Travel Notes

Hermitage Reneges

The State Hermitage Museum abandoned its announced plan to equalize its entrance fees for Russian and foreign tourists. Director Mikhail Piotrovsky had promised to level ticket prices (which cost foreigners R350 and Russians R100), but the museum ended up doing exactly the opposite: raising foreigner ticket prices to R400.

“Russians don’t live well enough to pay the full fee,” Piotrovsky explained to Rossiyskaya Gazeta. The discriminatory pricing principle has long infuriated both tourists and the tourism industry. The Hermitage, one of the most famous museums in the world, is visited by 2.5 million people every year, of which 500,000 are foreigners. Setting different price levels is a common practice in Russian museums and other attractions.

Border Reopens

The border crossing between Russia and Georgia will start working again on March 1, Foreign Ministry officials promised. The checkpoint was closed in 2006 for reconstruction, which coincided almost exactly with the beginning of a diplomatic freeze and subsequent halt of direct flights between the two countries. While flights have recently resumed for several charters, the renovated checkpoint had yet to be opened, despite being announced as ready last September.

Fish Story

Russia’s largest salt water aquarium has opened in Sochi. It boasts 4000 species of fish in its 29 aquariums. The launch of the aquarium was not without tragic delays, however: when, last summer, customs officials held several containers of fish from Asia for several hours, citing incomplete documentation, most of the fish died in the heat. More recently, Sochi customs has not allowed in two leopards brought from Turkmenistan as a gift for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The animals have been marooned in the customs zone for six months due to an inability to affix their value.

Cultural Restoration

Russia and the World Bank will invest $250 million in a program to restore cultural heritage sites and turn them into tourist attractions. The plan includes landmarks between Moscow and St. Petersburg, in four different regions of Russia. The World Bank will pitch in $100 million, while the federal budget will foot the rest of the bill. Regional authorities submitted 40 sites for inclusion in the program, including Yefremovo estate near Gatchina in Leningrad region (the childhood home of Vladimir Nabokov), Mon Repos Manor, one of the towers in Vyborg fortress, Catherine the Great’s Putevoy Palace in Novgorod region, several notable structures in Pskov, including the Pogankin chambers and kremlin, and historical landmarks in Torzhok and Tver. The final program list has not been published yet, but it also is rumored to include construction of a facility for art restoration and storage.

Lost in Translation

The St. Petersburg Times reported in February that authorities have inexplicably begun enforcing a 2003 regulation that requires passengers to clear lost luggage through customs themselves (rather than have it cleared by airline personnel). Needless to say, traveling back out to one of the capitals’ distant airports is inconvenient when one is there for a limited time as a tourist, and it can be an impossible exercise if one has already taken a connecting flight to a distant city. According to the Times, travelers with missing luggage have typically signed waivers allowing airlines to take their bags through Russian customs when they are found, so they can be delivered to their owners. Yet, said Alexei Fomin, a customs officer at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, such waivers are no longer valid.

Snap Decision

The Federal Protective Service has promised to finally allow high-quality photography in and around the Kremlin and Red Square, lifting a rule that has long infuriated professional photographers. The rule, introduced in 2008, made photographers who used tripods and professional equipment a constant target of harassment, if their camera was larger than 14 x 25 centimeters (roughly 5 x 10 inches) or had a lens larger than seven centimeters (2½ inches). The rule was imposed to discourage the Kremlin being used as a backdrop for advertising campaigns, one anonymous Kremlin source told Gazeta.ru, since “people in hamburger costumes near the Kremlin are an insult.”

Alphabet Soup

Sheremetyevo airport is rebranding its terminals, changing from a numeric scheme to one that uses letters. The main Sheremetyevo-2 terminal (international flights) will be renamed Terminal F, Sheremetyevo-1 (domestic flights) will become Terminal B. Sheremetyevo-3, which was opened last fall, will be known as Terminal D, and a new Terminal E is set to open this year.

Run Salmon, Run

A tourism and education “Salmon Park” will reportedly be built on Sakhalin Island as part of a program to preserve Russia’s wild salmon. The park will include a trail along a river where salmon spawn, a museum, and a conference hall. Construction will reportedly begin this year, though the facility’s precise location has not been announced. It is part of a three-year program organized by Sakhalin Energy and the Wild Salmon Center, an international organization.

Icy Comforts

A snow hotel opened this year in Arkhangelsk region. The building, constructed in the shape of a heart, is made of ice from forest lakes and includes a hall for wedding receptions, a movie theater, and a temperature of 0° C (32° F).

Snow and ice hotels have been built in several northern countries, but this is Russia’s first. It is in the Ustyansk district of Arkhangelsk region, on the territory of Malinovka Ski Resort, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.