Cheslav Shulga: A pleasant tendency – increase in school tourism

What is tourism for Belarus? In the first place, it’s money. And it is true if we are talking about tourists from Germany, Italy and Czech Republic. Yet, if we take Russian tourists, then besides money a humanitarian factor is put into a forefront. A Russian who has visited Belarus more than once takes home the memories about the brotherly country as well as about its wonderful and kind people. What is more, it would be great if not only Russian grown-ups but also Russian youth – school children and students visited our country as it is they who are to form and to live in the Union State together with the rising generation of Belarusians.

What is tourism for Belarus? In the first place, it’s money. And it is true if we are talking about tourists from Germany, Italy and Czech Republic. Yet, if we take Russian tourists, then besides money a humanitarian factor is put into a forefront. A Russian who has visited Belarus more than once takes home the memories about the brotherly country as well as about its wonderful and kind people. What is more, it would be great if not only Russian grown-ups but also Russian youth – school children and students visited our country as it is they who are to form and to live in the Union State together with the rising generation of Belarusians.

And it is nice that the volume of school tourism between our countries has been increasing recently, as is reported by Cheslav Shulga, Deputy Minister of Sports and Tourism in Belarus.

“We can observe, I would say, a pleasant tendency – that is an increase in school tourism between Belarus and Russia,” he said. “If we take Soviet times, the 80s for instance, then school children and students formed the half of internal tourism volume. At present, practically all recreation centres and boarding schools, which are cheap enough, are booked for school holidays (be it spring, winter, autumn or summer ones) exactly by young tourists. Tourists come from Russia to Belarus and visa versa,” added Cheslav Shulga.

Considering the geography of tourism, the Deputy Minister stressed that almost all regions of Russia, except maybe the Far East which is too distant, visit Belarus. In exactly the same way our schoolchildren and students travel to St. Petersburg and Moscow as well as to other popular places.