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Why we no longer publish travel guides to Russia
Editorial Position
Updated:11 min2,162 words

Why we no longer publish travel guides to Russia

This page no longer exists in its previous form. In September 2026, the editorial team removed all guides to Russia, occupied Crimea, and Abkhazia from the site: 237 articles and 26 sections across all language versions.

A short answer to the question people usually come here with. Organizing a trip to Russia the way our previous texts described, through travel agencies and services based in the European Union, is currently not possible: since January 1, 2026, there has been a direct ban on services directly related to tourism activities in Russia, including advertising such services. The ban applies to tourism services, not to the trip itself. At the same time, the German Foreign Office warns against travel to the country. We do not publish instructions on how to circumvent this provision.

💡 At a glance:

  • what exactly we removed and at what volume
  • which documents the decision is based on: UN resolutions, EU sanctions law, official travel warnings
  • why we do not build the "tourist money funds the war" argument on oil and gas
  • where to go instead and where to find these materials on the site
  • Last updated: 09/2026

Why we deleted these guides

We did not delete individual articles, we removed an entire section. All materials and categories were taken out of the catalog: Russia as a whole, including cities, hotels, routes, and excursions, plus the categories for occupied Crimea and Abkhazia. All old URLs now have permanent redirects to posts in this section, so that a reader arriving from search or via an old link lands not on an empty page but on an explanation.

The reason is not that the materials became outdated. The reason is that Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, changed both the legal framework in which an EU-based publisher operates and the meaning of the genre itself. A travel guide is not a neutral description. It is an invitation to spend money in a specific country and a suggestion to consider it a normal vacation destination. We do not make that suggestion about Russia today.

The second layer of the reason is financial, and it is worth stating precisely, because the common version is incorrect. The share of oil and gas revenues in Russia's federal budget fell to roughly 22 percent in 2025 and 2026, down from 42 percent in 2022, so the claim that "a tourist pays the oil rent" does not hold up (analysis of the 2026 budget, Centre for Eastern Studies OSW, 09.12.2025). The opposite is true: the share of non-oil-and-gas revenues, which include VAT and corporate income tax from the services sector, grew to roughly 78 percent. Domestic consumption has become relatively more significant for the budget than before the war, and a foreign visitor's spending ends up exactly there.

Documents we rely on

Where we stand is based not on feelings but on decisions by international bodies, each of which has a number and a date.

The UN General Assembly adopted resolution ES-11/1 "Aggression against Ukraine" on March 2, 2022, by 141 votes in favor, 5 against, and 35 abstentions; the resolution demands an immediate end to the invasion and the unconditional withdrawal of all troops from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders (UN press release GA/12407, 02.03.2022). On October 12, 2022, the same Assembly adopted resolution ES-11/4 by 143 votes: the attempted annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions was declared to have no legal validity (UN press release GA/12458, 12.10.2022).

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on March 17, 2023, for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova on suspicion of the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute (UN News, 17.03.2023). A warrant is a procedural decision, not a verdict: article 66 of the Rome Statute establishes the presumption of innocence, and we adhere to exactly that wording.

The European Parliament, in its resolution of November 23, 2022 (P9_TA(2022)0405), by 494 votes to 58 with 44 abstentions, designated Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and a state that uses means of terrorism; the text of the resolution itself, however, states that current EU law does not provide a mechanism for such a designation (adopted text, European Parliament). We present this designation as it is: as the parliament's position, not as the legal status of the state.

Finally, on March 16, 2022, the Committee of Ministers, by resolution CM/Res(2022)2, expelled the Russian Federation from the Council of Europe, the first time in the organization's history (Council of Europe, 16.03.2022), and on September 16, 2022, Russia ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights (Council of Europe). For the reader this is not an abstraction: a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights about events taking place in Russia today is impossible.

What is known about the situation inside the country

We do not write about residents of Russia as a group, but we have to name what is happening to civic institutions, because it directly affects a visitor's safety. According to Human Rights Watch, 343 organizations have been declared "undesirable" in Russia, and 1,173 entities and individuals are listed in the "foreign agents" register (World Report 2026, Russia section). In 2026, a Russian court designated the human rights organization Memorial, winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, as "extremist" (Al Jazeera, 04/08/2026). In April 2026, UN experts stated that the strategy of abusing anti-terrorism and anti-extremism legislation to destroy Russian civil society must stop (OHCHR, 04/09/2026).

What this means for you if you are in the EU or the US

Below is what applies to you directly, without advice and without instructions.

Item

Status as of 09/2026

Source

Services related to tourism in Russia

Prohibited by Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033 of 10/23/2025; the transition period ended on 01/01/2026

EUR-Lex

What the ban covers

Travel agency and tour operator services, guide services, and related advertising services

Skadden, 11/2025

Online booking and ticket sales

The ban also applies to platforms and to visa assistance when it is connected to tourism

Fieldfisher

German Foreign Office advisory

"Vor Reisen in die Russische Föderation wird gewarnt"

Auswärtiges Amt

US State Department advisory

Level 4: Do Not Travel, reissued 12/29/2025

travel.state.gov

Payment cards

Visa and Mastercard announced suspension of operations in Russia in March 2022; cards issued outside Russia do not work there

The Moscow Times, 03/06/2022

Separately, on the stated purpose of the ban: it is formulated directly and concerns money. The point is to reduce the revenue Russia receives from such services and to curb the promotion of non-essential travel and leisure in the country (Skadden, 11/2025). In other words, the EU legislator explicitly recognized tourism as a source of state revenue, not a neutral activity.

An honest counterargument and our response to it

The objection to any travel boycott is well known and deserves an answer rather than silence: refusing to travel hurts ordinary people, private hotels, and guides, not the government the protest is aimed at. This argument is examined by researchers of consumer campaigns, and it was not invented by our opponents (Ethical Consumer).

For us, it is resolved differently than for a supporter of a voluntary boycott. We are not choosing between "going" and "not going": for a person from the EU, providing tourism-related services in Russia is directly prohibited. The question of "boycott or not" does not legally arise for a publisher based in the European Union. Add to that a market fact: organized tourism to Russia fell by roughly 90 percent back in 2022 (industry statistics overview, Fox News, 2022), and more than a thousand brands wound down or restricted their operations in the country (Ethical Consumer).

Where to go instead

We are not putting together a "replacement for Russia," because a country is not a product line. But the questions that brought readers to the deleted texts have not gone anywhere, and the site has active sections that answer them: Czechia, Poland, Finland, Austria, Hungary, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Greece, and Cyprus. For imperial architecture and palace ensembles, that means Vienna, Prague, and Budapest; for the Baltic and the North, Helsinki and the Polish coast; for the sea and a beach vacation, the Black Sea and Mediterranean shores of EU countries and Turkey; for the Caucasus, Georgia and Armenia.

Inside this section are detailed texts on specific topics: our position on transport in Sochi, on summer vacations in Sochi, on Sochi hotels, on Abkhazia, on Red Square and central Moscow, on Saint Petersburg hotels, on routes in Saint Petersburg, and on the legal status of Crimea.

Where we stand

We believe that publishing travel guides to a country waging war against a neighboring state means promoting that country as a vacation destination. In our assessment, no architectural or natural value of a place outweighs this, and no disclaimer at the end of a text turns promotional material into neutral coverage. So we decided not to keep these texts "for better times," but to remove them and explain why at the same address.

We are talking about a state and its policies, not about people based on their passport. There are people in Russia who spoke out against the war and received prison sentences for it. Our decision not to publish travel guides to Russia is about money, sanctions, and reader safety, not nationality.

Publication date: September 3, 2026. Last updated: September 3, 2026.

⁉️🤔 Frequently asked questions

Does this mean you are against Russian culture?

No. We removed travel guides, meaning materials that suggest going somewhere and spending money. Texts about literature, music, and history do not fall into that category, and the EU ban in question applies to services related to tourism, not culture.

Can an EU citizen enter Russia at all?

We do not provide entry consultations and deliberately do not describe any procedures. We can only cite the official positions from the table above: the US State Department maintains a Level 4 "Do Not Travel" advisory, and Visa and Mastercard cards issued outside Russia do not work there.

Why do old links lead here instead of a "not found" page?

Because it is more honest to answer the question than to show an empty page. A reader looking for sights or hotels gets an explanation, documents, and a list of destinations for which we have current materials.

Will you bring these texts back if the war ends?

We make no such promise and tie nothing to a date. The decision will be revisited when its foundations change: the EU legal framework, official travel warnings, and the positions of the bodies we cite in the sources block.

Do you make money from these materials?

No. Posts in this section contain no affiliate links, ad blocks, or booking buttons, and this rule applies to all texts in the section without exception.

In short

We removed all travel guides to Russia, occupied Crimea, and Abkhazia from the site, and old addresses now redirect to the texts in this section. The basis is not only editorial: the EU has a direct ban on tourism services in Russia, including their advertising. Our argument about money is built on the budget structure, where non-oil-and-gas revenues have grown to roughly 78 percent. The editorial position is addressed to the state and its policies, not to people. We answer the reader's original question here, and the destinations we continue to cover are listed above.

How you can help

We do not collect money and receive nothing from the links below. These are official websites of organizations working with the consequences of the war:

Sources

Link check date: 03.09.2026.

tourism.com.de Editorial Team
tourism.com.de Editorial TeamTravel editorial team: research, fact-checking, updates→ All publications

A small editorial team writing guides for independent travel. We travel ourselves, but we haven’t been everywhere, so we check prices, opening hours and how to get there against official sources.