The town of Chelyabinsk may construct a "Meteor Disneyland" at the site in southern Russia where a 11-ton meteor impacted on Feb. 15.
When the meteor exploded over the Russian city about 950 miles from Moscow it damaged buildings and broke glass, injuring about 1,200 people. It was heavily covered by the media, with videos of the site being transmitted around the world via YouTube and other sources. Now the mayor of Chelyabinsk wants to cash in on the disaster, making plans to create a sort of theme park at the impact site.
According to the Moscow Times, on Feb. 21 mayor Andrei Orlov announced a brainstorming session across Chelyabinsk on how to generate travel to the city and also to make money from the catastrophic event.
Bloomberg states that the session has already taken place and that ideas included "Meteor Disneyland," a yearly cosmic music and fireworks celebration and a pyramid with a lighted beacon that would be placed on Chebarkul Lake.
Chelyabinsk is not unfamiliar with disaster. In 1957, nearly 100 tons of radioactive waste burst into the atmosphere at the Chelyabinsk-40 atomic reprocessing plant. Now Chelyabinsk is back on the map, and many want to take advantage of it.
"Space sent us a gift and we need to make use of it," Natalya Gritsay, head of the regional tourism department, said . "We need our own Eiffel Tower or Statue of Liberty."
Some believe that a tourist site will help ameliorate Chelyabinsk's stigma as a nuclear disaster site.
"It's a good idea; it will help them develop their local brand," Valery Markin, regional expert at the Institute of Sociology in Moscow, said. "But it's not just about tourism. A big meteor strike is a very rare event, and this one hit at Lake Chebarkul, a traditional recreation zone for the population of Chelyabinsk.... People are already saying that some superior force saved them from total destruction. In earlier times, people might have designated this a 'sacred place.'"
Residents have already begun cashing in on the event, selling parts of the meteorite on the internet.
