MOSCOW: A girl finds a magic necklace made of mushrooms, but then an evil gnome steals it. Adventure ensues. According to her creators, Alfreya, the hero of a new children’s book who was conceived for Russia’s first theme park, is “an ordinary girl 10 to 12 years old with large, thoughtful eyes.”
One thing she is not is a Disney character. Opening a real international Disneyland in Moscow would be out of the question amid the current political standoff with the US. But Russia’s decades long quest to build a theme park, which began during the Cold War rivalry with the US, is finally reaching its fairy-tale ending. Some 60 years ago, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev first floated the idea of building an analogue to Disneyland.
The $1.5 billion Dream Island, which opened on Saturday, may certainly remind some visitors of Disneyland. In place of Elsa from “Frozen”, there will be the Snow Queen, and in the Russian version of “The Jungle Book”, the jungle is populated by talking dinosaurs. Developers said the park will be inhabited by dozens of fairy-tale characters, all domestically produced.
Dream Island does not mind if you invoke Disneyland to describe the park but will point out that it has no connections to the Happiest Place on Earth. “The word Disneyland is on people’s tongues,” said Alena Burova, a publicist for the site. “In Russia, we say Disneyland when we mean just a theme park.”
The park expects 5 million Moscow residents and 2 1/2 million tourists, mostly from elsewhere in Russia. Tickets on a weekend cost 11,000 rubles, or about Rs 11,800, for four.
One thing she is not is a Disney character. Opening a real international Disneyland in Moscow would be out of the question amid the current political standoff with the US. But Russia’s decades long quest to build a theme park, which began during the Cold War rivalry with the US, is finally reaching its fairy-tale ending. Some 60 years ago, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev first floated the idea of building an analogue to Disneyland.
The $1.5 billion Dream Island, which opened on Saturday, may certainly remind some visitors of Disneyland. In place of Elsa from “Frozen”, there will be the Snow Queen, and in the Russian version of “The Jungle Book”, the jungle is populated by talking dinosaurs. Developers said the park will be inhabited by dozens of fairy-tale characters, all domestically produced.
Dream Island does not mind if you invoke Disneyland to describe the park but will point out that it has no connections to the Happiest Place on Earth. “The word Disneyland is on people’s tongues,” said Alena Burova, a publicist for the site. “In Russia, we say Disneyland when we mean just a theme park.”
The park expects 5 million Moscow residents and 2 1/2 million tourists, mostly from elsewhere in Russia. Tickets on a weekend cost 11,000 rubles, or about Rs 11,800, for four.
Download The Times of India News App for Latest World News.
Get the app