Skiing season opens
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, December 23
The skiing season opened in Georgia’s mountainous resort of Gudauri on December 21. The Prime Minister, as well as several government representatives attended the opening ceremony. The season will no longer be dependent on snow, as the ski track has already been covered with artificially-made snow.
The Prime Minister visited the Artificial Snowmaking Distribution Management Center and viewed the first phase of the project.
The PM expressed his hope that the snowmaking system arrangement would extend the ski season up to 5 months and would make the resort more attractive for investors, as well as promote the stable operation of hotels.
“The stability and duration of the season determines the growth of tourists. This project provided significant momentum to investors and a number of businessmen are interested in making investment. This is a great gift to the fans of the winter season and I congratulate the opening of the season to everyone,” Gharibashvili said.
According to the agreement between the Gudauri Development Agency and DEMACLENKO, geological and topographical work has already been carried out in Gudauri and Didveli. The artificial water reservoirs were designed, a 1.1 km track was covered with snow in Gudauri and a 2 km track was covered in Didveli. The second phase includes the construction of artificial water reservoirs in Gudauri and Didveli, as well as the coverage of a 4 km track with snow in Gudauri. The complete snow-making system costs about 23 million GEL.
Garibashvili also went to the newly-opened Emergency Medical Center, where he was hosted by the Minister of Health David Sergeenko.
Sergeenko noted that before building the Emergency Centre, a medical unit did not exist in Gudauri and injured tourists were obliged to travel to Tbilisi.
