Travel Notes

New Visas

Border regions to be redefined 

Beginning next year, Russians and foreign visitors may need internal visas to travel to certain parts of the country.

The Federal Security Bureau is reviewing the list of territories classified as border zones and is about to require special permits for visitors to these areas, Russian media reported. The border patrol service has installed special markers in some areas in the Far East and has already started asking visitors for permits, according to the daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

In July, the FSB declared 47 Russian regions – more than half – as border areas. Some of them were classified as such in the Soviet Union, but many are new, including areas bordering on the former USSR republics. 

The FSB says visitors to the border zones would be able to order special passes for free by fax or email and then pick them up at a check point or the nearest border control office. Locals do not need permits and will be admitted to the zone upon showing their passport with a registration address. Entry points to the border zones are to be marked with special signs, according to the FSB.

Russia’s ‘Flying Coffins’

Airline nearly banned from 

European airports

St. Petersburg-based Pulkovo Airlines, one of Russia’s major air carriers, could become the country’s first entry on the European Union’s blacklist of unsafe airlines. Blacklisted carriers are not allowed to fly to EU member states. 

The EU list of 90+ unsafe carriers, commonly known as “flying coffins,” is mostly populated by African airlines, along with two airlines from Kazakhstan and all Kyrgyz carriers.

Pulkovo has received 21 warnings from the EU over the past year, the most recent on October 12, when it had been expected to be blacklisted, but got off with just a warning. 

The airline operates 40 planes and serves about 100 domestic and 80 international flights. A Pulkovo plane crashed in Ukraine in August killing at least 170 people. 

Hotel For Peterhof

Developers seek opportunities 

outside Piter

St. Petersburg has been Russia’s investment darling for a few years, but now expensive development projects are beginning to sprout on the city’s outskirts. The St. Petersburg Real Estate Corporation has announced plans to construct a $220 million, 112,000 square meter hotel complex in Peterhof. Construction is expected to span from 2007 to 2011, according to Vedomosti. 

This is the second such project for the developer; it restored the former Druzhba (Friendship) Hotel as the four-star Andersen Hotel in 2004. Experts say the Peterhof hotel may be in great demand over the summer, but could be hard to fill during the off-season, and advised the hotelier to look into offering spa tours for Muscovites. 

Recouping the investment on the hotel could take 20 years.

Baikal City

Lake threatened with massive
tourist development

This summer Lake Baikal narrowly escaped the environmental threat of abutting the East Siberia- Pacific Ocean pipeline when President Putin ordered the oil line diverted further north, away from Baikal’s pristine waters. But now the world’s deepest freshwater lake faces another threat: a major development project.  

Baikal City – a massive, $637 million recreational complex to be built in the village of Listvyanka, 67 kilometers from Irkutsk – will include a water park, a ski resort and several 3-5 star hotels. Adjoining residences for the presidents of Russia, China, Korea and Japan will cost $39 million. 

The plan for the development was presented at the fourth Baikal Economic Forum; construction is expected to begin in 2008, RBC information agency reported. 

By 2010, the area is expected to draw 112,000 visitors annually, potentially rising to one million over 20 years.  

Salt Lake Resort

New resort to serve
traveling Muslims

A local salt mining company plans to invest R250 million ($930,000) in a resort center in Orenburg region, hoping to swell its profits from seven saltwater lakes in the area. 

The developer, Sol Iletsk Kurort, expects to recover its investment in five years, the company’s director, Roman Abdyushev, told Vedomosti. The center is expected to open in 2008.

Last summer, 700,000 people visited the lakes, a fifth of them Muslim pilgrims from Samara, Tatarstan and Bashkiria, who come to the lakes each June for a ritual cleansing.  

Currently, tourists mainly rent rooms from locals, paying from  $13 to $67 per day, depending on amenities. 

Going East

Premium hotels expanding 

into Russia’s regions 

Premium hotels are still mostly concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but major hotel chains are increasingly showing interest in the regions. 

In this, hoteliers are following their clients, as major foreign companies and Russian companies with expatriate management are doing more and more business outside the two capitals.

Among others, Marriott International opened the Renaissance Samara Hotel in 2003, Hyatt International will start operating in Yekaterinburg by 2008, and Swisshotel will manage a five-star Sky City hotel in Novosibirsk, with construction to begin at the end of this year. 

In fact, Novosibirsk is a hotspot for chain hotels, as Accor, Rezidor SAS and South African Protea all have projects there in various stages of development.