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Southern hospitality with a northern flare

A resident of the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation (AZRF) has opened the first ethnic food restaurant in Monchegorsk, Murmansk Region

03.04.2023 // The opening of Jani Restorani restaurant attracted the attention of Monchegorsk residents not only with its national Georgian dishes but also with its non-classical format of operation.

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'Whereas waiters' work is usually limited to greeting customers, serving dishes and clearing up dishware, with us they can talk about the history of Georgian cuisine, dance or wish you a happy birthday,' said Pavel Yudkin, director of YuVG Plus. 'The menu is quite nutritious and varied—it includes various Georgian dishes from salads to desserts and, of course, drinks of the people, of which wine is the main one.'

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According to him, the first visitors to the Jani Restorani appreciated the taste of shashlik and kebab, kharcho and badrijani soup, satsivi and dolma with Georgian yoghurt and, of course, khinkali stuffed with different types of meat, as well as with cheese and spinach. The restaurant offers a selection of shashliks or a large schnitzel and a spatula in the dough for a company. A special pride of place is that the chebureks are so big that one is enough to feed two people. Also on the menu are various types of khachapuri—kubdari (with meat stuffing), imeruli and Adjarian.

In addition, the restaurant offers a variety of wines called Jani, one of Georgia's symbols of hospitality, made from grapes of the same name.

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'Since our restaurant operates as a franchise, our cooks were trained by masters who studied in Georgia,' says Pavel Yudkin.

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According to him, the example of other cities showed that Georgian cuisine is very popular and in demand, so it was decided to open Jani Restorani, a restaurant in Monchegorsk to franchise the national cuisine, which has already proved itself in Nizhny Novgorod.

To implement the investment project, YuVG Plus took advantage of the preferences granted to AZRF residents, including the right to tax exemptions and insurance premium reimbursement for new jobs.

According to an agreement with the Far East Development Corporation (FEDC), investments in the project amount to RUB 31.7 mn. Most of the money was spent on decorating the restaurant, purchasing furniture as well as technological, sound and lighting equipment.

The restaurant has space for 110 guests and there were no empty tables, not only on opening day but also at the test launches. The emergence of Jani Restorani has provided employment opportunities for 39 townspeople.

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'One of the results of the government's efforts to create comfortable conditions for doing business in Russia's Arctic zone, creating the largest preferential treatment in the world in this territory, is that more than 100 new businesses have already been launched. Businesses are being set up in different directions, catering is one of the niches in demand; new restaurants, cafés, and pizzerias are popular with residents of the Russian Arctic and tourists and are not empty either in summer or winter. Any entrepreneur, with an investment of RUB 1 mn or more, can start a profitable business, taking advantage of tax breaks and administrative preferences,' said Vladimir Gudkov, Director of the Department for Arctic Zone Investment Projects Support in FEDC.

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