‘The fact that Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Migration Service only provides the local citizens with foreign passports with great delays is a violation of their civil rights. Yekaterinburg’s tourist community has numerously placed claims and requests with the Service’s representatives, asking them to do something about the problem. At the beginning of summer, these officials were invited to the town hall to think over the possible solutions with the tourist market representatives and Deputy Mayor Viktor Konteev. One of the ways out proposed in the course of this meeting was to speed up the processing of passports by delegating the task of collecting all the papers to the travel agents. Nevertheless, the authorities explained this option was not provided for by the existing laws and there was no way of improving upon the procedure,’ Director of Natalie Tours’ Yekaterinburg branch Oleg Higer said to UrBC.

In the meantime, Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities have already sent their proposal to the head of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Migration Service, asking to stop violating the law that regulates civilians’ trips to and from the Russian Federation.

‘I don’t know if the region’s public prosecution authorities manage to solve the problem. The city council, for one, was actually unable to do so, so now we just make sure we tell our customers that if they don’t have a foreign passport ready it’s best to sustain from booking a tour for the time being,’ Oleg Higer said.