Now citizens of 53 countries can enter and leave the country through checkpoints in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region on the basis of ordinary single-entry business, tourist and humanitarian visas in the form of electronic documents. The list of foreign countries is identical to the list of countries whose citizens are currently applying for electronic visas in the Kaliningrad region. These include European countries, as well as Bahrain, India, Indonesia, Iran, Qatar, China (including Taiwan), the DPRK, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Turkey, the Philippines and Japan.

According to the established procedure, an electronic visa is valid for 30 days from the date of its issuance with an authorised stay of no more than eight days in Russia. For this type of visa a consular fee is not charged, while foreign citizens arriving in the Russian Federation through checkpoints on the basis of electronic visas have the right to freedom of movement within the territories of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.

The convenience of an electronic visa mainly consists in saving time and money. Traveling foreign citizens do not have to upholster the thresholds of consular posts and pay any fees to apply for such a visa. To obtain an electronic visa, you must fill out an application on a spec website of the Russian Foreign Ministry. There will also be a notice on the issuance of permission to visit the country. The data of the issued visa will be sent to the state system of migration and registration accounting "Mir". In addition, a visa issued through the Internet is issued up to four calendar days, including weekends and holidays.

In addition, the Foreign Ministry also warned that “foreign citizens who have received electronic visas to visit St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region have the right to be and move only within the specified territories, non-compliance with this requirement is regarded as a violation of the regime of a foreign citizen's stay in the Russian Federation entailing administrative responsibility."

The obtained permission can be printed out or saved on a smartphone, and then shown to an employee of the transport company and an employee of the border service. Foreign citizens can enter the territory of Russia with an electronic visa through automobile and sea checkpoints, as well as Pulkovo Airport. However, it is still not possible to travel on a railway transport with such a visa for technical reasons - due to the lack of mobile electronic visa verification facilities at the border services at present.

In addition, a memo was prepared for foreign guests, which will help to better navigate the conditions for the provision and use of electronic visas in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.

Recall, the decree according to which the electronic visa regime extends to the territory of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed in July this year. Earlier, the acting governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, asked the head of state to introduce this regime on October 1. According to the forecast made by Beglov, through the introduction of electronic visas, St. Petersburg will be able to increase tourist flow from 8.2 million to 12 million people a year, TASS reports.

“We are really opening a city that is already ready and, by all ratings, is already one of the best, attractive tourist centres in at least Europe, and in fact, in the world,” deputy head of the Federal Tourism Agency of the Russian Federation Sergey Korneev told the agency.

Korneev also noted that electronic visas will promote new types of tourism. In particular, it will be weekend tourism, urban tourism, holiday and event tourism. Promotion will also affect all-season tourism, which includes New Year holidays, winter holidays, Shrovetide and so on.

As the city authorities expect, the introduction of an electronic visa will satisfy the so-called “deferred demand” - these are the tourists who wanted to visit St. Petersburg and who were frightened by the difficulties in processing documents. The classic program for foreign tourists to stay in St. Petersburg, as a rule, includes a visit to the Hermitage, St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, the cities of Pushkin and Peterhof. In summer, these museums are quite busy - each in turn takes about two hours on average. The introduction of electronic visas in the fall will immediately help to increase the tourist flow in the “low season”, especially since in the fall St. Petersburg traditionally offers its guests vibrant cultural events.

In St. Petersburg, according to the city administration, about 1,500 hotels accept tourists; the number of rooms exceeds 90 thousand. Representatives of the tourism business believe that with the placement of guests in case of an increase in the number of tourists, there will be no difficulties. The city governor Alexander Beglov also recalled that in St. Petersburg they plan to introduce a fee from foreign guests in the amount of 100 rubles per day, which will help in the future to develop the tourism industry.