OREANDA-NEWS The interest of Europeans in business and tourist trips to Russia remains, despite the anti-Russian rhetoric, Director of the consular department of the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexei Klimov said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

According to him, in the first quarter of 2023, 48.5 thousand visas were issued to foreign institutions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation in Europe, of which 27.6 thousand were tourist, 8.2 thousand were business.
"Despite the fact that these indicators are extremely low in relative terms (if compared with the pre–pandemic times - a drop of about tenfold), the absolute figures indicate that the interest in both business and tourist trips to Russia on the part of citizens of European countries, despite the anti-Russian propaganda deployed in them, in general it is preserved," Klimov said.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, he noted, the prospects for further growth in the number of trips of Europeans to Russia primarily depend on the pace of recovery of transport logistics.