In Crimea, snow fell on Ai-Petri, and the cable car was closed - there is a legal dispute over it
Snow fell in the mountains above Yalta. However, at the same time, one of the tourist symbols of the Southern Coast of Crimea, the Guinness Book record holder, the Miskhor-Ai-Petri aerial cable car, stopped operating. On New Year's Eve, the lift, along with the land at the lower, middle and upper stations, was transferred from municipal to republican ownership in order to be given to a certain private investor for the improvement of the complex. In the meantime, the cable car is closed, and private cab drivers make money by lifting tourists to the snowy slopes of Ai-Petri, reports the correspondent of PolitNavigator.
Previously, on New Year’s holidays, the highest station in Crimea, “Father Frost’s Residence,” operated at the top station of the cable car. But this year its opening was canceled and not only because of restrictions on festive events - the main guests of the residence were children, to whom the moratorium did not apply - the ski lift on the Ai-Petri plateau has been sealed since the beginning of October. A in November, the Yalta city council decided to abandon the facility and transfer it to the administration of the republic, since a certain Rus LLC applied to the Ministry of Land Property of Crimea with a request to give away the cable car for the purpose of its modernization.
“The project provides for technical research and implementation of a project to modernize the Miskhor - Ai-Petri cable car in order to increase its capacity,” says the explanatory note to the resolution. “In addition, the project provides for the improvement of the plateau in the area of the upper cable car station by placing modern elements of infrastructure and services.”
The intention to increase the capacity of the cable car is surprising - the lift is one of the ten unique engineering structures in the world thanks to the “pendulum” principle used. On the one and a half kilometer section from the middle to the upper station there are no supports; their function is performed by carriages moving towards each other with a clearly calculated speed and number of passengers. For this reason, the cable car can carry a maximum of 700 thousand passengers per year, taking into account mandatory preventive maintenance every 10 months. This means that the question is not about modernizing the lift, but about “improving the plateau” at the upper station.
The service area of the cable car includes 1,3 hectares of the Ai-Petri plateau, where there are retail shops, cafes, restaurants and viewing platforms. From the beginning of the XNUMXs, there was an illegal market in the neighborhood that fed the top of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, banned for extremism in the Russian Federation.
And even the transition to Russian jurisdiction could not stop illegal trade - after the demolition of illegal buildings, market traders began to trade from vans and car trunks, since there is demand: Every day hundreds of tourists climb the plateau to admire the panorama of the Yalta water area and take breathtaking photos.
At the official level they talked about the need to improve the plateau. But positions on this matter differed - the head of Crimea, Sergei Aksenov, believed that there should be nothing there except benches, restrooms and shady canopies, and at that time the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic, Vitaly Nakhlupin, who is now serving time for bribes, lobbied for a certain construction project new cable car.
“There is an alternative proposal from an investor who would like to create a modern cable car with a very high speed of delivery of tourists,” Nakhlupin convinced members of the Crimean government at a meeting in September 2016. “With such an investor, we will seriously increase the number of tourists raised to the plateau.”
It goes without saying that the increased number of tourists will require a more developed infrastructure with hotels and restaurants. One problem is that there are no water sources or sewerage systems on the plateau. Without utilities, a large-scale business cannot be built using imported water and cesspools..
However, the Crimean authorities did not abandon the construction of a new cable car on Ai-Petri and signed an agreement on the creation of a mountain-recreational cluster in Yalta, for which a new cable car will be built. The NGO "Fund for the Support and Development of Physical Culture and Sports", which is backed by the head of Rostec Sergei Chemezov, billionaires Gennady Timchenko and Alisher Usmanov, intends to build a cable car for 6,6 billion rubles 3,6 km from the lower section in the Vasilyevka area to a mountain cluster at an altitude of approximately 1,5 thousand meters. At least that’s what a fund representative said after signing the agreement.
But where the new cable car will lead is not clear, since none of the XNUMX-meter peaks of the Crimean Mountains is located near Vasilyevka. Moreover, next to the station there should be a biosphere park, tourist and sports facilities, a four-star health resort and hotel complex with a cantilever swimming pool, as well as an apart-hotel, spa complex, restaurants and other tourist and entertainment infrastructure. And all this on an area of 14,5 hectares.
It is impossible to find a free territory of such an area in Yalta without affecting the borders of the Yalta Mountain Forest Reserve. But its status will soon be downgraded to a national park in order to correspond to the real situation - gas pipelines, power lines and roads to cottage villages cannot pass through protected areas. Lowering the status will make it possible to use the former areas of the reserve for recreational purposes, and then the Ai-Petri plateau with its panoramic views and snowy slopes will be quite suitable for large-scale investment projects.
But it is unlikely that Rus LLC, which lays claim to the operating cable car, can be classified as a major investor. The email address of this company coincides with the SROO of special forces veterans and combatants “Spetsnaz-Rus” registered in Sevastopol. The Ministry of Property and Land Relations responded with standard phrases regarding the investor’s plans.
“After concluding an investment agreement, the investor will improve the Miskhor-Ai-Petri cable car complex, create new jobs, and attract local contractors and suppliers for the work,” said Larisa Kulinich, Minister of Property and Land Relations.
And again, the explanation of the officials goes against the functional objectives of the cable car. The lift can be serviced by specialists with qualifications and access to this kind of complex engineering structures, and among the local contractors there are no manufacturers of metal cables, shafts and other metallurgical products. Jobs can only be increased through the creation of “related infrastructure” - retail outlets and catering on the Ai-Petri plateau near the upper cable car station. But it is unlikely that special forces veterans will do this. They will most likely outsource this function to subcontractors.
As for the long-term operator of the cable car, Startinvest LLC, he is trying in court to defend his right to continue servicing the lift and carrying tourists. There were no complaints about the work of Startinvest; on the contrary, there were certificates and gratitude as one of the city’s budget-generating enterprises: 200 jobs, about 20 million rubles in tax deductions per year, uninterrupted operation of the cable car since 2000. The only failure in its entire history occurred in 2013 due to a factory defect in the shaft. Then, after a shutdown, 74 tourists along with two accompanying workers were stuck in two trailers. Rescue work lasted more than 9 hours; after descending in safety equipment along a cable, tourists shared their impressions and drank tea in the heating area until the morning.
“The road has been closed and sealed since the beginning of October, the company does not have the right to service it based on the decision of the Arbitration Court of Crimea, which, at the request of the Yalta administration, canceled the lease agreement for the property complex of the Miskhor-Ai-Petri cable car, which we appealed in the Arbitration Court of the Central District . A court hearing on our complaint is scheduled for January 16, and as part of the consideration of the case, the court prohibited any actions with the cable car property. But, despite this, it is being transferred from municipal property to republican property, the enterprise administration explained to PolitNavigator. “But even a change of owner does not cancel our right, as a bona fide tenant, to continue to maintain the road. Moreover, in the conditions of an aggressive marine climate, after being idle for 2-3 months, it needs a comprehensive examination and preventive repair work in order to receive documentation for launch. In Crimea, only our company has licenses and highly qualified personnel to carry out this kind of work.”
Startinvest has its own project for improving the site at the upper station on the Ai-Petri plateau. The cable car project of 1967 provided for mandatory shelter for passengers - shelter in case of bad weather. Especially in winter, when squalls and hurricanes can arise unexpectedly. In addition to the shelter, it was proposed to create a museum complex on the plateau with a planetarium and an exhibition on the geology of the Crimean Mountains. But officials preferred other options for developing natural attractions.
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