You can’t catch them up: the excitement at the borders and at the airports of Russia is over

Yekaterina Maksimova

The busiest of these days were the land borders with Georgia, Kazakhstan and Finland. Finns, we recall, since September 30, have closed entry for Russian citizens with Schengen visas.

The checkpoint "Upper Lars", which was paralyzed for several days by Russians trying to leave Russia and enter Georgia, began to work as usual. The Nikolay Levshits TV channel reports on the situation at the checkpoint on a daily basis.

"The end of the long stand on Lars: there are no traffic jams on both sides, to and from Georgia, the road is free. Cars from all regions are allowed into North Ossetia," writes the author of the TG channel. And he clarifies that over the past ten days, about 100 thousand people have left Russia through Upper Lars.

"New News" reported how events developed these days at the entrances to the Upper Lars checkpoint. People who had to stand in line for days without food and water called it a humanitarian catastrophe.

The stream also subsided on the border with Kazakhstan. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, in recent days 2-3 times more people have entered the republic than before September 21. According to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, Marat Akhmetzhanov, over the past 24 hours, the flow of people leaving has noticeably decreased. Many Russians used Kazakhstan as a transit country for relocation to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. According to the agency, more than 100,000 people have entered Kazakhstan over the past 10 days.

By the beginning of October, the cost of air tickets to the nearest visa-free countries also dropped sharply. If after September 21 the cost of a ticket (one way) from Moscow or St. thousand rubles.

It is now possible to fly to Bishkek from the capital cities of Russia for a symbolic amount in the range of 20,000 rubles. Symbolic, if we compare the cost of a flight to Kyrgyzstan in the period from September 21 to 30. The cost of tickets to Dubai, and the United Arab Emirates since September 21, also enjoyed incredible popularity among Russians, also decreased by more than 10-20 times: up to 28-37 thousand rubles one way.

Not a single department has an exact figure of exactly how many Russians have left the country since September 21 and how many of them have returned. According to the Frontex border agency , only from September 19 to September 25, and only in the EU countries, 66 thousand citizens of the Russian Federation drove by car. That is 30% more than a week earlier.

Most Russian citizens entered the Eurozone through Finnish and Estonian border crossings. " The number of border crossings in Finland has increased significantly after the announced mobilization in the Russian Federation. On September 19, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland began to impose entry restrictions for Russian citizens traveling solely for the purpose of tourism or recreation. Similar restrictions apply in Finland," reminded at Frontex.

Accordingly, it can be assumed that at least 260 thousand Russians left Russia in September only through the busiest and only land checkpoints. There is no data on how many of them rode back on the same days.