The President of Georgia visited Kazbegi today and toured the newly opened hotel “Rooms Kazbegi” in Stepantsminda. Mikheil Saakashvili spoke with the personnel and expressed interest in infrastructural project plans around the nearby territory. As the Head of State noted, this hotel is also important in terms of employing the local people because it employs 100 local residents. Mikheil Saakashvili also focused attention on the Georgian-Russian relations and spoke about the new hotel in this context.

“When they see that this is what Georgia is like a lot of Russians will cross over just for this hotel. We will build good roads in Kazbegi and create a tunnel which will connect Kazbegi to Tbilisi directly. We have practically found the funds for this already. This tunnel will be very hard to build, but it has a great importance and we will bring this project to the end. When the real movement starts around here, the Russian government will have big trouble creating a new provocation because a lot of Russian tourists will come here and become assured that this is a normal peaceful place. Contact between the peoples is the best way of restoring our relations and it is going on very intensively. I arrived at the Russian border without video cameras several times and greeted the tourists and you should see their reaction. The people in Russia are not our enemies. They merely have a temporary government which is. The most important thing is to keep close relations with people and this hotel is an important prerequisite for that. Additionally, Rooms Kazbegi provided a normal income to 100 families. The local families also host tourists and earn money that way. A winter ski complex will be built behind this place which means that aside from the summer resort there will be a winter resort here. This is one of the best places in the world. There was poverty here all the time, including the time when they were involved in contraband. But now, none of the families will stay without income” – stated Mikheil Saakashvili.

The Rooms Kazbegi hotel has 156 rooms and it is already hosting the first guests. The President also visited the hotel 3 months ago and inspected the construction process. The construction process employed 200 specialists. Most of the people working at the hotel are local residents. The Rooms Kazbegi hotel was built completely through a Georgian investment.