Authorities of Bashkortostan have developed a draft law on geoparks and geoheritage activities, it will be considered in autumn by deputies of the State Assembly of the Kurultai Republic.

"The region has done a lot of work on normative-legal support of geoparks activity. We have made changes in the order of consideration of support and monitoring of priority investment projects. For entrepreneurs prepared tools allowing to use preferential regimes and measures to support the implementation of investment projects in the geoparks "Yangan-Tau" and "Toratau", - said the Ministry of Economic Development and Investment Policy of the region.

In addition, new support measures have been proposed to encourage entrepreneurs to develop geoparks.

"As part of the third package of measures to improve the sustainability of the region's economy in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, we have developed five subsidy schemes for the tourism industry, including special attention to infrastructure support for geoparks. We have amended the law to include subsidies or reimbursement of infrastructure costs. Proposals on subsidizing activities for creation of ethno villages and ethno villages were also prepared", - head of the Ministry Rustam Muratov said.

Within the framework of activity on development of geoparks the regional government decided to create on the territory of "Yangan-Tau" and "Toratau" convenient infrastructure for tourists. So, near the Toratau Shikhan the construction of the non-capital visiting centre is already finished, the question of an accomplishment of adjoining territory and installation of ethno-complex is studied. At a final stage - pre-project works on construction of a ladder on the mountain Toratau which will be established in a manual mode, without use of building technics. Before the beginning of the season in 2022 it is planned to create an ecological path around Toratau. Also in the plans for 2022-2023 there are three more non-capital visit centers in the territory of "Toratau" geopark.

Scheduled work also continues on "Yangan-Tau" geopark where the tourist flow has doubled: on weekends the number of visitors exceeds 5 thousand people. Here are defined three priority objects which construction is planned to finish in 2022. These are the geological museum complex "Mechetlino", the ethnographic complex "Caravanserai" and the historical and cultural complex "Salauat ere". Their total cost is about 700 million rubles. This year 50 million rubles were allocated for design and survey works. It is planned to begin constructing these facilities in 2022, after obtaining a positive resolution from the State Expert Review Board.

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Author: Karina Kamalova