Dead Sea mud
Photo Credit: Reuters
Moscow to build Dead Sea hotel
Russian capital's municipality say hotel to be constructed 'around mud that heals skin diseases' specifically for country's residents, with a budget set aside to provide special healing treatments
The Lowest place on earth is getting a boost: The Moscow Municipality has recently purchased 10 acres of the Dead Sea's Ein Bokek area in order to construct a hotel for Moscow's residents worth an estimated $100 million.
The Russian capital's mayor, Yury Luzhkov, explained the purchase: "We bought land in Israel on which to build a hotel to serve the people of Moscow, around the mud that heals dermatological diseases."
It turns out that it is Moscow Municipality's policy to provide its residents with healing treatments, in most cases near the Black Sea, and there is even a budget set aside especially for this purpose.
On Wednesday the municipality approved the budget for 2009-2011, the years in which the hotel should be launched and construction begun.
In March of this year Moscow city officials met the chairman of the local council, Dov Lightbinuf, near the Dead Sea and expressed the desire to build the hotel.
A similar meeting took place in Moscow between Lightbinuf and Luzhkov, in which an agreement summing up both sides' intentions was signed.
The Israel Land Administration responded to the plan by stating that "the nation's land may not be given away to strangers unless the matter is specially approved by the director general."
The Israel Land Authority has recently received various inquiries about land from Russian sources. Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth has even published that Israel is planning to transfer control of Jerusalem's famous Sergey Court, located in the city's Russian Compound, over to the Russian government.
