Remember when the Russians invaded Georgia and made the former Soviet state an issue in the 2008 U.S. presidential election? Today, less than two years later, the Russians have retreated and a big Middle Eastern developer wants to bring a symbol of prosperity to Georgia, in the form of the nation’s first 18-hole golf course.
The course will be the featured attraction of mixed-use project in Mukhrovany, a village that’s 18 miles east of Tbilisi, the nation’s capital. Along with the golf course, Mukhrovany Golf Village will have a hotel and, in a later phase of the project, some villas and apartments.
The village will be built by an affiliate of Rakeen Development, a firm owned by the government of Ras Al Khaimah, one of the United Arab Emirates. In recent years Rakeen has given the green light to several projects in Georgia, including a high-end shopping mall called Uptown Tbilisi and Tbilisi Heights, which will feature houses and a commercial center. The company also owns some property along the Black Sea, where it plans to build some resort-style hotels.
“We strongly believe in the potential of Georgia as an investment destination,” Rakeen’s executive chairman said in a press release about Muhhrovany.
Rakeen is no stranger to golf development. In India, where it operates via Rakindo Developers, it hopes to build as many as six golf communities. And just months ago, it opened the Banyan Tree Al Wadi resort in Ras Al Khaimah, which has a hotel, a spa, a nature preserve, and a lighted 18-hole course.
The golf course at Al Wadi is part of Al Hamra Golf Club. It was designed by Peter Harradine, an architect based in Erlen, Switzerland, who’ll also design the course in Mukhrovany.
Rakeen hopes to break ground on Harradine’s course this spring and believes it’ll be open in 2011.