Russian travel agencies have begun organizing trips to Syria for Russian citizens, despite scenes of devastation in several parts of the country as a result of the war that left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced, according to the website of the French magazine "Le Bouin".
Kilimanjaro and Miracle have included a $ 1,600-a-week tour, which does not include plane tickets, visa fees or insurance, the website said.
The trip includes visits to the capital Damascus, the cities of Aleppo, Sidnaya (Rural Damascus) and the ancient city of Palmyra in Homs.
Kilimanjaro has already enabled about 50 Russian tourists to visit Syria this year, while Miracle plans to launch its first trip there in March, with 15 Russian tourists taking part.
"We are trying to convince them, although the demand is still weak and chaos is prevalent in the country," Miracle official Viktor Komin told the RIA Novosti news agency. War, which is three thousand tourists a year.
According to reports of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 30% of the city was surveyed due to the intensive bombing campaign on the sites. Armed opposition, while the rest suffered significant damage.
The "jewel of the desert", a World Heritage city of Palmyra, does not look any better. One of its most prominent landmarks, the archaeological triumphal arch, has been blown up by IS fighters. Archaeological temples inside the city have also been destroyed, which stalled restoration has failed to repair.
Sidnaya, 30 km from the capital Damascus, is no longer known for its religious monuments, but it has become a notorious area for its "bloody" prison, in which 13,000 opponents of the regime were killed between 2011 and 2015 as a result of psychological and physical torture, according to Amnesty International reports. Amenity.
The site says that Russian tourists will not know anything about this, and will be accompanied by escorts from the Syrian security and intelligence services not to do this in any way, and instead will be invited to reflect on religious monuments, including the monastery of St. George, erected on the heights of the city.
The representative of the Russian company "Miracle" confirms that there is no danger to Russian tourists in Syria, "they are in their country", which the site believes that close to the fact that Russia Putin deployed about 63 thousand troops in Syria to save the regime of Bashar al-Assad, and became for them and their mercenaries - From the Wagner company close to the Kremlin - the upper word there, recently confirmed by a widely circulated video showing Russian mercenaries beheading a young Syrian man and limbs and burning his body in Homs countryside.