Prague, July 10 (CTK) – The Czech company of Jiri Machalek, which is the only in Europe to produce dinosaur robotic models, is expanding further abroad and plans to open a new DinoPark, the ninth within its international network, in the west Russian town of Belgorod, daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) wrote on Monday.
Machalek, seated in Plzen, the centre of west Bohemia, opened the first DinoPark in the town in 2003. Since then, he built a network of another four parks in the Czech Republic (Prague, Liberec, Vyskov and Ostrava), two in Slovakia (Bratislava and Kosice) and one in Algar, Spain, which started operating three years ago.
At some places, the project was facilitated by the existing infrastructure of an adjacent zoological or botanical garden.
Most recently, Machalek sold the idea to a Russian franchise businessman who has established another DinoPark next to a zoo on the outskirts of Belgorod, some 50 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, and wants to open it on August 5, which is the Victory Day in the region, HN writes.
Dispatched by Machalek from Plzen, 20 lorries brought 88 moving dinosaur models to Russia to be installed in Belgorod. The local Dino park will also have a large entrance gate, a 3D cinema and other attractions.
Machalek’s firm has produced more than 1,000 static and moving animal models based on scientific knowledge, and also imitated rocks, stones and Mesozoic finds, HN writes.
The firm has only 20 employees, and it hires hundreds of staff for its parks during the tourist season.
Machalek says the idea of launching a DinoPark occurred to him when he saw his five-year-old son playing with a set of small toy rubber dinosaurs.
His DinoParks attract about 1.5 million visitors a year, the daily writes.
