Rossi Religion Tourism

We need a normal tourist not to be in a group that sings aquaists on a bus, and the one who's going to pray doesn't fall into the resort company in shorts and shorts.

The growth of palmical and religious tourism in the past two to three years has been markedly ahead of the already high overall growth of the turpot in the capital. On 19 February, at a press conference, the Chairman of the Committee on Tourism and Hospitality of Moscow, Sergei Schilko, spoke about this. He also said that the city was fully ready for guests. In addition to the hosts (the " most decent of them " , according to Spielko, pilgrims are often dispersed) there are still mini-speakers who sometimes make specific proposals for those who have come with a pilmonic purpose. In addition, Schillko reported that he was in demand and specialized hotels - for example, four-stars in the Danilov monastery or the Universitsk, the icons in the rooms, the church on the 15th floor and the post menu on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Another participant in the press conference, Director General of the Palomnical Centre of the Moscow Patriarchat Ieromon Nikodim (Colesnikov), notes that " the face of the pilgrim " is being changed. Increasingly, these people are 30 to 35 years of age, used to comfort both in Russia and abroad. " At the beginning of the 1990s, the most important thing was to get out, remembers Father Nikodim. - Now many pilgrims have become demanding, prefer hotels 4 and 5 stars. Therefore, the packages that are proposed are very different at prices.”

Watch or pray?

In the meantime, according to Nikodima, contemporary pilgrimage activities in Russia have no legislative framework, so the Government will shortly be submitting draft amendments to the federal law " On the basis of tourism activities in the Russian Federation " , which will state that such pilgrimage is being said. As I emphasized. Nikodim, pilgrim and tourist are two completely different statuses: the pilgrim is going to pray and the religious tourist wants to see her. But because this difference is not covered by the industry law, the church has no formal right to organize pilmonial travel because it is the responsibility of the tour operators. “Organization of such travel should be equal to religious activity, insists on. - Its purpose cannot be to extract profits, while commercial organizations - whatever the church names they carry - are doing it. "