    |
Could you make Russian tourism less viable than it is already? Well, St. Petersburg’s Mayor, Valentina Matvienko, has just thought of something. A new tourist tax. While the amount may appear small, it comes on top of increased visa price hikes and hassle and against a background of crisis. Any Laffer curve analysis would show the [...] The famous cat market women of St Petersburg are always good for a tourist snap. Wouldn’t you just love to take one home? (I mean, one of the kittens.) Of course. But, supposing you need more cats? I read that it takes around 23 cats or 10 -12 dogs to make the kind of coat you need [...] One of the cheapest ways to get to St Petersburg from the UK is by Easy Jet to Tallinn and then a Eurolines bus. Conveniently, the bus will drop you right here in town, at Baltic Station. It’s worth a visit. It was built in 1857 and modelled on the Gare de l’Est in Paris. The [...] First the good news. It’s called an on-demand, buy at the border, Express Visa. The bad news: none of the above is true. You actually have to order it three days in advance. Then you’ll need to meet an official at the border and fork over 20 Euro for him showing up. Oh, and you can [...] Back in the 1930s, Hitler would catch a train from Berlin to Konigsberg. It took him 8 hours. Today, it takes all of 8 hours just to get from Gdansk in Poland, just 125 kilometers away. The miserably slow border isn’t the only problem. In December, Poland cancelled the overnight sleeper to Berlin. It will now [...] Since I was in Poland, I couldn’t resist stopping by Kaliningrad. For eccentric officialdom and mindless bureaucracy, it beats reading Kafka. When I went to the local Post Office to register my visa, the old woman asked: ‘Where’s your bus ticket? I can’t possibly process this without a bus ticket’. Big problem. I didn’t arrive by [...] What do you do if your tourist industry is falling off a cliff? Well, if you are Russia, you just make it more difficult and more expensive than ever to visit. Just this month, Russia’s consulates hiked the visa charges and spiked the application form: mine now requires, amongst other things, all the details of [...] |
    
 |
|
Copyright © 2010 St Petersblurb - All Rights Reserved |
||
