Translated material
Consular credit
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has released a directory for tourists with telephone numbers of Russian diplomatic missions
In the days when the evacuation of Russians from Lebanon is in full swing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with the Russian Union of Tourism Industry, hastened to present a guide for citizens of our country traveling abroad. One of the main goals of this book is to help compatriots avoid a difficult situation in a foreign country, including not being in the very center of hostilities. True, the publishers did not have time to “refresh” the information, for example, on Lebanon - although the book reminds that it is better not to go there if you have an Israeli visa in your passport, it rather optimistically recommends getting a Lebanese visa at Beirut airport, where it will cost twice as much cheaper than in the consular section of the embassy in Moscow.The guide is intended to be read before a trip, and the book is also quite heavy for carrying in a travel suitcase when every kilogram counts. The guide contains traditional sections: how to choose a travel agency, how to prepare for a trip, how to pass passport control, how to act in difficult cases. The book lists the addresses and telephone numbers of foreign embassies and consulates in Russia, as well as Russian diplomatic missions abroad, which, according to the authors, will be very useful not only for ordinary tourists, but also for travel agencies and businessmen. However, the publication is primarily intended for the average tourist.
The largest section in the book is background information about countries. Geographical location, procedure for obtaining a visa, currency, climate, national holidays, state language, etc. Moreover, as Lev Pauzin, deputy director of the consular department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said, the compilers decided not to limit themselves to a few dozen of the most popular countries among Russian tourists, but listed almost the entire atlas of the world on the pages of the reference book. Therefore, along with Turkey, Croatia, Egypt and Spain, the tourist guide contains states that many vacationing Russians have not even heard of: for example, Gabon and Gambia, Lesotho, the island state of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Such dubious countries in terms of tourism as Eritrea and Rwanda also appear there. However, the compilers do not see a contradiction here. Answering a question from a Vremya Novostei correspondent, Sergei Shpilko, president of the Russian Union of Tourism Industry and one of the co-authors of the collection, replied: “Why are you surprised? We have such a vanguard of tourists who travel to exotic places. For example, Libya is now developing in our country. Now there are really no people who want to go to Lebanon, but several years ago we had people who wanted to go to Chechnya.” Mr. Pauzin from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs agrees with him: “Russian tourists go both hunting in Africa and fishing in Latin America. And therefore, the more information, the better.” “As for Lebanon, it was there that everyone became convinced of how important it is to register at the consulate on time so that the consulate can take care of citizens in difficult cases,” added Alexey Sazonov, deputy director of the Department of Information and Press of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
When asked whether the Russian Foreign Ministry intends to officially declare Israel and Lebanon as countries unfavorable for tourism, Alexey Sazonov replied that “there is no regulatory framework for this,” but he is ready to recommend that Russians refrain from traveling there as a citizen and as a private individual.