Afghan capital gets first luxury hotel
KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai attended the opening of the capital`s first five-star hotel on Tuesday, leaving his sick bed to mark the occasion
The Kabul Serena Hotel has been built at a cost of $36.5 million by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, an international development agency promoting private sector entrepreneurship.
"I was supposed to have stayed at home for total rest for today and tomorrow because of severe flu," Karzai told the opening ceremony.
The 177-room, three-storey hotel is close to Karzai`s heavily fortified presidential palace in the heart of the battle-scared capital, Kabul.
The hotel has a large swimming pool, a health club, a pastry shop and two restaurants. Its rooms cost from $250 to $1,200 a night for the presidential suite, in a city where the average salary for a civil servant is about $20 per month.
The Kabul Serena, aimed at visiting foreign investors, local dignitaries and diplomats, has been built on the site of the old Kabul Hotel, which used to be the favorite venue for wedding parties in pre-war Afghanistan.
A former U.S. ambassador, Adolph Dubs, was mysteriously killed in a gun battle in 1979 between Islamic militants and pro-Soviet guards in one of the old hotel`s rooms in 1979.
Reuters
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