Tourism to Russia: A story of love and loss

Russia should be one of the top tourist spots in the world – it’s got the Kremlin and all sorts of ways to fulfill Soviet curiosity; St Petersburg and all its attendant cultural offerings; the endless Siberian tundra and beauty of Lake Baikal; the soaring mountains and winding seasides of the Caucasus.

But it’s very expensive to get here, especially when an incomprehensible visa process is figured in (Russia and the EU have long been in talks to lift visa requirements, with each side saying “no, you go first” and thus getting nowhere). The fact of police corruption and brutality don’t help. The Caucasus, far from drawing in tourists, keeps them away with fierce (and growing) insurgencies.

So it’s no surprise that the number of tourists who came to Russia falls far behind the number of Russians who travel abroad. The vice president of the Russian Tourist Industry Union said today that while Russia welcomed two million tourists last year, who spent a total of $8.9 billion in the country, 12 million Russians (around 8 percent of the total population) went abroad last year for tourism, spending a total of $26.5 billion.

Saint Petersburg is doing its part to boost tourism – approving quickie marriages in a bid to attract the lovesick, and waiving visa requirements for those who visit on cruise ships. But for the rest of the country, the downward trend noted today by the union’s VP, Yury Barzykin, will likely continue. Which is sad. If you can manage to put out of mind the racist violence, the terrifying state of domestic air travel, the potential for natural catastrophe and the fact that Moscow hotels are the most expensive in the world, there really are a lot of reasons to visit. Seriously.