250 out of 7 thousand hockey tourists go sightseeing in Belarus

“They often go sightseeing. Most tourists prefer Minsk. They also visit Stalin’s Line, Mir and Nyasvizh Castles. A group of tourists visited Polatsk not long ago. But they spend a lot of time in the fan zone. They ask about the ways to rent bicycles, Russians are interested in casinos,” CentreKurort told Euroradio.

CentreKurort has accommodated 3 thousand Russians and 1.8 thousand Latvians in the students’ village. Czechs, Finns and tourists from 34 states also live there.

“We have already served about 7 thousand tourists in the fan village. About 450 of them went sightseeing,” CentreKurort added.

Mir Castle accepts Latvian tourists.

“We accepted a big group of Latvian tourists yesterday. They are also here today. They have visited the museum. We also have a lot of Russian tourists here,” Mir Castle described its visitors.

Tourists were civilized and did not behave like hooligans. However, the Castle has not noticed any influx of tourists caused by the championship.

French, Finnish and Russian tourists tried out the double-decker tours in Minsk. About a thousand people have bought the tour since May 9, travel agency Drom-Tour confessed.

“However, the buses are never full. Only one of the busses was full of Russian tourists on May 1. We had about 90% of Russians here at first. A third of tourists are from other countries now – Latvia, Finland and Germany,” the agency noted.

Hockey tourists keep ignoring the National Art Museum: only a few foreigners have visited it since the beginning of the championship.

“There are tourists but there are no organized groups. Most of them speak Russian. There were English-speaking foreigners but it was not clear where they were from. Probably, hockey fans have fun in other places.” However, the museum is hoping to attract tourists on the Night of Museums.

Minsk authorities expected to accept 20 thousand tourists at the championship. Over 500 thousand hockey tickets were sold.

Photo: ctv.by