«The Czech Republic is the best-selling holiday destination in Yekaterinburg; people go to there for both guided tours and spa treatment. I believe having to collect somewhat more papers for a visa application and having to wait three extra days are not going to affect the popularity of these tours too much. People have actually got used to this time-consuming procedures that can take up to a fortnight already. Anyways, nearly all European countries have signed the Schengen agreement by now», says Inna Averyanova, Director of Inna Tour Travel Agency.

«The Czech Republic’s entering the Schengen area means we’ll be able to offer more multi-destination tours, to the Czech Republic and Austria, for instance», she added.

Applicants willing to get a visa in order to go to the Czech Republic will now have to wait for ten rather than seven days. The spokesperson for Yekaterinburg municipal council says the consulate has to spend some extra time on looking through the applications more thoroughly, since the Czech Republic is now part of the Schengen information system and therefore has to make sure it lets through no unwelcome travelers who have been filed into a single European database.

Apart from that, applicants for a Czech visa must provide copies of their Russian passports (the pages that have a stamp verifying that these citizens do have an international passport), and the consular fees that could heretofore be paid at the diplomatic mission will now have to be paid through a bank.