Golf may be huge in the US and Asia, but as a lengthy Wall Street Journal explains, Russia has largely missed out on the boom as its only in recent years have a group of tycoons—including oil billionaire Roman Abramovich, aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska and mining mogul Vladimir Potanin —begun bringing golf courses to the country, and in a most unusual way.
The area around Moscow—a city with one of the largest populations of billionaires—is now home to some nine 18-hole courses and at least three nine-hole courses with many of them being world-class, private and generally empty. The Russian capital, which has a population of more than 12 million, meanwhile, has only about 3,000 regular golfers, and just two publicly accessible championship pro courses. The problem? Chilly weather, deep unfamiliarity with the game, eye-watering greens fees and horrendous traffic that can make a 30-mile drive to a suburban Moscow course a three-hour affair. Moreover, it wasn’t until 1990 that the USSR opened its first real golf course, on the site of a Moscow dump.
To read the whole article, Russia: Golf’s New Frontier?, go to the website of the Wall Street Journal.
Similar Posts:
- Old Russia Hands’ Poll: Where Will Russia’s Economy Be in 5 Years? (MT)
- What Crisis? Cashing in on Russia’s Middle Class Real Estate Boom (fDi)
- Mark Mobius’s Emerging Markets Outlook (WSJ)
- Private Equity Group Blackstone to pull out of Russia (FT)
- China / Russia Stock Market Charts Suggest Investing Early in Frontier Markets (Like Africa) Pay Off (Telegraph)
- Despite Centuries of Dire Predictions, Why Russia Isn’t Going Away (NI)
- Analysts Favor Currencies Like the Mexican Peso, Won and Zloty (WSJ)
- Mark Mobius’s Favorite Emerging Markets: Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, Vietnam and South Africa (WSJ)
- FATCA Fallout: Russia’s #2 Bank VTB to Stop Servicing Russia-Based US Clients (MT)
- Who Are Russia’s Middle Class? Some Facts and Figures (MT)
- What Russia Sanctions? IBM East Europe/Asia Signs the First Contract at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (ITAR-TASS)
- Russian Stocks Are Trading Cheaper Than Half of Their Book Net Asset Value (MT)
- Russia’s EU Food Ban a Blessing in Disguise for Shipping Companies (MT)
- Russia Pivoted East to Asia 800 Years Before Obama (MT)
- Russia Billionaire’s Jailing Unleashes the Shorts on Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (Bloomberg)
