Russian-born investors to open spa & wellness hotel in Kirkkonummi in January

The Russians have returned to the Porkkala area - but as investors this time.
      Under the Soviet-Finnish armistice of 1944, Finland leased the Porkkala Peninsula to the USSR for 50 years, for use as a naval base. The USSR returned it to Finland in 1956. Porkkala is a part of the municipality of Kirkkonummi.
     
The old staff training centre of the former Finnish commercial bank Kansallis-Osake-Pankki (KOP) in Kirkkonummi’s Långvik has fallen into the hands of a Russian investment company.
      The renovation of the Långvik training centre will be completed soon, and the new congress and wellness hotel is to open its doors in January.
     
In anticipation, people have been fascinated most by the hotel’s new owner, Boris Rotenberg, a Finnish citizen of Russian origin.
      Rotenberg and his brother Arkady have diverse business activities in Russia. According to the Russian media, Arkady Rotenberg is the former judo trainer of Russia’s present Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
      Boris Rotenberg bought the unoccupied training centre in 2005.
      Rotenberg also has investments in some properties in the coastal city of Hanko and in Pyhätunturi in Lapland.
      The target group of the new wellness hotel will not be Russians but Finnish congress customers, reported Hotel Manager Petri Alanko on Wednesday.
      However, the threshold is not high, and all residents in the neighbourhood are also welcome to the new spa.
     
The building, which was constructed in 1976, has been revamped ”in the Scandinavian style”, but the house also retains many of its original features from the 1970s, such as design fireplaces and KOP’s old logos, depicting a blue squirrel.
      According to Petri Alanko, the former Finnish President Urho Kekkonen himself used to come and take saunas in Långvik with some highly respected senior industrialists.
      In honour of the former president, there is a Kekkonen Lounge, in which the head of a moose shot by the head of the state is to be hung.
     
The ground floor of the building will accommodate premises for health and beauty treatments, as Långvik aims to compete for clients with Haikko Spa and Naantali Spa.
      The new wellness hotel will tempt customers to try a cold room of minus 110°C and a salt room.
      In addition, the new hotel will have as many as 3,000 square metres available for meeting and conference premises.
      The costs of the renovation have amounted to EUR 20 million.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Russian investors´ eagerness to invest in Finnish property is losing steam (17.11.2008)
  Surge in property buying by Russian citizens in Saimaa region (15.1.2008)
  Rouble investors keeping step with growing tourist trade from the east (1.8.2007)

See also:
  Finns found extensive damage after returning to Porkkala in spring of 1956 (31.1.2006)
  Sixty years ago: Parliament within range of Soviet guns (5.10.2004)

Links:
  Långvik Congress & Wellness Hotel (thus far the site is only in Finnish)
  Porkkala (Wikipedia)