Cyprus has announced the long-awaited opening of its borders for Russians. Citizens of the Russian Federation will be able to enter Cyprus without quarantine from April 1, 2021. This was announced by the Minister of Tourism Savvas Perdios.
According to him, from April 1, Russia will be moved from the "gray" category of countries to the category not lower than the "red" one.
This means that in order to enter Cyprus, Russians will need to register on Cyprus FlightPass website 24 hours before departure, as well as to undergo two PCR tests for COVID-19: one before departure (no later than 72 hours before departure), and the second one upon arrival at Larnaca or Paphos airports. Tourists will not need to stay in quarantine.
In 2019, Russia was one of the leaders of tourist arrivals to Cyprus. According to official data from the Border Service of the Russian Federation, in 2019, Russians traveled to Cyprus more than 900 thousand times. In 2020, this figure fell to 51 thousand arrivals.
According to Cypriot statistics, about 400 Russians entered Cyprus in February 2021. Compared to the same period of 2020, the Russian flow decreased by 94,8%.
Nowadays, Russia has not resumed flights to Cyprus. The tourist authorities of Cyprus hope that the opening of the borders for the citizens of the Russian Federation will speed up the return of regular and charter flights from Russian cities to Cyprus.
The fact that Russian carriers are ready to actively fly to Cyprus is also evidenced by the approvals issued by the Federal Air Transport Agency in early March. Thus, Royal Flight, Pegas Fly and UTair will be able to operate regular flights from Moscow to Larnaca, Nordwind and Rossiya - from Yekaterinburg to Larnaca.
Ural Airlines received permits for flights to Larnaca from Perm, Krasnoyarsk, Astrakhan, Mineralnye Vody, Nizhny Novgorod and Kaliningrad. The carrier also intends to fly to Paphos from St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Zhukovsky, Astrakhan, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Rostov-on-Don, Ufa, Novosibirsk, Mineralnye Vody, Samara and Kaliningrad.
Nordwind received permits to flights to Larnaca from Nizhny Novgorod, Aeroflot - to flights from Moscow to Paphos.
