Travel Notes

Culture is everything

“There are no easy routes to development of cultural tourism, either here or in Russia. You simply have to be dedicated, determined and tenacious.” With these words, Robert Morris opened last November’s conference in Williamsburg, Virginia on Cultural Tourism Development in Russia. 

The conference brought together an unprecedented number of senior representatives from Russia’s northwestern regions, to meet with their American counterparts and to study issues of developing cultural tourism. The gathering included the governor of Pskov region, vice-governors from Leningrad, St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl and Novgorod, as well as the foreign minister of Karelia and dozens of tourism officials.

The tone for presentations and discussions was set early on by Yekaterina Genieva, president of the Soros Foundation in Russia (which, together with Finnair the US-Russia Business Council and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, sponsored the conference). “Everything,” she noted, “is colored by culture ... we need to preserve Russia for humanity.” And the best way to do that, Genieva and others commented, was to focus on Russia’s regions, which have a lower propensity to corruption, are easier to deal with than Moscow, and have greater prospects for growth.

Take Pskov. A gateway to Europe through the Baltics, this town of 200,000 has many potential “attractors” for tourism: Pushkin, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov were all born and raised nearby; there are thefascinating Pechora monastery built into a cave and the Izborsk fortress; the town’s old town is one of the best preserved in Northwest Russia; the region has over 3700 lakes. Yet just 100,000 foreign tourists visit Pskov each year.

The weak link in developing tourism, for Pskov and for all the other regions, is lack of quality accommodations and tourist infrastructure (transport, food services, etc.). Pskov, for its part, has just 1050 hotel spaces. Yaroslavl region, center of the Golden Ring and host to some 850,000 foreign tourists each year, has just 3500 spaces (as a result, nearly half of foreign tourists visiting the region come via cruise ships).

In response, each of the regions offered several investment proposals for hotels and for development of cultural tourism in their region. And EBRD, the Soros Foundation and others discussed some of their regional initiatives (Soros, for one, has two dozen agreements for development of different regions and, among others, is funding preservation of Kizhi island in Karelia and supporting an Association of Russian Musems, led by Yasnaya Polyana).

There will be no easy solutions, but it is high time that this is seen as an important area of activity, that Russia’s history and culture be recognized for how they can contribute to the country’s growth. As the Soros Foundation’s Mikhail Gnedovsky aptly put it, “Culture can be an effective factor in development, even in these difficult times.”

The US FAA has certified the Ilyushin-103 light aircraft for flight in the US. The plane will be produced by the defense company MAPO in its first venture into civilian aircraft production, the Moscow Times reported. The United States and Russia also signed a protocol providing for mutual recognition of each other’s safety certification standards. Thus, the long-haul Ilyushin-96T is expected to be certified shortly. This is all good news for the Russian aviation industry, which is desperate for access to foreign markets as domestic demand plummets. At the ceremony, Dennis Cooper, the Federal Aviation Administration’s representative in Russia, said the IL-103 can expect a bright future in the US. The Moscow Times quoted an independent US aviation expert who said that, “if the price is right and spare parts are available in the US,” Ilyushin could sell 500 to 1,000 aircraft over the next 10 years.

The US and Russia 

signed an agreement for a $667,000 grant from the US Trade and Development Agency (TDA), earmarked for upgrading the air traffic control system in the Russian Far East. Earlier in 1998, press reports quoted the Russian Federation of Air Traffic Controllers as saying that cuts in staff and deteriorating equipment could put airline passengers at risk. In many regions, air traffic companies were forced to cut staff and switch to daytime-only operations. As the Moscow Times reported, an airport in Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky switched to day-only operations but was restored on the order of the Federal Aviation Service after Alaskan Airlines complained. The grant will help to improve air traffic control systems in the Far East with a view to increasing the number of flights between North America and the Asia-Pacific region. This year, four routes connecting North America to Russia and South-East Asia have been opened via the Arctic. Another proposed route will go via Russia’s north-eastern border and shorten the distance between Anchorage and Tokyo. The new routes will reduce costs and help increase air traffic capacity by at least 4-6% per year.

A special, daily one-ride magnet card will gradually replace Moscow’s single-ride metro tokens (made of green plastic). In the initial stage of implementation, these cards will be sold only at 10 metro stations: Lubyanka, Arbatskaya, Kutuzovskaya, Turgenevskaya, Perovo, Oktyabrskaya (circular line), Orekhovo, Volzhskaya, Volgogradsky prospekt and Mendeleevskaya. At these stations, tokens will no longer be sold, only magnetic cards. The final date of the token’s withdrawal from circulation will be announced later. Meanwhile, on January 1, Moscow metro prices increased from three to four rubles (20 cents) a ride.

A 5% sales tax was 

introduced in Moscow on January 1, 1999. The sales tax is being levied on excisable goods (alcohol, tobacco, gasoline), expensive furniture, electronics, clothing, delicacies, cars, furs, jewelry, videos and other luxury items. The tax will also be levied on travel agencies selling foreign tours abroad, on the services of hotels with three or more stars, on first and business class air tickets and on railway tickets in deluxe and SV wagons. The 5% sales tax will not be levied on basic food products (such as bread, milk, butter, eggs, macaroni, vegetables), children’s clothing and footwear. The resolution is in line with larger changes in the Russian federal tax system expected to come into force in the spring of 1999.

Old, “non-denominated” rubles (the ones with three extra zeroes, like the 1000, 5000 and 10,000 ruble notes) stopped being legal tender in Russia as of January 1, 1999. This includes all bank notes issued from 1993-1995 and Russian coins issued before 1996. Persons with old rubles will, however, still be able to exchange the old money for new rubles (one thousand old rubles for one new ruble) without limitation and without any written document or application (so we are told) at special cashier centers of the Central Bank of Russia.