Coming Soon: Ski Chechnya!!!

Perhaps Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya feels bad about some recent misunderstandings, and wants to give something back to the Russian people.  Maybe he’s hoping that Medvedev and Putin come to visit him, instead of Sochi, to play their reindeer games next year.

At any rate, I would really like to see the marketing folks at your local travel agency pitch you a discount for a ski trip through a battlefield.  At least the ironic t-shirts would sell well to the youth in London.  From RIA Novosti:

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov intends to create a large ski resort in the republic’s southeastern Argun Gorge, which had been a militant stronghold for years, Russian media has said.

Kadyrov announced his plans in early January to develop tourism in the republic, where militant violence has surged in recent months. Recently, he said the Argun Gorge, one of Chechnya’s most picturesque areas located on the border with Georgia, could be an ideal place for a ski resort.

“I have just talked to Ramzan Kadyrov. He said there are businessmen who are ready to join the project,” the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper quoted Kadyrov’s press secretary, Alvi Karimov, as saying.

The president reportedly made the decision to create a Russian Courchevel, a luxury French Alps ski resort, in the volatile republic after he traveled to the gorge in early January accompanied by Russian businessman Ruslan Baysarov and film director Fyodor Bondarchuk.