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Sports & Tourism Centre Perelik

Article by Valentin Hadjiev, 24 hours Daily, *with excerpts & changes, August 2006

Kiril Assenov is an ambitious local businessman, and manager of “Perelik” AD, the company that won the municipality competition for the construction of the new Perelik Sport & Tourism Resort, near the well-established and already popular resort of Pamporovo.

The young businessman owns approx. 5000 decares of land and has already spent more than 500 000 BGN on the project. What started as an enthusiastic idea for several ski facilities turned into a mega project that now involves serious investor companies that have experience in the development of modern large-scale ski resorts in USA and Canada.

The project will further involve the company “Gela Engineering”, which will build the ski runs and facilities from the villages of Gela and Shileva Chuka, the company “Detelina Tours” Ltd. and the municipality itself.

Its infrastructure stipulates the construction of an airport close to Smolyan and a modern road from Plovdiv, the second largest city in Bulgaria.

The contractor expects the investment to be approx. 230 million euros during the first stage of the project (covering the plateaus around the peak) and reach approx. 600 million euros when the project reaches the low parts of the mountain and the nearby villages.

The project will cover 2193 hectares of land and will be set from 1500 m – 2130 m above sea level in the Perelik Mountain above the town of Smolyan. It will cover the high plateaus around the Perelik and Kozuyatak peaks where there is snow for more than 6 months a year.

At the end of the first stage there are expected to be 24 lifts with a total length of 36.80 km, approx. 82 km of ski runs, 12 luxurious hotels, 4 snack/après ski bars, many snow cannons and a system of pump stations. There will be also ski schools and ski hire, tracks for cross country ski running, platform for ski-jumps, toboggan, biathlon shooting ground, as well as an excellent road infrastructure. There is even a project for an underground railway to connect the area with the town of Smolyan.

Kiril Assenov often travels to Switzerland, where he gets ideas not only from the ski resorts there, but also from the golf courses. That is why he is also considering the construction of a golf course in the area which will be 1500 m above sea level and shall use the natural alpine grass which is finer, thicker and softer than the field grass.

The final stage of the project will connect Perelik ski area to the resorts of Pamporovo and Chelepare.

According to the investors, the skiers will be able to enjoy the ski runs and use the facilities during next ski season, while the place will be fully operational and running during the third year of its construction.

The project is designed in such a way as to include the nearby villages of Mugla, Gela, Stoykite and Shiroka Luka, thus increasing the number of accommodation facilities and the number of the local people engaged in the tourism sphere.

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