News of the year 2010

Two leading international tourist exhibitions will take place in March of this year. These are ITB – 2010 in Germany, and Russia International exhibition MITT.

Agreement on simplifying procedure for issuing visas to citizens of Russia and Iceland comes into force on 1 March 2010. Agreement itself, as well as the readmission agreement, was signed between the two governments in September 2008, after which all the necessary preparatory work for innovation was done.

Resolution on the procedure for temporarily imported cars in Russia came into force on Feb. 25, 2010, as reported news agency RIA Novosti.

British Minister for European Affairs Chris Bryan gave an interview to the Interfax news agency, where he explained the reluctance of Britain to impose visa-free regime with Russia.

Center of Polar Tourism will be built in Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area by joint forces of Administration of the district and the Finnish consortium “Sofi”.

The rapid growth of hotel space this year, obviously, made a disservice to the capital hoteliers. As reported by the Interfax agency, according to a study conducted by Blackwood, in 2009 Moscow hotels’ load significantly declined compared with last year to approximately 50%.

This year Pancake Day will be celebrated not only in different cities of Russia, but also in Europe.

Resolution signed by Russian Government in 2009 “On Approval about residence on the territory of Russia of foreign citizens coming for tourism purposes on ferries with passenger transportation permit”, which allowed foreigners to stay 72 hours in Russia without visas, bore first fruits.

Jan. 12 at a meeting in Moscow, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov and Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos discussed the possibility of further expansion of cooperation between Russia and the EU. Due to the fact that in this half-year Spain is the Chairman of the European Union, Russia holds the major hope on this partner.

In early January, the French company “Alstom” has delivered to Finland the first high-speed train “Allegro”, which will ply the route between St. Petersburg and Helsinki.