MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now to Russia, where the collapse of the Soviet Union brought Russians the freedom to travel abroad, and in recent years, the prosperity to travel for fun. This holiday season, though, many Russians are foregoing winter getaways. Two of the most popular destinations - Egypt and Turkey - are off-limits. And a sagging economy is also keeping Russians at home. NPR's Corey Flintoff reports on how they're coping.
COREY FLINTOFF, BYLINE: Just last year, ads for vacation travel packages were everywhere on Russian television.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV AD)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Speaking Russian).
FLINTOFF: Antalya, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, was a favorite spot for Russian tourists with warm, sandy beaches of a kind hard to find in Russia. But after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border in November, Russia banned tourists from traveling there. Travel to Egypt was also banned after terrorists blew up a Russian jetliner, bringing tourists home from holidays on the Red Sea. That was a heavy blow for travel agencies, since nearly 3 million Russians visited Egypt just last year.
ANDREY GAVRILOV: Travel agencies tried to suggest different destinations like Arab Emirates, like Israel.
FLINTOFF: That's Andrey Gavrilov, president of the Alliance of Tour Agencies, an industry lobby group. He says some Russian tourists are heading to Southeast Asia - Cambodia and Thailand.
GAVRILOV: But for shorter period of time and maybe different category of hotels - I mean, four stars instead five stars.
FLINTOFF: The devalued ruble, he says, has raised the cost of overseas travel by more than 30 percent. That makes domestic travel a lot more attractive. I went to Moscow's Domodedovo Airport to see where Russians are going to spend their New Year holidays. A couple of twenty-somethings with snowboards were checking in to a flight to Sochi.
ALEXANDER VASILIYEV: (Speaking Russian).
FLINTOFF: Alexander Vasiliyev planned to spend New Year's with friends at the new ski resorts built for the Winter Olympics. Vasiliyev says they would have gone to Europe but there's not much snow this year, so Sochi is just as good and, he says, much cheaper.
ANTON CHERNOYAROV: (Speaking Russian).
FLINTOFF: His buddy, Anton Chernoyarov, says they wouldn't go to Turkey on principle; they're patriots and the Turks shot down their plane.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Speaking Russian, over PA system).
FLINTOFF: Anna Kravchenko and Denis Belov are traveling on business today, but they're thinking about where to spend their holidays.
DENIS BELOV: England or Europe.
ANNA KRAVCHENKO: But it depends on the situation next year.
FLINTOFF: She's 32 and a homemaker. He's a realtor, age 44. Turkey and Egypt are not great losses to them because they've visited each several times. They've been to Europe, too, during their student days. But they're feeling a certain urgency about going back.
BELOV: Europe is changing now, and we don't know how it will be in 5 years or 10 years. I think Europe will change extremely.
KRAVCHENKO: Because we have heard from the friends that German cities - for example, Frankfurt is very changing because of the people with another culture.
FLINTOFF: What they're saying reflects what Russians are hearing on state-run television - that Europe is being degraded by the arrival of Muslim refugees. The official line promoted by Russia's tourism chief, Oleg Safonov, is that foreign beach vacations are alien to Russian tradition. His assertion proved embarrassing when it emerged that Safonov, himself, had owned two houses on the Seychelles Islands, a sunny paradise in the Indian Ocean. Corey Flintoff, NPR News, Moscow.