News
1/8/2011
The President of Georgia attended the concert held in Mestia
The open-air gala-concert was held in Mestia with the participation of Ukrainian show stars. The President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili attended the concert together with the local population and special guests. Before the concert folk festival took place in the streets of Mestia, where the guests had a chance to taste Ukrainian traditional meals. Mikheil Saakashvili tasted Ukrainian dishes as well, after that he spoke with the local population and stressed his attention on the tourism potential of Svaneti region. He noted that winter season had opened in Svaneti and new skiing slopes would appear there soon. As he said it was remarkable that the first snow fell on the opening of the season.
"We must understand what a big miracle happens in Mestia. About 90 percent of Georgia's population has never been here. We are investing several hundreds of million GEL only on roads here, finally 500-600 million GEL will be spent here - we will not only get this money back, but it will bring us several billions of income in several years considering the climate, cultural heritage, cuisine, as well as skiing slopes, this place is outstanding not only in Georgian and Caucasus, but in Europe as well. In the 90ies, when I lived in America I traveled all around Switzerland and Austria ski resorts and without any exaggeration and boasting I want to say that such a place doesn't practically exist. This place can be compared with Switzerland in regards of skiing slopes and mountains, but you will not find anything like this anywhere in whole Europe. Mestia was detached from the rest of the country and was totally criminalized in past. Zugdidi-Mestia road will be ready in summer, later we will start the construction of road from Kutaisi and when this road is ready it will take an hour and 15 minutes to get here. Also village roads are being built and as one local said "Sighnagization" of Mestia is going on here. In reality a much better project will be fulfilled here. Tens of millions dollars are being invested in the rehabilitation and construction of towers, districts, streets and tourism infrastructure. What we do today is a drop of water in the sea. We will see the first results in summer, and next winter we will illuminate ski lifts (new ski lifts are being built as well) and as well as Ushba. This will be an incredible beauty, while skiing down the hill, first you pass the forest, look over 12th century towns and its towers and you look directly at Ushba... I can't think about any other view like this all around the world. This will be the most unique slope in the world. It is good that our Ukrainian friends are together with us today, because we have to attract many tourists from the neighboring countries", Mikheil Saakashvili noted.