Zavidovo became the first large-scale resort in Russia. Next year, the resort, according to tradition, will again delight its guests: new facilities for leisure and active recreation will appear here. In the coming years, the plans include the construction of a number of other hotels. And in 4-5 years, says Konstantin Zabrodin, general director of Zavidovo Development LLC, the Zavidovo resort will acquire a finished look
Konstantin Zabrodin about myself: I was born in Rostov-on-Don, graduated from the physics department of Moscow State University, then graduate school, defended his Ph. D. thesis in physics, worked for several years in Moscow at the Academy of Sciences. Then he worked for almost 5 years in the Russian office of "Apple Computer". For the next 12 years I lived in Switzerland, where I successfully developed an IT business. And then he returned to Russia at the call of my old friend and partner Sergei Bachin. Since 2007 I have been working in Zavidovo, and since 2011 I have been living here permanently.
Konstantin Nikolaevich, how was the site chosen for the Zavidovo resort?
- This is a good place in terms of transport accessibility and ecology, where the Volga is closest to Moscow. These lands historically belonged to the Moscow Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate. Here is the Zavidovo reserve, which is often visited by the leaders of the state. It is a protected area with a diverse fauna and vegetation, an area of more than 120 thousand hectares, which protects the resort of Zavidovo from the west and cannot be urbanized, will always remain an ecologically clean area.
Between us and the Klinsky district - and Zavidovo used to be part of the Klinsky district - there are about 7-8 km of swamps and forests, the lands of the State Forest Fund, which are also protected. The left bank of the Volga is a very sparsely populated area. The most popular direction is the right bank of the Volga, between Zavidovo and Konakovo. The coastal part is almost completely built up, but the territory was developed haphazardly, so there were practically no passages to the Volga. On the site of the Zavidovo project, there was a poultry farm, next to which no housing was built. As a result, the piece of land where we are now remained untouched.
Around 2006, we decided to build a town here for Muscovites to relax. After all, each capital has a small location - a resort, where citizens go for the weekend, this territory is usually located about 100-250 km from the city. And this "suburban resort" is not necessarily the most beautiful place in Russia - there have been attempts to develop significant tourism projects on Lake Baikal, in Altai, but such resorts have not received large-scale development, it is far to get there, and the flow of tourists dries up. And we have a stone's throw to Moscow and to the country's largest airport, now the M11 toll road is completely open. And three years ago, they launched "Swallows", high-speed trains that stop in Zavidovo five times a day. The ability to reach us in an hour from the Leningradsky railway station is convenient.
How did it all begin?
- As I said, we started to develop the resort in 2007. This is an area of 2.5 thousand hectares, 5 by 5 kilometers in size. We have invited British general planners. The Doibitsa River divides the entire territory approximately in half, the entire right side belongs to the tourist area, on the left side of the river - the municipal part, the urban environment. There is also an area to the left of M10, where we want to develop the business part of the project. The idea was to make a full-fledged town so that people can live comfortably, have a full range of medical services, educate children, and so on. Because all attempts to simply make some kind of "capture" without comprehensive development of the territory end badly. Look at any village - it lives for 50 years, and when the generation of founders departs, young people rarely take the initiative, and everything freezes.
First of all, we got involved in communications. In about a year, we built a sewer collector, purchased a sewage treatment plant, which is difficult to build in the water protection zone, and sewage is needed to protect the environment. This allowed us to provide the entire territory with a central sewerage system; we even have a campsite equipped with it. Then we started laying roads, gas supply networks, electricity supply, water supply, communication networks.
Then we started investing in recreation infrastructure. Having previously taken out more than 300 thousand m3, we made a horseshoe-shaped bay with a diameter of 400 m, there is now the Radisson Resort & Residences, Zavidovo hotel. They also cleared the Doibitsa River, which was then overgrown with reeds.
The first large object on the territory of the current resort "Zavidovo" was a golf course. Why was this decision made?
- There was practically no experience in building resorts in Russia before us, Rosa Khutor appeared later, but all such resorts abroad have a golf course, this is a prerequisite. And even Finland has about 250 golf courses, although their climate is no better than ours.
The topic turned out to be complex. In Russia at that time there was only a 9-hole course in Moscow on Mosfilmovskaya Street, a completely new 18-hole course in Pestovo and an 18-hole course in Nakhabino. And basically these fields were built by the Diplomatic Corps for foreigners. At that moment in the West there was just a mortgage failure, a crisis, and we managed to find inexpensive designers, designers, and most importantly - bulldozer drivers (shapers). The difficulty of creating a field is that first you need to remove about 20 cm of the top layer, then, according to the architect's project, cut the relief, lay a drainage and irrigation system, plan the location of the holes, the passage of the field, and so on, and then return the vegetative layer back, sow and roll everything … A golf course is both agriculture and challenging construction. We have been building the course for almost 2, 5 years, also because the season is short, if the wind or rain comes, then everything is washed out, the holes are destroyed, and we have to start all over again.
There is a classic golf course, links, with relief, without trees, which, it is believed, partly interfere with playing. Another type of fields - parkland - is a relatively flat surface, trees, lakes. We built the field in the classic version. On flat fields, water can stand all day after rain, and on the terrain, after an hour, you can play. But such a relief field is difficult to build, as it is said, rain and wind wash everything away during the construction process. And you need to wait another year until the grass hardens and you can start playing.
As a result, the field turned out to be one of the best. We built for ourselves and ourselves, approached the matter very seriously. For example, we sent about 20 sand samples to the UK to make sure we were using the correct grain size, the percentage of grains by size is very important.
What is the loading of the golf course and the Clubhouse?
- This is a beautiful well-groomed land, but the field does not give profit. There are very few golfers in Russia, about 5 thousand people. And many of them are cosmopolitan. Initially, we took the club membership model, but in 2019 we changed our approach, and the situation immediately improved, because golfers like to play on different courses. In addition, we have a new manager of the golf course and Club House, before that he was run by expats, who quickly changed, leaving abroad. For the field to pay off, it must go up to 120 rounds per day. We doubled our revenue last year compared to 2018, and we had about 40 rounds a day. But initially our goal was not so much a commercial one as an advertising and demonstrative one, the field “helps” to sell land plots a lot.
The next large object - the anchor point of accommodation for tourists - at the Zavidovo resort is the Radisson hotel
- Around 2011, we finished the golf course and the Clubhouse. By that time, construction began on the Sochi infrastructure, and in early 2012 we started building Radisson and commissioned the hotel in 2014. This was successful, because in hotels a quarter of the budget is foreign currency purchases: elevators, engineering systems, and so on. We managed, as they say, to jump on the departing train, before the crisis.
We got 200 apartments and 240 hotel rooms. The idea was to sell the apartment and return part of the loan funds invested. But this was not done. And in the end we even won, because there are few hotels that have such a large number of rooms and apartments.
It is convenient for corporate clients, they need scale and the ability to rent a lot of rooms. We initially positioned and built the hotel for business needs. The more meeting rooms, the better, the more rooms, the better. For example, it has a large hall for 800 people, which can be divided into 2 or 3 parts. And this theme served as a mover for everything else. Now the family check is higher, but business fills the hotel in seasons when individual tourists do not come.
Why Radisson? We did not want to get involved with American network managers, Americans usually offer onerous contracts, with conditions that they can go out of business at any time. And the management contract is concluded for a long time, the construction of a hotel generally requires long-term marketing, this is important. At that time Radisson belonged to the Scandinavians, they already had experience of working in Russia. And the choice was not bad.
What is the occupancy of the hotel now?
- The Radisson Hotel performed well already in 2016. 2019 was a record year, with revenue just over 800 million rubles, pre-tax profit of about 300 million rubles, occupancy rate of almost 50 percent. The hotel is usually a cash machine from the first year, if there is no large credit load. The profitability of the apartments is up to 60 percent, because there are fewer staff, each room has its own kitchen. We accept up to 800-900 people in apartments for events. We recently made a gallery-passage that connects the hotel and the apartment, and guests staying in the apartment can go to the hotel's restaurants, this is another convenience.
The environmental friendliness of the resort is an important plus. You have invested a lot of effort in decorating the forest area. Why was this interesting to you?
- Yes, we have invested a lot of money and effort in the creation of pedestrian, walking and cycling infrastructure. First, we rented 150 hectares of forest. We wanted to build a large indoor family center like Center Parcs in the UK and Europe. In the UK, this project has an annual occupancy rate of up to 95 percent, a terrific business model, and they've perfected operational efficiencies so that in the hours between guests' check-in they manage to change the carpet in the room if it gets spoiled. In the center of the park there is a large complex with a water area and swimming pools, various entertainments. We wanted to do the same with us, so we needed a forest.
We cleared out the forest, laid dozens of paths from chips and asphalt, and it turned out to be a "bomb". After all, there are many forests in our country, but they are in an abandoned state. Walking through the forest, you need to look up to see all the beauty, and not under your feet, stepping over a windbreak. A forest is like a bed that needs to be weeded periodically. But it turned out that it is very difficult to make a recreational zone out of the forest. Sanitary felling of trees needs to be formalized with special forest development projects, and forest lease costs about 2 million rubles a year. This is beneficial for the state: someone pays for the forest and even keeps it in order, but for entrepreneurs it is expensive.
Despite the fact that the project was costly, and we invested about 100 million rubles in the forest, it absolutely justified itself. Last year we installed lighting along the first alley. This turned out to be the right idea, this year we will be lighting all the paths in the forest. Modern lamps allow you to save, for example, 50 lamps consume, like a good iron, only 1.5 kilowatts. In winter, in the off-season, in cloudy weather, this adds a positive effect. And it's nice to take a walk. In summer, we have a lot of mushrooms and berries in our forest, for example, blueberries. We are even visited by locals who simply leave their cars and go for a walk in our forest, breathe the air, enjoy the beauty.
Does the Zavidovo resort have good opportunities for sports leisure, and it all started with bike paths?
- Yes, just when we designed the forest zone, we began to build bike paths. This is a popular topic, and we were encouraged to do this by the organizers of the IRONSTAR triathlon sports competitions, who make several starts a year in different cities, including competitions in our Zavidovo for three years. They need bike paths that are safe, long, and do not interfere with traffic. And we made such paths, about 40 kilometers in total length, and many come to us just to ride a bike.
We have partners who rent equipment - bicycles and scooters in the summer, skis, skates - in the winter. Aquatoria Leta Zavidovo has built wakeboarding winches and organizes skiing and other sports activities.
You are an enthusiastic person, and you have carefully studied the historical literature in order to create the historical part of the resort - Yamskaya Sloboda. What was the idea?
- Before, when we traveled by horse, they had to be changed about every 40 miles. For this there was a network of roadside post stations. In summer, the journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow could take a week, in winter it was faster - we arrived in 3 days. The royal people needed better stopping points; on the way from St. Petersburg to Moscow there were about 10 such traveling palaces. The closest to us was in the village of Zavidovo.
We decided to reproduce the historical Yamskaya settlement here. It is here, where we are, that the road to St. Petersburg passed. We have built here two Yamskie hotels in the Russian style. The inside of the building is made of bricks, and the top is finished with wood. Craftsmen who are fond of the theme of platbands, a local married couple, by our order, created platbands for our hotels according to sketches of the 18th century.
In the second hotel "Yamskaya", which we rented out last year, we made a children's room on the second floor, and it is very popular on holidays. Recently, we have built a wooden slide according to old drawings, along which you can ride tubing. We will also build a rope park there. I think there will be an eco-friendly playground in the same wooden Russian style.
In our Yamskaya Sloboda, people with middle and low incomes stay. If a room in Radisson costs 10-15 thousand rubles, then in Yamskie hotels it costs 4-5 thousand rubles. This is feasible, especially if you call in with a company. The Yamskikh hotels also have large rooms, and each has an extra seat for a child.
We have created a camping area nearby, it has been operating for three years. Cozy cottages for four are very popular. For people, some kind of isolation, privacy, which can be ensured here, is very important. Camping sells even better than hotel rooms and is in high demand, even though the facilities are located in a separate building. We didn’t make big houses on purpose, we decided that they should be such fabulous, cozy houses, and it paid off. There are also plans to expand the camping area by another 20 houses. They pay for themselves in 3-4 years, which is very fast for the hotel business.
We also built a real Russian bath in the camping area - and also according to the drawings of the 18th century. Now we have improved it and it is enjoying great success. By the way, in May of this year we will open a new large modern bath complex on the territory of the resort, it will be three baths for 10 people, one for 16 and another one for 25 people.
Now we want to reproduce the traveling palace here as well. The idea of the traveling palace is to fulfill some kind of banquet and exhibition function. There will be 4-5 more buildings to it - a glacier, a woodshed and other objects. Probably, we will add a couple more Yamskikh hotels, and thus increase our Yamskaya Sloboda.
This year we will build a cheese dairy. You will be able to watch the process of making cheese, taste it right there and take part in master classes.
Did your target audience get mixed up? After all, guests with high incomes now stay at Yamskie
- Indeed, we often see expensive cars in the Yamskie parking lot. These hotels are sometimes visited by "advanced" special people. Everyone has a different motivation - someone wants to avoid collisions with the public, with friends, someone is simply pleased with the opportunity of solitude and forest walks. Indeed, the audience is highly mixed. Business travelers and well-to-do people are more likely to stay at Radisson.
How does the "Invasion" festival and other major events in the region affect the settlement?
- In summer, we are generally good with the flow of tourists, but for the "Invasion" festival, for the IRONSTAR and Wake Weekend competitions, we book rooms in advance. This is not the first time that Kaspersky Lab has hosted events and concerts with us; it brings in up to 2,000 people, they set up their tents, and some of the guests live in Radisson.
Are there any requests from guests to create leisure activities for lovers of a healthy lifestyle, for example, yoga, does the public come with special requests, for example, vegetarians?
- We do not have enough room for dancing or yoga. There are plans to build buildings in the style of Yamskiye hotels, perhaps in the form of a barn, for such leisure. Fishermen often come to us, they have been holding festivals and fishing competitions for several years now.
Do you plan to use organic products in the menu?
- Partially yes, there is a lot of game, elk, wild boar in the forests. In the Club House we periodically offer deer and elk meat. But in mass tourism this is not possible, organic food is expensive. In the Yaroslavl region there is a company AgriVolga, which produces organic beef, lamb, dairy products of the Ugleche Pole brand. But the same steak from Angus - a special beef breed of cows - will cost up to 2 thousand rubles. There is a quail farm not far from us. We buy such products, but not on a large scale.
The Zavidovo resort today is a large tourist attraction, but also an important territory from the point of view of the economic development of the region. What is planned to be created here in the coming years?
- We have invested in the resort project as a whole, more than 15 billion rubles. We hardly used state funds. But then, within the framework of the Federal Target Program of Rostourism "Development of domestic and inbound tourism in the Russian Federation" - we built a section of the road and a bridge across Doibitsa. Having learned how to use this mechanism, we built several more facilities within the framework of the FTP. The entire large access road to us, the bridge, the water intake junction, and now also the pedestrian bridge, which we are finishing in May 2020, were built as infrastructure projects within the framework of such a targeted program. The essence of the FTP mechanism is that the investor prepares project documentation, undergoes an examination, the state allocates part of the funds for the implementation of the project. In terms of state funds, 85 percent of federal funds and 15 percent of regional money are used. For governors, the implementation of such projects is a big plus. This is a very complex technological process from all points of view, but the Tver region, together with us, copes well with it. In 2019, the Tver region took 1st place among 70 entities in terms of the quality of the implementation of tourism objects under the federal target program.
Within the framework of the new Federal Target Program, 1.25 billion rubles were allocated to the region for the next 3 years. This year, the construction of a passenger port will begin, a place from which cruises along the Volga will start. This is a big project for the country, region and for us.
Now the ship must pass 6 locks from Moscow to the Volga, and it takes from 12 to 20 hours, the Moscow Canal is heavily loaded. It will be convenient for tourists to reach us by car or by "Lastochka", take a motor ship and go on a journey along the Volga.
Moreover, it will be not just a port, but a transport hub. We have an idea to bring a branch line from the Oktyabrskaya railway to the port.
Do you plan to further increase the accommodation facilities at the resort?
- We are now working with VEB. RF as part of the allocation of a credit line for the construction of the last stage of the Zavidovo resort. It will be a number of hotels with a view of the Volga with 1100 rooms and apartments, which will build up our entire bay. These will be hotels of different price categories: a 4-star hotel, 2-3-star hotels, designed for guests with a family income of 60 thousand rubles per person. Now 200-250 thousand tourists come to us per year, we want to bring this flow to 1 million guests. There is a theory that in order for a resort to self-develop, it must have 3,000 accommodations.
A large congress hall with 800 seats and a family recreation center will also be built there - as we wanted, studying the experience of Center Parcs. This will be a center with a total area of 50 thousand square meters, of which about 10 thousand - the water part, which will be divided into a noisy children's area with slides and a quiet adult part with a tropical forest and a swimming pool with imitation of a wave. Studying international experience, we realized that such centers should be zoned, counting on different categories of guests.
In case of success in obtaining a credit line, we will need another 4-5 years of active work, and the resort will be completed.
