By the 2015 international summits in Ufa, developers plan to commission seven of the eight hotels under construction, the head of the region, Rustem Khamitov, told the Rossiya-1 TV channel. He admitted that the shortage of “high-class hotels” was “Ufa’s weak point.” The “modern hotel buildings” under construction are, according to him, in varying degrees of readiness, from 45% to 85%. The construction should be completed by the summits, the head of the region is sure. The heads of delegations of two or three countries, as follows from his words, will be accommodated at the Hilton Garden Inn hotel near the Congress Hall (developed by Kesko-Ufa), and the hotel will have “presidential rooms”. The category of the hotel, as follows from Mr. Khamitov’s words, has not yet been determined: it can be certified as “four plus” or “five stars.” During the summit days, the Bashkir side should receive 16 official delegations. The day before, the head of the region also said that preparations for the summits “are on schedule with rare exceptions”: “This exception is the networks that need to be finalized, which have already been actually laid out to the hotels... Paper registration is a little behind. But we’ll catch up.” According to Mr. Khamitov, the construction of a Holiday chain hotel near Gostiny Dvor is in a high degree of readiness, “the situation with the Bashkortostan hotel is a little worse.” “They (the hotel owners, ANK Bashneft - Kommersant) spent quite a long time resolving all their issues. But they will repair the main part, and it will be ready by mid-March. The new part will probably appear in the final version in May 2015,” he said. Mr. Khamitov believes that the Hampton by Hilton hotel near the Ufa Lights entertainment complex and the hotel on Gogol Street “should have time” to be commissioned in time for the summits. “On schedule,” he noted, work is underway on the construction of a hotel near the Akbuzat hippodrome. The operator of this hotel, the mayor's office explained to Kommersant, has not yet been determined.

Irina Samoilova

Seven out of eight new hotels are planned to be commissioned for the summits in Ufa