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Nov. 2, 2004
Why I slapped together this site, or the advantages of tourist farming.
I have a "dacha" 5 miles down the Volga from Staritsa. I truly like the area and understand its essentially central position despite apparent neglect. My long-term plans include building a proper country estate in the vicinity of Staritsa and pretending to live the life of cultured nobility. Such a project of course requires a source of financing. Thus my interest in promoting Staritsa as a travel destination and cultivating tourists.
Why tourists? My views on their advantages over other types of livestock or crops are expressed and justified elsewhere but, in brief, a tourist is remarkably tolerant to living conditions and thrives on a great variety of feeds that would serious damage other, more sensitive species. Economically, the distance between feedlot and cash return is minimal: tourist, the ultimate cash crop, usually just pays you at the end of its growing cycle without the need to slaughter, processing, and transport it to the market. There are some peculiarities those contemplating re-orientation of their agricultural production towards tourist must keep in mind. Its psychological needs are somewhat different of those of pigs and cows. For instance, tourist thrives and generates profit only if allowed to remain under the impression it has arrived to your farm on its own volition. Attempts to catch them in the Red Square and transport them to my dacha in the trunk of my car were a financial fiasco. It is much preferable to lure them in. After experimenting with various types of bait we found that ordinary aboriginal horses with a small infusion of southern blood (eg. Anglo-aboriginals) are quite effective at attracting tourists to our feedlot. What's more, despite the majority of them being carnivores, tourists don't normally eat horses used to entice them to our farm, and we are able realize significant savings by recycling our companion animals. Unlike most species that rely on smell and vision to locate food and other necessities, tourist evolved verbal communication several hundred million ago while modern more lucrative forms tend to make extensive use of modern information technologies! I thus urge my colleagues to establish solid Internet presence.
Those interested in the practice of tourist farming is invited to our site www.russian-horse-rides.com
The related country estate concept was described in www.rural-russia.narod.ru The site however failed to generate interest of the desirable sort, and fell into neglect.
