OREANDA-NEWS  The number of trips of foreign citizens to Russia in the first three months of this year increased by 17.6% compared to the same period in 2022, this is stated in the published statistics of the FSB border service.

In total, from the beginning of the year to March, 3.27 million foreign citizens entered Russia, in 2022 – about 2.78 million people. Most often, citizens of Uzbekistan (+81%, 818,000 people), from Kazakhstan (+73%, 604,500) and Tajikistan (+55%, 516,400) come to Russia.

China has become the leader among non-CIS countries in terms of the number of trips of citizens to Russia. According to the results of the first quarter of 2023, this indicator increased 4.6 times – to 84,200 people. Nevertheless, this is still below the pre-pandemic level, when 113,800 Chinese citizens came to Russia in the first quarter of 2020.

The FSB also recorded an increase in the number of trips from European countries (+11.8%, 113,900). Most often, residents of the Baltic states, as well as Poland and Finland came to Russia. At the same time, the flow from the rest of the EU countries, on the contrary, decreased. In particular, the number of trips of German and French citizens decreased by 33% and 63%, respectively, to 12,808 and 2,800 people.