a joint venture that would inject at least 2 billion euro in to the project, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported.

State-run North Caucasus Resorts Company NCRC.L, which is running the project, has said it would create 200,000 jobs in the impoverished region and is to be named Peak 5,642 after Europe's tallest mountain, Mount Elbrus.

Russia has ski areas around Mount Elbrus and elsewhere in the western portion of the North Caucasus, but much of the infrastructure is rudimentary and few foreigners visit.

The insurgency, which is rooted in Russia's 1990s wars against Chechen separatists but has spread to other mostly Muslim provinces further west in the North Caucasus, poses a serious challenge to the plan.

In February, three Russian ski vacationers were killed by insurgents near Mount Elbrus in Kabardino-Balkaria province. (Editing by Steve Gutterman and Jon Boyle)

Source: Reuters.
Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/26/uk-russia-france-tourism-idUSLNE74P05620110526.