The Incident On The Russian-Chinese Border

[IMG=20008-5775]On June 1st more than 1,000 Russian tourists were not allowed to enter China because Chinese customs offices decided that the documents prepared for non-visa Russian groups did not meet the standard approved by the intergovernmental agreement in 2000. As a result, on June 1st more than 1,000 Russian tourists going to China by train and by bus from Khabarovsk, Vladivostok and other regions were kept on the border with Heiludjan province. Ivan Vvedensky, Assistant of the Head of the Federal Tourism Agency of the Russian Federation (Rostourism), commented on the situation as follows: ‘after negotiations of the Russian Embassy in Beijing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Federal Tourism Agency the majority of Russian tourist were allowed to cross the border. 150 tourists had to wait a permission to enter China until June 2nd’. Meanwhile, according to Rostourism, documents for non-visa entry were prepared correctly. ‘Therefore, at the moment it is difficult to formulate the real reasons for the incident. Most probably the technical error took place. We do not blame travel companies, therefore we would recommend tourists to withhold accusations towards them’, stated Sergey Sinitsin, Press Secretary of Rostourism. Furthermore, among the tourists there were none who booked tours to China with Moscow travel companies. ‘Non-visa tourists from Moscow have never had problems on the Chinese border. As I know several changes for non-visa groups were adopted on June 1st’, said Andrey Surikov from the Chinese Department of Express Line. Rostourism exhort tour operators accurately prepare lists of non-visa tourists. Moreover, Rostourism representatives do not exclude that after the June incident a special algorithm of actions in such situations will be elaborated for all services involved.