Vyborg got the right to receive foreigners without visa

The hole list of ports with favorable terms of stay for foreigners is determined. In the list: port of Vyborg, “Passagirskii port of St Petersburg” , “Big port of St Petersburg” and ports of Kaliningrad, Sochi, Novorossiisk and Sakhalin region.

The decree of the government of the Russian Federation “About confirmation of the decree of stay of foreign citizens on the territory of the Russian Federation arrived as tourists on ferry who have permission for the transportation of passengers” was signed 7 May be the Prime Minister of Russia V. Putin.

This decree allows the foreigners to stay on the territory of Russia within 72 hours in case they arrived on board a cruiser as a member of the official tourist group.

Anatolii Yarochkin, head of Rosstourism, as well as other tour operators, pins on this decree in particular because of the big amount of measures in sphere of the Russian tourism. “This season the one can shoot will be St Petersburg and in part Kaliningrad”, – noted Mr Yarochkin. He declared that last year nearly 500 thousand tourists came to St Petersburg by sea and forecasts a double increase in 2010.

Especially logical seems the visa cancellation for sea voyagers because of the large-scale project of St Petersburg “Sea facade”. The project was started 4 July 2006 when the government of St Petersburg adopted the project of the law “About target program “Construction of the passenger sea terminal on the island Vasilievskii in St Petersburg”. The program is projected to be finished until 2012 but the first liner entered the port already in 2008.

The objective of the project is “alluvium” of territories for the construction of the big passenger port. According to words of the governor of St Petersburg Valentina Matveenko, this port will become the biggest port in the world. It will be efficient specialized on cruisers and ferries. The importance of the “Sea facade” for the city and for the Russian tourism is obvious as the other ports of St Petersburg can't receive liners of this quantity of passengers.

This optimism of the administration about the development of the tourism in St Petersburg is not shared by everybody. In particular according to the forecast of the Association of tour operators of Russia a sales slowdown for the Russian tours in 2009 will be 20–30%. Many specialists also sign that for the Russian tourism this year will be totally unsuccessful according to all indicators: interior, exit and entry tourism. This opinion is shared by the universal tour organization. According to its forecasts the amount of tourists traveling abroad will reduce remarkably in 2009.