Urals region wants DiCaprio to be face of its tourism ad campaign

Chelyabinsk Governor Boris Dubrovsky has invited Hollywood star Leonard DiCaprio to become the face of an advertising campaign of the Urals region’s tourism industry, his spokesman said on Wednesday. "We can show him our tourism opportunities," spokesman Dmitry Fedechkin said. "We’ve decided to offer the actor to consider becoming the face of the South Urals tourism." The proposal follows DiCaprio’s Instagram post of men fishing on the Ural River near the Magnitogork Iron and Steel Works in the South Urals. "Knowing that the river is badly polluted by waste from the huge plant looming behind them, many fisherman would sell their catch to markets rather than consume it themselves," DiCaprio, a high-profile environmental activist, said in his Instagram post. Fedechkin said the picture posted by Dicaprio is "rather old." "In the photo we can see pipes of open-hearth furnaces which do not exist anymore. And now the water in the river near the plant is clean for fishing," he added. DiCaprio, whose grandmother was a Russian immigrant, is very popular in the country. A number of his fans in Yakutia, a region in eastern Siberia, recently started donating their gold and silver to make a symbolic "Oscar" statuette for their favorite actor who is now waiting for the Academy Awards verdict on his latest blockbuster "The Revenant".