The Turkish embassy to Russia has denied information from a number of Russian media outlets about a possible closure of the country’s borders to foreign tourists due to the spread of the Indian variant of coronavirus.
“This information, which was published with reference to an interview with Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, is untrue. The minister did not make such statements during his speech,” the embassy told Interfax.
On Monday, a number of Russian media outlets reported the possible closure of Turkey’s borders to foreign tourists due to the spread of the Delta strain, a new variant of Covid-19, citing the Turkish minister of culture and tourism.
Meanwhile, as the minister said in an interview with CNN Turk, the improvement of the epidemic situation in the country depends first on the rate of vaccination. Ersoy believes that if citizens are actively vaccinated, then Turkey can quickly reach a complete rectification of the epidemiological situation in the country.
As for the spread of the Indian variant of coronavirus and the possibility of reclosing the country’s borders, the culture and tourism minister said that in the current situation, no guarantees can be given, but the country is closely monitoring the Delta strain.
Since the beginning of the year, Kiev has been visited by 308,000 foreign and more than 500,000 domestic tourists, deputy head of Kyiv City State Administration Maryna Khonda has said.
“According to the State Border Guard Service, most of the foreign tourists came from the United States – 26,576 people. Israel is in the second place – 22,684 people, and Turkey closes the top three – 21,057 tourists. The list of countries from which a lot of tourists came from also includes Germany, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Great Britain, Georgia and India,” Khonda said.
According to her, the tourism development will become one of the main priorities for Kyiv after the pandemic. A number of important projects are currently being implemented to increase the tourist attraction of the city. In particular, the Hospitality Academy recently began its work in Kyiv to train volunteer assistants in the field of tourism. Also in Kiev, they plan to create an inclusive tourist route that will unite the most famous sights.
Maryna Khonda also said that since the beginning of the year, UAH 22.5 million in tourist tax have been collected.
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 21/07/21
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Official rates of banking metals from national bank as of july 21
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
STRUCTURE OF IMPORT OF SERVICES IN JAN-MARCH 2021 (GRAPHICALLY)
The political parties Servant of the People, Opposition Platform – For Life, European Solidarity and Batkivschyna would overcome the five percent barrier if elections to the Verkhovna Rada were held on Sunday, according to the results of a survey conducted by the NGO Kyiv Institute of Sociology of Civil Society from July 15 to July 19, 2021.
According to the poll, which was presented at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday by chairman of Kyiv Institute of Sociology of Civil Society, MP Oleksandr Kovtunenko, among those who will vote and have made their choice, 23.1% are ready to support the Servant of the People party, 17.5% – Opposition Platform – For Life, 15.4% – European Solidarity, and 11.8% – Batkivschyna.
At the same time, there are still chances of getting into parliament for the political force of Strength and Honor, which would receive the support of 4.9% of Ukrainians, Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party (4.1%) and Groysman’s Ukrainian Strategy (3.8%).
Civic Position would have won 2.8% of the votes cast, Shariy Party – 2.1%, Holos – 1.5%, Svoboda – 1.2%, Opposition Bloc and National Corps – 0.8% each, For Maybutnie group (For the Future) – 0.3%, People’s Front and Samopomich – 0.1% each. Two percent of respondents would vote for another party, and 7.7% of respondents would spoil the ballot or cross out all candidates.
The poll was conducted by Kyiv Institute of Sociology of Civil Society, commissioned by the American company West Market Industrial LLC (U.S.). Some 3,000 respondents were interviewed using the CATI method (computer-assisted telephone interview). The audience is the population over the age of 18, living in all regions of Ukraine, except for the temporarily uncontrolled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and Crimea. The error in the representativeness of the study does not exceed 2.8%.
