Speculation that Russian billionaire Telegram founder Pavel Durov will invest in Kyrgyzstan’s initiative to create Central Asia’s largest ski resort—Three Peaks, to be designed by Societe Des Trois Vallees (S3V), the operator of the elite Courchevel ski resort in France—has been triggered by local reports that the entrepreneur arrived in the country’s mountainous Issyk-Kul region at the end of last week.

After social media users in Issyk-Kul reported encounters with the often elusive businessman—who fled Russia in 2013, saying he was under pressure from the Kremlin to share personal data of Ukrainian pro-democracy protesters—suggestions quickly mounted that his visit to Kyrgyzstan was linked with the creation of the “Kyrgyz Courchevel” resort in the mountains of Issyk-Kul.

Durov, founder of both the Telegram messenger service and social network VKontakte, with a fortune estimated at $15.5bn by Forbes, recently posted on social media that he planned to visit Central Asia, although he made no mention of involvement in Three Peaks.

He said: "I keep working, meeting with our [social network] users from unusual places. This summer I decided to visit Central Asia to see life there and study how people use Telegram and what are their digital needs."

A user of social media platform X, wrote that her mother encountered Durov in Petroglyphs Park in Cholpon-Ata. Durov was described by another social media user as in the company of Russian blogger  Gasan Guseinov, who shared photos from the Issyk-Kul mountain lake on his social media accounts.

The Tian Shan mountains have a legendary status among mountaineers (Credit: Chen Zhao, cc-by-sa 2.0).

On June 10, the head of Kyrgyzstan’s Cabinet of Ministers, Akylbek Japarov, told an investment forum in Vienna how the country will sell itself as a top eco-tourism destination, capitalising on the legendary Tian Shan Mountains (“Mountains of Heaven”) and the steppes of the Ancient Silk Road.

Said Japarov: “We are starting the construction of the ‘Kyrgyz Courchevel’. The French company S3V, one of the first operators of the world-famous resort in France, is implementing Three Peaks ski cluster in Kyrgyzstan. The plan is to lay about 200 kilometres [124 miles] of ski trails. The resort will operate all year round and will be able to receive up to 850,000 tourists annually.”

Japarov last week signed a decree on the creation of a Kyrgyz Courchevel state enterprise under the Department of Presidential Affairs. The first phase of investment in the project is expected to cost $165mn.

In France, S3V operates seven resorts in the “Three valleys”, namely Courchevel, Meribel and Val Thorens. They are all popular with the world’s jet set.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have also developed skiing resorts on their territories in the Tian Shan, part of a Himalayan belt.

In preparation for his ultimately successful attempt at becoming the first man to climb Everest in 1953, legendary mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary scaled some Tian Shan peaks.

Kyrgyzstan also has plans to launch a second resort near Bishkek. It will boast a 20-kilometre funicular, which will operate in both winter and summer.

“In winter, this will be a unique opportunity to ski literally a 20-minute drive from the capital Bishkek. All technical structures will be built by Austrian company Doppelmayr,” Japarov told delegates at the Vienna gathering.

Kyrgyzstan’s hopes for a headline-catching expansion of tourism also depend on developing facilities around Issyk-Kul lake, the second largest mountain lake in the world behind Lake Titicaca on the border of Bolivia and Peru.

Also within easy reach of Bishkek, the lake has long been a popular tourist draw for hikers and campers with its trekking, horse-riding and sailing holidays.

Kazakhstan’s city of Almaty is a three day trek away through pristine mountains.