Like a breath of Savoy in the heart of Asia. A huge ski area, with a touch of French spirit, is soon to emerge in the mountains of eastern Kyrgyzstan. Ultimately, the three resorts of the “Trois Sommets” area should bring together 200 kilometres of pistes and around thirty lifts, the equivalent of the Swiss resort of Zermatt. The Central Asian country, or rather its president, Sadyr Japarov, came to France to entrust the project to a French company, the Société des Trois-Vallées (S3V), operator of the Courchevel ski area.
For the Kyrgyz government, it is not a question of waiting: a site south of Lake Issyk Kul, near the city of Karakol, has been quickly identified and the S3V will present a master plan in April 2024. The start of work is planned for the summer of 2025, with a view to welcoming the first skiers in December 2026. It will then be only a partial exit over some sixty kilometres of slopes.
To build the first of three resorts at the entrance to the Jyrgalan valley, the Kyrgyz state will invest 165 million euros through a specialised public company, officially called “Kyrgyz Courchevel”, a symbol of the winter ambitions of this small Asian country.
850,000 tourists a year
The Kyrgyz government expects the construction to be completed by 2035. If it goes according to plan, the area will have around 7,000 rooms in total, enough to accommodate 850,000 tourists a year in its three resorts.
Hotels, apartments, campsites, restaurants, spas, shops… In total, the State has enclosed just over 1,600 hectares in the surrounding mountains for the entire project. Kyrgyz companies will be responsible for the development of the buildings and infrastructure, while S3V (50% owned by the Savoy department) will be responsible for designing the area and advising on its implementation.
Almost entirely covered with mountains and covered with snow from mid-November to mid-April, the Kyrgyz territory has nothing to be ashamed of in terms of its landscapes, some of which are very similar to the European Alps.
The area around Lake Issyk Kul is becoming increasingly popular: in summer it is a regional attraction and is increasingly on the travel agenda of foreign nature lovers. And thanks to skiing, Kyrgyzstan also wants to attract these tourists in winter. The first goal is to “create a local clientele”, new winter sports enthusiasts from Kyrgyzstan or neighbouring Kazakhstan, explains Pascal de Thiersant.
But the future ski area will probably also attract clients from other countries, especially Russians, Chinese and Indians. Two international airports, in Bishkek and Almaty, serve the area within a five- to six-hour drive, and a train line is expected to connect the country to China within a few years.
Economic development
However, at the risk of being criticised on an ecological level, some associations regularly single out the ski resorts. S3V responds that it would not have participated in the project if it had not been “environmentally intelligent”, in its own words, specifying that it had rejected other proposals in Vietnam or Saudi Arabia that did not meet this criterion. The choice of the Jyrgalan site, where the first of the three resorts included in the programme will be built, will allow “80% of the routes to be laid out without earthworks, with little felling of trees”, says its head.
To avoid over-urbanisation, French society is also advising the Kyrgyz state to maintain control of the territory, in order to avoid a proliferation of chalets built by wealthy tourists and left empty almost all year round, as can be seen in many European mountains.
Kyrgyzstan, for its part, has no intention of missing out on the winter sports bandwagon. The country of 7.2 million people, a former Soviet republic with a fragile and poorly diversified economy, sees this as a good opportunity to boost national development. In the northwest, construction has begun on another large ski area, this time by a Russian company, and another project is being discussed with Uzbekistan.
Source: BFM TV
