News

“Gora Sobolinaya” took a high start

The new rope-way lifted guests to the height of 400 m

Over 1400 people participated in a big celebration at the Ski resort “Gora Sobolinaya” (the owner of the resort is the company “Grand Baikal”). On the 5th of December at the opening of the winter season 2009-10 the guests received a new passenger rope-way 1.6 km long (change of height is 400 m). The solemn opening ceremony was participated by Vladimir Dorofeyev, head of the office of Irkutsk region governor and of Irkutsk region government participated; Konstantin Volkov, minister of physical training, sports and youth policy; Victor Grigorov, director general of the company “Grand Baikal" and Vasily Temgenevsky, general director of “Gora Sobolinaya” resort.

The first to take the rope-way were the young pupils of local mountain-skiing school. Just before the start of the rope-way they skied down one of the most popular lines “Bounty”, holding flags and balloons. Later sportsmen were in ropeway chairs, holding those flags and balloons; observers from the land noted that multi-colored balloons floating at the height of 20 metes against the background of snow-covered fur-trees and slopes make the landscape look a bit surrealistic. Then the way was opened for everybody: skiers, snowboarders and even pedestrians (for them to get on comfortably the speed was made approximately 1.5 times slower). The first trip was free for everyone. From the way and from its last 10th mark there opened an extremely beautiful panoramic view: hills of southeast coast, smooth steel-blue surface of the lake which hasn’t yet got frozen and snow-covered tops of the mountains at the horizon.

All the day long resort guests were entertained by musicians, dancers and singers from Ulan-Ude, Irkutsk, Slyudyanka and Baikalsk; especially for the youngest mountain skiers there was prepared an entertaining games program "Cheerful snowmobile".
At the press conference Victor Grigorov noted that the rope-way project “is very important for tourism of Irkutsk region, in fact it’s an initial stage on transformation of Baikalsk into a modern international tourist centre”.

Let us remind you that before the new season besides the completion of the road construction on the mountain Sobolinaya two rope-ways underwent capital repair, the training slope was made twice as big, a new tubing-line for children and adults was created, three operating lines were widened and communications were lined to one of tops, providing water and electric power for the system of snowing. Besides, there was created a new payment and access system uniting lifts, public catering and rental, - now one can pay for all the services with one plastic card. The total cost of works for creation of the rope-way, creation and expansion of lines, development of snowing system and introduction of payment system made 101 million rubles.

There was created a new modern site of the resort containing a lot useful information. For convenience of users there’s an online web camera, an option of automatic calculation of the cost of tours and additional services.

Press-service of the company “Grand Baikal”
Alexander Sizov and Larissa Fedorova's photo.