Pivot to the Celestial Empire

How Chinese tourists are taking over Russia

“Oh, I like Moscow! It’s much freer than in Beijing or Guangzhou,” said Tianxio Peng, as she shouted and jumped into the air, evoking applause from passersby.

Peng is 26, and is visiting Russia for the seventh time. This time she brought along her mother, grandmother, and fiancé. Peng said that, although the Chinese used to think that Russia was a wild and dangerous country, she feels that nothing could be further from the truth.

Tianxio Peng fell for Russia before she turned 16. She read Tolstoy and decided she needed to learn Russian. But instead of pursuing an advanced degree in Russian literature, she became a Chinese teacher in Moscow, then a consultant to the China Friendly program implemented by the Russian tourism industry to make the country more comfortable and attractive to Chinese visitors. “It’s not so hard,” she said, as she stepped across sunny Pokrovka Street. “I just explain some basic rules to Russian restaurateurs and hoteliers. Like that you shouldn’t put Chinese guests on the 13th floor. And that you shouldn’t put sticks in their food – it is a terrible insult, because we also use sticks for collecting the ashes of the dead.”

In general, Peng said that in recent years she has become closer to Russia than to her native China. “You have freedom here, the opposition, even the curses that are not in China, and you can always go to people’s homes uninvited,” she laughed. “To us that’s a freedom we don’t even dream of.”

Peng and her fiance pose for pictures before the kitschy kremlin at Moscow’s Izmailovo Park.

Peng waved happily at a group of passing Chinese tourists as she turned from Pokrovka onto Maroseyka, and then at Ilyinka exited onto Red Square, where a huge group of Chinese tourists aimed their cameras at St. Basil’s Cathedral.

In May 2015, shortly before Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Russia, the New China TV channel posted a video [bit.ly/china-know-russia] in which Chinese citizens disclose what they know about Russia. As it turns out, they are quite knowledgeable about Russian politics (“Mr. Putin has big muscles”), Russian cuisine (“vodka, kvas and bread with milk”), and even technological innovations (“YotaPhones”). European journalists considered the ad a propaganda stunt, yet it actually demonstrated Russia’s tourism trend of a “Great Turn to the East.” The Chinese are increasingly interested in Russia, and more and more Chinese tourists are traveling here.

The crucial turning point took place in 2012, when President Vladimir Putin signed a decree abolishing visas for tour groups from China. Since then, according to the state statistics service, China has led the world in Russian tourist arrivals. In 2014, more than 1,250,000 Chinese citizens came to Russia, of which 500,000 visited Moscow (versus 220,000 just one year before), and 395,000 visited St. Petersburg (versus 130,000 in 2013). This accounts not for only tourists but all visitors, including students.

According to Leonid Marmer, CEO of Intourist-Thomas Cook, this rising tide is rooted in several factors, chief among them the devaluation of the ruble. “Now a trip to Russia is affordable not only for the very rich,” Marmer said, “but also for the middle class, and even for tourists from the regions. The Chinese are just beginning to discover Russia, and a real tourist boom still lies ahead.”

Moscow and St. Petersburg are already beginning to adapt to the changing tourist market. For several years Russian Railways has been running a Trans-Siberian Express train between Moscow and Beijing, a 20-day trip from China to Russia (and vice versa). Now Russia and China also plan to invest billions of dollars in a high-speed railway linking the two, which would cut travel time to only 32 hours.

The alternative route from China to Russia is by plane, and airlines are increasing services between the countries: today there are flights to Russia not just from Beijing and Shanghai, but also Guangzhou and Harbin.

Peng and her friends said they took the train and loved it. “It was amazing: it had Chinese-speaking conductors, and a variety of dishes – from dimsum to borshch. But most of all I liked the silver glass-holders [podstakanniki], which even Leo Tolstoy used to drink his tea. Russia still has a culture of traveling by train, something which has been lost in China,” she said.

According to Anna Sibirkina, who manages the China Friendly program, its main goal is to make Chinese tourists feel comfortable in Russian hotels and restaurants. The program provides brochures and guidebooks to 68 participating hotels that have Chinese-speaking staff. “It allows them to overcome the language barrier,” she said, adding that this summer even Chinese newspapers were distributed gratis to the guests.

Hotels participating in the program also post signs in Chinese, stock up on green tea, employ Chinese-speaking guides, and accept credit cards from the Chinese UnionPay system.

The gastronomic preferences of tourists are much easier to handle, Sibirkina said. Though Chinese food is served, “the notion that the Chinese prefer only their traditional foods is a myth.”

Izmailovo Hotel Manager Irina Kislyakova agreed, saying “The older generation is a bit afraid, but the advanced youth always wants to try vodka and vinaigrette... Yet later, they spit,” she said, laughing, adding that the younger generation likes to try Russian and Georgian food.

The number of Chinese tourists is growing so quickly that the Russian tourism industry has had little time to adapt, and misunderstandings can result.

Chinese travelers would never express their grievances directly to their hosts, but the Chinese search engine Baidu is a looking glass into the Chinese experience in Russia, where seasoned travelers give advice to those who have yet to venture here.

“My uncle has lived in Russia for almost ten years, so this year he came home and invited me to Russia. I went. What can I say... unless you have a need to, it is better not to go – you can get beaten up.”

“If you have any problems, the police will always side with locals. However, unlike the skinheads, the policemen can be bought.”

Chinese labels.

“Due to differences in lifestyle, during travel it is recommended to take care of everything in advance. Literally everything. Rooms in hotels are often not provided with soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, razors, slippers, combs and other things.”

“In public places, smoking is prohibited, but in the big streets you can always approach a complete stranger and ask for a cigarette. In this sense, civic consciousness in Russian is very well-developed.”

Peng said that, in her experience, most such comments only apply to small Russian towns and suburbs. “If you don’t drive at night somewhere in the woods, nothing will happen to you,” she said. “I had no problems at all for over eight years of my stay, unless it’s someone asking whether I do hentai.” [A Japanese term, actually, relating to any sort of perverse or transgressive sexual desire or act.]

Some Chinese tourists interviewed near Red Square’s GUM department store and Alexander Gardens said they have no complaints.

“In the five years that I have visited Russia, I have noticed them become more accommodating and polite, and now I can compare a Russian trip with my journeys to Europe,” one woman said.

In fact, government statistics indicate that the Chinese tourism boom has compensated for the fall in European tourism since 2014, when Russia’s relationship with the West deteriorated following the annexation of Crimea. In 2014, 410,000 Chinese visited Russia as tourists, an increase of 10 percent versus 2013, when China overtook Germany as the leading source of inbound tourism. And the boom continues. Over 202,000 Chinese visited Russia in the first quarter of 2015, of which 41,000 were tourists (the remainder were workers, students and business travelers) This is up 27 percent versus the same period last year. Meanwhile, the number of all tourists to Russia declined by two percent in the first quarter versus 2014.

The boom, however, has a potentially negative effect: it may intimidate guests from other countries. “I believe that the well-known China Friendly program that is about to get into every hotel in Moscow and Petersburg isn’t quite good,” said Intourist-Thomas Cook’s Marmer. “We are friendly, but we aren’t only China-friendly, we want to see tourists from all over the world.”

In 2014, tourists from China spent more than $1 billion in Russian shops. The Chinese profusion is not news: according to market research by the GfK company, the average Chinese visitor spends about 15 thousand yuan on an average trip, equivalent to $2,400 or R138,000.

About 54 percent of that money is spent shopping. According to Alexei Maslov, head of the School of Oriental Studies of HSE, this is because China’s local middle class is used to relatively cheap Chinese goods. So, when they are abroad, they purchase upmarket, top brand handbags and shoes, or expensive furniture. “They don’t buy many souvenir dolls, fur hats or balalaikas in Russia. However, Chinese citizens have begun to buy luxury items,” he said, as well as “spend a lot of money on clubs, bars, and karaoke.”

In the fight for Chinese tourists, Russia has one distinct advantage over most Western countries: its communist past. “The Chinese are very interested in the communist legacy,” Marmer said, and Russian authorities are thinking of “Red” routes to satisfy this interest, with names like “At Lenin’s Home” and “At Stalin’s Home.”

“In St. Petersburg, the [spots to visit] are Finland Station, the Lenin monument, the legendary armored train, and the cruiser Aurora; in Moscow they are Red Square, the mausoleum and Lenin Hills,” Marmer said.

According to Peng, Red Tourism is highly developed in China. “Crowds of pilgrims every year travel the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia route, with a stop in Yan’an – a city where Mao returned with his army.” Peng said the older generation is very interested in the history of Soviet communism and wants to visit the Russian “places of military glory.”

“I think that a Red Route would unite the three ‘capitals’ of Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan,” Marmer said. “Ulyanovsk, as the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin, will be the fourth city and the ‘capital’ of the red route.”

“But the question here is not whether they’d like it, it’s if they’d like it too much,” he added. It is whether throngs of Chinese visitors would refocus attention on a communist past that many would rather forget. RL