Russian holding Etalon-Len-Spets SMU (ELS), specialising primarily in residential construction, started its international expansion through a 30 million-dollar investment in a housing complex in Bulgaria, Property Xpress reported.

The holding’s first project beyond Russia envisages the development of a luxury condominium near the Black Sea resort of Zlatni Pyassutsi (Golden Sands).Finance will be secured through foreign non-Russian banks.

The gross actual area of the complex is projected to be 22 000 sq m. Apart from residential buildings, it will also embrace parking grounds and green areas. Construction is scheduled for completion by mid-2009 at the latest.

ELS’s executives reckon that investment in housing compounds along Bulgaria’s coast is currently among  the most lucrative of its kind. Currently, Russia takes a keen interest in these projects, they said, adding that they expected to sell the new apartments in a very short period.

Although house prices in the presented compound have not yet been precisely calculated, affluent Russians will hardly have difficulty affording them even if they go for several thousand euro a sq m, company representatives commented.