Biggest theme park to open in Moscow

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - The biggest theme park in Europe will open in the Russian capital at the end of February.

Designed to fit 20,000 people at a time, Dream Island park is set to become a tourist destination for family vacations.

The project worth $1.5 billion was built with the major participation of the Turkish Ronesans Holding, Dream Island Technical Director Ivan Scholl told Anadolu Agency.

“Our park is the largest theme park in Russia and the largest indoor park in Europe. There are no such parks in Scandinavia, you can find the closest similar indoor park in the United Arab Emirates. All the attractions are unique and worked out specially for Dream Island. We are proud of everything here,” Scholl said.

The park, built on an islet near the Moscow city center, is made to look like a town with a central alley, ending with a merry-go-round and four promenades, surrounded by the landscape park. Each promenade looks like a street of four cities, having distinctive outdoor design and architecture, allowing it to be easily identified by location: Barcelona, Beverly Hills, London and Rome.

“In general it is a real town only covered everywhere by a glass roof, as we wanted our guests to feel comfortable in all weathers and seasons. The square of glassing is the largest in Europe, 8,600 square meters (28,200 feet). We spent a great deal of money on it,” he said.

Dream Island has eight zones representing different worlds and features globally famous heroes: smurfs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Hello Kitty, Hotel Transylvania, Mowgli in the Land of Dinosaurs, Dream race, Snow Queen Castle and the Magic Village with a puppet theater and horror house.

“We had been choosing the heroes for a very long time, looked for, so to speak, timeless characters that will not be forgotten in five years. We use expensive durable building materials, because we do not have the opportunity to rebuild the park. Thus, we selected the heroes who are known in Russia, inhabit a recognizable, bright and beautiful world, and from brands, which continue their cartoon series,” Scholl said.

According to the Dream Island website, the entrance fee amounts to 2,900 rubles ($50) for adults and 2,600 rubles ($45) for children. There is also a FastPass ticket for quicker entrance to the attractions. Its price is almost two times higher, 5,400 rubles($90) and 5,100 rubles ($85). The tickets will be available for purchase online on the park’s official website and at its booking offices.

“Each zone has attractions, designed for different age categories, but in general Dream Island is a family park, there is no super-extreme attraction, all attractions are convenient for people 120 centimeters (4 feet) high. We expect that the majority of our guests will be from Russia, but for the foreign tourists it can be interesting too,” he said.

Scholl said Dream Island creators pay great attention to safety, so the attractions are produced by European companies, experienced in designing amusement facilities and known for high quality and made in accordance with Russian and international safety standards.

Currently two companies are inspecting the reliability and safety, Russian certificate body and Germany’s TUV SUD, the number one auditor in the world in attraction security inspection.

"As far as we make sure that Dream Island is absolutely safe, we will open it for the visitors," Scholl said.