Russia: Visa-Free Macedonia

The Moscow Times:
"Macedonia Relaxes Visa Rules for Russians"

Macedonia is scrapping visa requirements for Russian citizens visiting for less than a year in an effort to boost tourist flows, the Balkan country's prime minister announced Sunday. "In our opinion, this will become the latest step in our efforts to attract Russian tourists to our republic. Macedonia is the cradle of Slavic culture and written language," Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski told Itar-Tass in an interview. Macedonia had previously considering canceling visa requirements for Russians visiting for less than six months. Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro only allow 30 days visa-free travel to Russian citizens, while Croatia and Kosovo give 90 days visa-free travel if certain conditions are met.

^ It's interesting to see which countries offer visa-free travel for other countries. Most of the world dosn't require visas for Americans and many western European countries because they want our tourism dollars. The same seems to be true in the Balkans with Russia. With most of the EU part of the Schengen Area Russia has a limited number of countries they can travel to without getting a visa. I guess one thing to consider is that 21 years ago the majority of Russians couldn't leave their country at all and now they have a hand-full of places visa-free (with the possibility of more.) ^

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/macedonia-relaxes-visa-rules-for-russians/460449.html