based on the tourist zone in Buryatia

The new owner of Mukhino Airport (Ulan-Ude), Meinl Airports International (MAI), officially presented the concept for its development. The investor plans to modernize the airport terminal, build a hotel, and reconstruct the runway. MAI is ready to invest up to €100 million of its own funds in the development of Mukhino. Industry experts consider this amount of investment to be overestimated and believe that the development of the Ulan-Ude airport will largely be hampered by the more powerful Irkutsk airport. Chairman of the Board of Directors of MAI Roman Himmler spoke at a press conference on Tuesday in Ulan-Ude about the prospects for the development of the Mukhino International Airport. His MAI was purchased in September from the shareholders of Krasnoyarsk Airlines Boris and Alexander Abramovich for $24 million. As Mr. Himmler said, as part of the preliminary concept for the development of the Ulan-Ude airport, the investor is going to actually re-create the air terminal complex. Judging by the MAI presentation, the terminal will be at least doubled in size, and a hotel, business center, and multi-level parking lot will appear next to it. The Mukhino runway and aprons will also undergo reconstruction. The MAI representative did not name the cost of the large-scale reconstruction of the airport, citing the fact that the company is now finalizing the concept, and only after that the investor will be able to name the specific amount of investment. “The minimum amount that the company is ready to invest in the airport is €100 million,” said Anna Ivannikova, head of MAI projects in Russia.
Passenger traffic at Mukhino Airport in 2006 amounted to 119 thousand, revenue - 52 million rubles. The airport's 3.3 km runway allows it to accommodate wide-body passenger aircraft. Now the local airline Enkor, KrasAir and S7 are based in Mukhino. Meinl Airports International is a subsidiary of the Austrian investment fund Meinl European Land, specializing in investments in commercial real estate in the regions of Central and Eastern Europe. Meinl European Land is financially supported by Meinl Bank AG (Vienna). The size of his net worth at the end of 2006 amounted to €5.6 billion.
According to Roman Himmler, the decision to purchase an airport in Buryatia and its development was made based on the tourism potential of Buryatia. It is planned to create a special economic zone of a tourist and recreational type in the region, within the boundaries of which there will be an all-season ski resort, a yacht club, and a center of Tibetan medicine. According to Mr. Himmler, the company is also counting on the growing number of pilgrims to the Ivolginsky Datsan, the center of Buddhism in Russia.
Nevertheless, industry experts believe that the development of the Ulan-Ude airport will largely be hampered by the more powerful Irkutsk airport. At the end of 2006, its passenger traffic amounted to 893 thousand people; most of the Russian and foreign tourists arrived at Baikal through the Irkutsk airport. “Investments in Mukhino airport can be considered justified if it becomes a reserve airport for the Irkutsk airport. But the amount of MAI investments in a recently purchased asset seems overpriced. 100 million euros obviously won’t be able to be recovered quickly,” said Trust Bank analyst Evgeniy Shago. Let us note that, for example, the reconstruction of Irkutsk Airport, which is now in full swing, is estimated at only €14.8 million. The head of the consulting company Infomost, Boris Rybak, generally believes that the latest acquisitions of regional airports in Siberia and statements about their development (at This week, Novaport LLC, controlled by Roman Trotsenko, acquired the Chita airport for 200 million rubles - Kommersant) looks at least strange: “These airports are of no use. They are being bought, perhaps in the hope of creating a counterbalance to the capital's airports. Although I do not rule out that investors will receive some other benefits from the purchase of such dead assets. It’s just not clear which ones.”
Soelma Sandakdorzhieva, Alexey Kopylov, Ulan-Ude

Kommersant (Khabarovsk) No. 191 dated 10/18/2007

Ulan-Ude Airport will be paid for the future