Belarus has become a popular travel destination for Russians. This is confirmed by data from passenger carriers. So, for a few days at the end of August, all tickets for the Lastochka high-speed trains running between Moscow and Minsk are long sold out. And for flights before the weekend, the price of one-way tickets reaches 460 Belarusian rubles (about 180 euros).

And this despite the fact that since August 1, the Belavia airline has increased the number of flights on the Minsk-Moscow-Minsk route to two dozen a week, Russian air carriers often fly to the Belarusian capital, including those from the regions of the Russian Federation.

“Tourism Card”

The increase in passenger traffic from Russia to Belarus became noticeable as early as late spring 2022, when one of the reasons for these trips was the desire of Russians to issue new bank cards. The fact is that with the beginning of the military invasion of Ukraine by Russia, many Western companies began to impose massive sanctions against the Russian Federation, which also affected the banking sector,

So, in Russia, the cards of the most popular international payment systems – Visa and Mastercard – stopped working. Internally, the Russians quickly resolved payment problems using the Mir system. But while abroad and for online payments on foreign sites, this system is not an option.

The solution was found in neighboring countries, where local banks began to open accounts for Russian citizens and issue cards for international payment systems. This scheme turned out to be popular in Belarus as well, which was confirmed to a DW correspondent at one of the local banks.

“We recently reduced the issuance of new bank cards, but now the trend is reversed: the growth is very noticeable thanks to Russian citizens”, says a bank official and clarifies that until now the personal presence of the customer is almost always required to issue a card, which was the reason for the ” card tourism. The period for issuing the card is from three to ten working days.

Russians can enter the EU through Belarus, but there is a nuance

It is logical to assume that, after receiving bank cards from the Visa and Mastercard payment systems in Belarus, Russian citizens will continue their journey to Europe. However, this is not so simple now.

EU countries have closed their airspace to both Russian airlines and Belavia, and passenger trains from Belarus to the EU and Ukraine have been canceled during the coronavirus period. The option to cross the border via ground checkpoints remains, but there are restrictions here as well. At the moment, only citizens of EU countries, Belarus and Ukraine can cross the Polish-Belarusian border, and for Russians this opportunity is only at the checkpoints with Lithuania and Latvia.

Russians are not allowed into EU countries through the checkpoint in Brest

“Unfortunately, we found out too late that we are not going to cross the border into Brest with Russian passports,” says Mikhail, a Muscovite who was heading to Germany in his car with his family. The route had to be changed and go to the Belarusian-Lithuanian border.

But Sergey and Alena – a couple from St. Petersburg – have chosen Brest as their travel location and are not yet planning to move to Europe. “During the week of our stay in Belarus, we were able to obtain bank cards, visit Belovezhskaya Pushcha, other sights and even go shopping. We were very pleased with this part of our vacation,” says Alena.

There are even more tourists than before COVID-19

As officials from the Belarusian service sector confirm, tourists from Russia bring good income to local businesses. At the “Intourist” hotel in Brest, they said that demand for this and other hotels is now high, however, they did not specify what percentage of guests from Russia.

The “Intourist” hotel in Brest has many guests from Russia

“There are more tourists even compared to the period before the pandemic: before they came more often to Brest on May 9 or were passing through, but now they stay for several days. I know that the situation is similar in Minsk and Grodno ” says the hotel clerk. According to her, guests from Russia come individually and in organized groups: they receive tourist buses already on the territory of Belarus.

Not for the first year among Russians – especially the elderly – holidays in Belarusian sanatoriums are also popular, but now the demand has become even greater. “We have practically no free spaces from the beginning of summer to the end of autumn,” said the Ruzhansky sanatorium. “Those who have already rested here come, and those who have decided to improve their health without thinking about visas.”

On condition of anonymity, hotel representatives say that the number of requests from customers from Russia to book accommodation in Belarus has increased recently, which may be due not only to the difficulties of traveling to the European Union, but also to the turbulent situation in Crimea.

Russians dominate shopping in Belarus

A new and somewhat unexpected purpose of Russian trips to Belarus turned out to be shopping. Dozens of global brands (such as Bershka, Zara, Reserved, H&M, Nike, Adidas and many others) left Russia in the first months after the start of the war in Ukraine, but they continue to work officially in Minsk and other cities in Belarus. This also applies to McDonald’s restaurants. In addition, purchases do not even require the issuance of new cards: almost everywhere in Belarus you can pay with cards of the Russian payment system “Mir”.

Shopping center in Brest

Belarusian travel companies say Russian counterparts are studying demand to organize specialist shopping tours. “We are familiar with this topic, because for many years we have organized similar shopping trips for Belarusians to Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine. Now there is an opportunity to share experiences with Russians”, notes an employee of one of the Brest travel agencies. , not without irony. The DW interlocutor does not rule out that these shopping tours may actually appear, and the flow of Russian tourists to Belarus will grow by another 10-15%.

“Before we worked mainly for outbound tourism or to receive guests from Western countries, now there is an incentive to work with Russians: we have noticed that young and middle-aged people with high solvency come here, who were previously attracted by EU countries, and not Belarus ”, – summarizes the travel agency employee.