Russia is waiting for the removal of all restrictions on travel to Finland in the hope that travel to Europe will become cheaper -dlja-rossijan-s-1-ijulja-14617ee.jpg” alt=”Finland lifts visa restrictions for Russians from July 1″ />
Finland from July 1 removes restrictions on the acceptance of visa applications from Russians. This was stated at the embassy of the republic in Russia.
This decision was made after the removal of entry restrictions. Citizens of the Russian Federation can apply for a visa at the Finnish visa centers by appointment.
The embassy also emphasized that there is a valid agreement between the EU and Russia on visa facilitation, but due to sanctions, the application of a number of its provisions has been partially suspended. On the part of the EU, the suspension of the agreement applies to representatives of official Russian delegations, in particular, diplomats and businessmen .
Recall that Finland removes anti-COVID entry restrictions on June 30. From the same day, it resumes receiving tourists from third countries, including from Russia. To cross the border, you only need a passport and a Schengen visa. Finland issues visas in Russia for business trips or those applicants who previously had a Finnish multiple Schengen visa for at least two years.
However, getting into the country it will not be so easy: air travel is suspended due to sanctions, and travel across land borders in Russia is still restricted.
At the same time, the Finnish agency notifies that it does not have information about whether Russia will remove restrictions on border traffic on its part as a mirror response.
According to the order of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 763-r, from March 30, 2020, traffic through automobile, rail, pedestrian, river and mixed checkpoints through the state border of Russia for citizens of the Russian Federation is limited.
Restrictions on land borders were removed by separate decisions of the government for entry into Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Georgia, Belarus. However, no EU countries have been included in this list so far.
So, as before, Russians are officially prohibited from traveling for tourist purposes across the land border to Estonia, although this Baltic country is open to tourists from Russia. A similar ban applies to crossing the Russian-Finnish border. Traveling to Finland through land checkpoints is possible only for compelling reasons (treatment, work, residence permit, real estate, humanitarian reasons). A tourist trip, SPA-vacation or shopping for Russian border guards are now not essential reasons for traveling to Finland.
You can now fly to Helsinki with a change in Istanbul. But tickets from Moscow, for example, will cost almost 70 thousand rubles one way per person – it is obvious that there will be few people willing to pay that kind of money.
Note that the main flow of tours to Finland has always come from the border regions by land, and first of all, these were trips for the sake of shopping. In addition, there was a transit flow of travelers who followed further to Europe. According to experts, if border crossing restrictions are lifted and air traffic is resumed, Russian tourists will be able to travel to other countries much cheaper than now – flying through Istanbul today is not cheap in many directions, but flying from Finland could solve this problem. problem.
