By 2027, the company Inhabited Land will build a new recreation center with guest houses, a swimming pool, glamping sites, a visitor center, an eco-farm, a bathhouse, and a cafe with a barbecue area. The project additionally involves the construction of a waste recycling center, an eco-park, walking paths, and much more.
“It will not be just a hotel complex, but an eco-environment with the possibility of living, immersion, and information about green technologies. Guests to the center will be able to see how complexes of closed cycles are applied in practice (zero-waste cafe, water purification, alternative energy). All these processes will become natural and obligatory in the near future,” says Sergei Samoylenko, head of the Oikumena Educational and Scientific Center.
The site of the former pioneer camp “Golden Hectare,” in the village of Paratunka in the Yelizovsky District of the Kamchatka Region, some 55 km from the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and 35 km from the international airport Yelizovo was chosen as the place to implement the project.
In order to take advantage of state support measures, including connection to the infrastructure required to implement the investment project, the company Inhabited Land became a resident of the ASEZ Kamchatka. Tax and administrative preferences are available to residents of priority development areas. They also have the right to obtain a land plot to implement their project.
Under an agreement with the Russian Far East and Arctic Development Corporation, the volume of private investments to implement the project will be 187.75 million rubles. A land plot with a total area of about 284,000 square meters will be allocated for the new tourist complex’s construction.
Sergei Samoylenko spoke about how ASEZ resident status helps in implementing the project:
“By personal example, we were convinced that ASEZ residents receive great support. Now we are connected to a powerful infrastructure, the likes of which can hardly be found in Russia, let alone the world. The land plot that we received under the program will be wh ere the premises of the ecological campus will appear in 2025. Here we’ll study the sciences of nature and test green solutions for various areas of human activity. A youth eco-hub and a guest house will be the first to appear, and this year we will also begin construction of a water-regeneration complex, engineering highways, and road infrastructure.”
The resident noted that there will be a lot of facilities on the campus: a bird watching site, an exhibition complex, a forum center, a spa center, an art bar, guest houses, a solid waste recycling center, and others.
“The tax incentives and administrative preferences that we received as an ASEZ Kamchatka resident will help us focus on the main thing - the search, selection, and application of green technologies in construction, as well as cooperation with the brightest specialists to implement our project. And this is no easy task; it requires a lot of time and a high concentration of attention. But now we can throw all out weight into our core business,” Sergei Samoylenko added.
The project’s potential target audience is residents of the Kamchatka Region, Russian and foreign tourists, students, and employees of Russian scientific organizations and the international scientific community, arriving in the Kamchatka Region on their own or as part of organized groups.
“In 2022, when the construction of the campus begins, we will be ready to accept from 90 people and conduct about 10 educational programs on our premises. In 2023, the number of guests will increase and amount to more than 1,800 people, and from 120 educational events [will be held]. In 2024, we plan to receive more than 4,500 tourists and organize at least 200 useful programs for them. By 2031, the campus will accommodate more than 12,000 people a year and will become a platform for 500 festivals, conferences, and master classes,” said Sergei Samoylenko.
Under the eco-science framework, it is planned to develop fundamental research in combination with scientific and applied developments aimed at creating new resource-saving and waste-free technologies for products and industries. Significant progress in the field of interaction between society and nature is intended, and to model their development while taking into account admissible controls.
“If we talk about the direction of research, we are collaborating with FEFU, the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, the Geography Department of M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, KamchatSTU, and Yugra State University (Khanty-Mansiysk). The plans include cooperation with Bauman MSTU and other departments from M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,” said Sergei Samoylenko.
The main content of the social sciences will be the study of the transition of modern civilization to a sustainable society.
“We are open to everyone who is interested in the ESG agenda. It is important for us not just to engage in tourism, but to develop environmental thinking. And let’s start with those who are closest to us. This includes schoolchildren, students, young professionals, and employees of corporations. There will be eco-camps, that is, educational shifts with an environmental theme on the campus. We already have experience in holding such events, and we want to make them even more interesting, vivid, and, at the same time, filled with knowledge and meaning,” commented the head of ESC Oikumena.
The center’s business model is built around the use of modern, environmentally friendly technologies with the involvement of modern world experience. The development of economic activity within the limits of the reproductive capabilities of the environment, the cyclical economy, high environmental standards, closed waste-free production chains, and an environmentally friendly workspace are also taken into consideration. An important task is the introduction of resource-saving and waste-free technologies.
“ASEZ Kamchatka resident status has been granted to 118 companies, the total investment under the concluded agreements is 178.67 billion rubles, and more than 11,900 new jobs are planned to be created. ASEZ Kamchatka residents today have actually invested 28.03 billion rubles in the implementation of investment projects, and more than 6,700 jobs have so far been created in the areas of tourism, construction, fisheries, and ship repair. Industrial specialties are most in demand, engineers, builders, mechanics, technologists, shipbuilders, workers, miners, marketers, and other specialists are needed,” said Elena Butorova, acting director of the management company ASEZ Kamchatka (a subsidiary of the FEDC).
Additionally, 142 agreements were signed about implementing activities on the premises of the Free Port of Vladivostok in the Kamchatka Region for a total amount of 18.77 billion rubles, as well as plans to create over 2 331 jobs. Actual FPV residents.
