The Ural tour operators are having trouble getting their customers’ visas issued by the Consulate-General of the Czech Republic in Yekaterinburg; this involves people willing to get a higher education in that country.

‘Visa issuance for educational programs has been dragging on at the consulate. The officials explain the existing quotas have been exceeded. At the same time, they do not say how big these quotas actually are. We are trying to find a way out, for one, we work with students from other regions more, as their visas can be issued through the Czech Republic’s Consulates-General in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. There are no delays there,’ says the Director of Zima-Leto Group of Companies Olga Gulyar.

The director hopes these delays are only temporary in nature.

‘The main thing is to make sure these delays do not become habitual. We have been offering the Czech Republic to our customers as the No.1 choice for studying and getting European college diplomas for many years now. Yet if these delays hold, we’ll have to turn our customers’ attention to other countries, Gulyar added.

It was actually announced last week that the Czech Republic’s Internal Affairs Department suddenly started canceling the Russian tour operators’ registration without giving any reason for it (in May, the accreditation of seven companies was called off for two years at first, but thanks to the Association of Russian Tour Operators’ efforts, four of these companies got their accreditations back).

At the same time, not a single Urals-based tour operator has lost its accreditation yet, and locals leave Yekaterinburg to spend a holiday in this country on a daily basis.