Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijani tycoon Telman Ismailov plans to build Russia's largest hotel complex for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi in southern Russia, Vedomosti business daily said Monday.

The project will cost Ismailov's AST Group more than $1 billion, the paper quoted Stanislav Ivashkevich, CB Richard Ellis deputy chief development officer, as saying.

The over 24 hectare Sodruzhestvo complex will have 5,500 suites, Vedomosti said, adding that AST Group was also planning to build a 150-suite hotel near Sochi.

Both hotels are to be commissioned by June 2013, the paper said, quoting documents from Olympstroy, the state agency in charge of Olympic construction.

Ismailov's Cherkizovsky market in Moscow, notorious for racist attacks on immigrant workers and fires, was shut last summer by order of Russia's consumer watchdog. Ismailov subsequently spent several months abroad.

In 2008, Ismailov opened the $1.4 billion Mardan Palace Hotel in Turkey. Last December Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Russian businessmen who have resources should invest them in Russia, citing investment in building hotels in Sochi as an example.