In 2015, Russians received by 50% less international passports than a year earlier

Federal Migration Service (FMS) of Russia in 2015 issued 50% fewer passports than a year earlier, according to data posted on their web site. Over 2015, FMS has issued 3.79 million international passports. At the same time in 2014, the following documents were received by 7.45 million Russians. Thus, for the year the number of issued passports decreased by 49%. According to the Federal Agency for Tourism, the total number of Russians traveling abroad decreased by 20% for the first 9 months of the year and amounted to 29 million 333.4 thousand trips. Among them, the trips with tourism purposes decreased by 31%, from 14.6 million to 9.99 million trips, for the same period of time. This is due to the weakening of the ruble against foreign currencies, as well as the fact that some employees of law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and courts were prohibited to travel abroad.