Russian gambling
No one has any more doubts that it is unfeasible to launch the Far East Las-Vegas in 2009. The gaming zone in Muravjinaya Bay which was presented by governor Sergey Darkin in Macao and Hong Kong as well as during the APEC meeting in Vladivostok has been moved to Russian Island without being tightly attached to its previous location or a technical and economical foundation of the project.
At least the mock-up of the island depicting APEC summit facilities, bridges, hotels, oceanarium and other properties of the future tourism and recreation zone, which was shown by the regional administration in October, does include a gaming zone. At present foreign investors are tête-à-têtes commenting the offer to begin developing hotels and other tourism facilities for their hard-earned money on a deserted island where there are neither roads nor bridges, saying nothing but “those crazy Russians”.
The observers note that even if the gaming zone supposedly remains in the final version of Russian Island development project, there will hardly be any investors ready to have casinos built by 2009. It is as if they were ready to put the cart before the horse. Meanwhile the very concept of creating a tourist special economic zone (SEZ) on Russian Island is hardly complementary to a gaming zone, and it will be almost impossible to attract foreign investors there for developing hotels and other facilities without benefits for them. The reason is that Russian can get the status of a SEZ as a tourist zone but not as a gaming zone.
the Rossiyskaya Gazeta – Primorie Region