Three days processing of visa-applications is history. “Always apply at least 15 days prior to scheduled departure. Our processing time is 10 days,” says Marit Egholm Jacobsen, head of the visa section at Norway’s Consulate General in Murmansk.
The local visa-free zone between Kaliningrad and parts of Northeast Poland will come into force on 27 July and give facilitated cross-border traveling for more than four million people.
The Russian border town of Nikel is experiencing a high increase in the number of Norwegian tourists after the introduction of visa-free travels for border zone inhabitants. Local authorities see a large potential in developing tourism.
If the Norwegian Government does not allocate money for a new border crossing station soon, the situation at the Storskog border crossing could become chaotic, local police in Kirkenes warns.
The current situation in Ukraine makes cross-border cooperation with the neighboring countries even more important, Barents Secretariat leader Rune Rafaelsen says. At the same time, Norway has joined NATO’s condemnation of Russia’s military escalation on the Crimea peninsula.
After years of booming border traffic, October saw a slide in people crossing the Russian-Norwegian border. Shopping tourism is less attractive as ruble hits all time low on Friday.
In the summer of 1968 the Soviet Union marched up tanks and soldiers along the border to Norway. On the Norwegian side the military had no idea about what was happening, a new documentary film shows.
Russia and EU agree that a roadmap on the introduction of visa-free travel will be elaborated, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Spanish counterpart said after their meeting in Moscow yesterday.
