Foreign tourists will return to the Russian museums no earlier than 2021, said the General Director of Moscow Kremlin Museums Elena Gagarina. She added that everything will depend on the epidemiological situation in the country and in the world.
“There is this illusion that the Kremlin mostly foreigners, it is not, we have about half of foreign visitors and citizens of our country. I think that everyone who wants and is not afraid will come and will come with pleasure…. As for foreign visitors, I think that tourism will have problems, because we expect fully that number of visitors, which we always have, we will get only in the next tourist season,” she said.
In her opinion, museums will be able to start working only in 2021, and all visitors will be required newsite mask and gloves. The museums will cut in half and at first will only allow individual visits and group tours will not. Visitors will be issued audio guides, promised Gagarin. For example, she said the Armory could take 400 people per session, now they will be 200, less and cathedrals.
“So much that we will have visitors, hard to say, it will depend on wanting. But what in museums is calm and spacious, (…) it would be obvious,” added the CEO.
Ticket prices, the Kremlin will not raise. She also opposed the sale of tickets through the Internet. In her opinion, to buy tickets at the box office safer, especially because online tickets still exchange at the box office. Museums of the Kremlin to discuss this issue with the Ministry of culture, which still allows only online tickets.
“The Museum is in dire financial Straits because the lion’s share of the income we received from ticket sales, but we hold on, for help is not addressed,” – said Gagarin.
