A Russian Disneyland may appear in the Kaliningrad Region, the westernmost region of Russia. The idea of laying out a modern amusement park in the Amber Land has been supported by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
This Disneyland will be the second in Europe if it opens near Kaliningrad. So far there is only one park like this in the Old World. It opened near Paris in1992. The French Disneyland is visited by over 18mln people annually. The very first park with this name was laid out in 1955 in American California. It became the embodiment of Walt Disney’s idea of a park giving life to the world of animated cartoons and fairy-tales. At present, Tokyo and Hong Kong also have Disneylands. The largest Disneyland outside the USA is being built in Shanghai on an area of 67 hectares. It is planned to open in 2016.
Building a Disneyland in the Kaliningrad Region will be a priority project, Inna Moreva, the press-secretary of the regional administration, told The Voice of Russia.
“To develop tourism in our region we are going to use our strong points like our historical past, mild climate and proximity to Europe. We are also prepared to consider prospects of building new facilities, such as an amusement park.”
A park, which will be interesting to both children and adults, will help the region to attract more tourists. Now it is too soon to say what it will be like, Inna Moreva continues.
“We think that tourism should grow fast in the Kaliningrad Region. What can we offer tourists? We need new modern interesting facilities, one of which may be an amusement park in the style of Disneyland, or Hansaland in Germany, or Legoland in Denmark, or Port Aventura in Spain. It would be wonderful to have something like this in Kaliningrad. Such a place would attract visitors not only from the Kaliningrad Region but also from neighbouring countries.”
The groundwork of the Yekaterinburg project will possibly be used when building an amusement park in the Kaliningrad Region. The first Russian Disneyland was planned to be built in Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains several years ago. It was to cover an area of 60 hectares with amusements, hotels and restaurants. The project was expected to pay its way in 8.5 years. It was planned to receive 15,000 visitors simultaneously but because of the crisis the construction of the park in Yekaterinburg never began in 2008.