Russian tourism leader in opposition to the administration

Saturday, April 2, 2022

Timofey Rogozhin came half-running down the stairs from downtown Barentsburg in the fall of 2020 when I was on a reporting tour, visiting the Russian community. The Tourism Manager of the Russian state-owned company Trust Arktikugol nodded few words. In 2014, Rogozhin arrived to the company and up until 2020, tourism in Barentsburg grew fast. It went from having a staff of two to one of 80.

The 1st floor of the house was the home to the company along with the post office. He informed us that fish in the restaurant and fish as a tourism product was his dream to develop.

In April 2021, six months later, Rogozhin was watching out for more flats in Longyearbyen. Not much later did I see several of the tourism staff from Barentsburg in Longyearbyen. What happened?

The man with the red’ish beard on 17th March 2022 comes through the pedestrian street in Longyearbyen while it was raining outside. From his work, he has taken a break with informing Russians about what is truly going on in Ukraine, and says information is what he does now, 16 hours of the day.

« Back to Page

• Outbound Russian tourism recovering but destinations have changed

• Russia’s proposal for visa free travel with India

• Finland limits tourist visas for Russians

• Russian aircraft carrying parachute jumpers crashes in Tatarstan killing 16