At the end of July, the Lancet, an authoritative scientific publication, published the results of a study comparing the mental and psychological state of Britons before the pandemic and now. Needless to say, the state has deteriorated significantly, and one of the main reasons for this is the lack of freedom of movement. People complained that the inability to leave the city or the country caused a kind of claustrophobia. Few could have predicted that the Covid-19 situation would drag on so long, and summer vacations seemed like a well-deserved reward for the inconvenience of quarantine. But the summer passed, and countries were in no hurry to open their borders. Many resigned themselves to staying home. In Britain, they even came up with a term for it – staycation, which can be translated as “we stay on vacation. However, hundreds of thousands of people around the world still preferred to flee abroad, and it often resembled an obstacle course. How this happened in different countries – in our little collection of stories.
Many passengers on one of the first flights from London to Larnaca were not confident that their holiday trip would go smoothly. It was probably the most anxious flight of my life. On August 2, we boarded the London-Larnaca plane with a bunch of necessary papers in our hands, but until we met the Cypriot border guard at the window, I wasn’t sure if we would be allowed into the country. Cyprus is one of the most popular holiday destinations for the British. British airlines promised to resume flights to the island from August 1 and were selling tickets at very attractive prices. All that remained was to wait for a statement from the Cypriot authorities. And on the evening of July 27th it happened: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus officially placed Great Britain in the category of B countries. In practice, this meant that it was possible to fly to Cyprus from August 1, but we had to have a negative Covid-19 test result and several completed forms with us, without which we were threatened with not being allowed on the plane at all. The virus test had to be done within 72 hours before departure. For those who flew out on August 2nd, like me, there were two days left to complete the assigned task.
We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what will happen next. эпизоды – Episodes End of story. Podcast advertising. At the same time, the Cypriot authorities warned that the test conducted by the British National Health System (NHS) would not suit them, as its conclusion lacks all the necessary information, such as the exact time of sample collection. What remained were private laboratories, where the price of a test ranges from £150 to £450, and queues are usually planned two weeks in advance. Essentially, a family of three or four, even if they are lucky enough to find a lab quickly, will have to pay another amount roughly equal to the cost of the tickets. Only children under the age of 11 are exempt from the test. “We do not live in London, we live in York. I’ve been running around the city, calling all sorts of places, but I couldn’t find anything in our city. If they knew they were going to start letting Brits in on August 1, why didn’t they announce their requirements a little earlier so people could prepare?” – complains Maria D., who was planning to go on vacation with her family on August 3. She said she was relieved to learn on July 29 that Jet2, the airline her family was supposed to fly with, had canceled all flights to Cyprus until August 17. In their official statement on Twitter, representatives of Jet2 said that they were forced to take this step due to practically unfeasible conditions imposed by Cyprus on its passengers.
Friends who managed to travel somewhere at the beginning of the summer warned that you can only buy water, medicine and newspapers at the airport, so I had to carry a whole backpack full of snacks for the child. It turned out to be in vain – almost everything was open at Gatwick: Duty-free shops, cafes, exchange offices, and so on. Perhaps the only thing missing was the traditional whisky tasting, and a large sushi restaurant couldn’t compete with COVID. After lining up for boarding, the passengers on our flight took out their stacks of forms and printouts, but no one even looked at them. However, at the last checkpoint – almost at the entrance to the “jet bridge” to the plane – a person suddenly decided to make a selection and divert those who …
At Larnaca airport we were thoroughly checked in a special terminal, temporarily (hopefully) set up as a large laboratory. They read all the forms to the letter, entered the test data into the system, and… sent us off for new tests, free of charge. Some were escorted not to the tests but to the adjacent hall, through the glass you could see that people were worried about something. One girl insisted and cried at the table of the person who decided where to go. “Don’t cry here, step back, please,” he said, until she was taken away.
The special screening terminal at Larnaca airport resembles a large laboratory. The results of our tests came the next morning via SMS with the wish for a pleasant rest. Everything is open in Cyprus, from restaurants to attractions, but masks are mandatory indoors. There are noticeably fewer people, and some of the large hotels that once graced the coast are dark and empty. “Individual flights will not save us; it is necessary to sell tour packages again. Britain, Russia and Israel provide the main income for our tourism industry. And it does not make sense to be closed to everyone when hundreds of Cypriots fly from London and then go to their villages to greet their relatives,” says Georgos, the owner of three small hotels, commenting on the situation with Covid-19.
From August 1, Russia has resumed communication with Istanbul, and from August 10, with three Turkish resorts: Antalya, Bodrum and Dalaman. According to Turkish authorities, in the first two weeks of August about 280,000 tourists from Russia entered the country. Among them was my colleague Katya Venediktova, who flew to Antalya on August 10. According to her, everything at Sheremetyevo was as expected – mandatory masks, temperature checks before boarding, and no queues. From the international terminal that morning there was only one outbound flight to Israel and several to various Turkish destinations. On the Moscow-Antalya flight, passengers were asked to fill out a questionnaire indicating whether they had been exposed to the coronavirus, whether they had been tested, where they planned to stay, and an emergency contact person. A similar questionnaire had to be filled out separately at the hotel. “What worried me the most was what to expect upon arrival. Before the flight, I read the tourist memo from the Russian Embassy in Turkey and also asked my questions to the tour operator. The memo said that everyone’s temperature would be taken before passport control, and if someone’s temperature was elevated, they would be sent for an express test. If the test was positive, that person, as well as everyone sitting in two rows in front, behind, and next to them, would be sent to a two-week quarantine in a hotel…
Dmitry Romanovsky lives in the Czech Republic and visits his parents once a year in the Portuguese coastal town of Portimão, near Lisbon. He eagerly awaited the reopening of Portugal’s borders, but even after it happened, he couldn’t manage to leave. “The hardest part was finding tickets. It’s not easy to get to Portugal even under normal circumstances, and during the shutdown it became impossible: very expensive and with multiple layovers. In the end, I found an acceptable option: Prague-Munich-Lisbon on Lufthansa for 100 euros roundtrip. But a few days before departure, the flights were canceled without any explanation. Maybe it was because Portugal unexpectedly appeared on the Czech Republic’s red list of countries, which means that the Czech authorities considered the situation there to be unfavorable,” Dmitry explains. With some difficulty, Dmitry managed to change his tickets to Lisbon for August and set off for Italy himself, so as not to miss his planned vacation. One of the most pleasant moments in Italy, according to him, was the fact that due to the small number of foreign tourists, all the excursions in English turned out to be almost private – groups of 2-3 people for the price of a regular tour. “In August, I went on a trip to visit my parents in Portugal. Interestingly, the airports in Prague, Bari in Italy, and Lisbon were completely empty, while in Frankfurt, where I had a stopover, there were crowds of people,” Dmitry says.
In Portugal itself, there are also very few foreigners, and Dmitry really liked it: “It was quieter than usual, I would even say more authentic, because you see more locals and feel their everyday life more”. To end this strange summer, Dmitry and his girlfriend decided to take a trip to Croatia, and here the main surprise awaited them. “The trip had to be canceled literally as we were leaving the apartment door with our bags in hand. Unexpectedly, it turned out that two days before we had been in contact with a person who had been diagnosed with Covid-19. As a result, instead of basking in the sun and enjoying grilled fish, we spent 14 days in quarantine,” he says. According to Dmitry, it was this last episode that really made him feel how much life had changed and made him rethink his perception of the pandemic. After Russia announced the resumption of air communications with Tanzania from August 1, the number of search queries about this country in search engines, in particular in “Yandex”, has increased almost 70 times. “I realized that I would go crazy if I didn’t go. They still allow [Russians] to go to Turkey and Britain, but I’ve been to Turkey three times already, and getting a visa for Britain is a whole ordeal…
New times, new travel rules. Alexey has a congenital problem with his bronchi, and even half an hour in a regular medical mask is a problem for him. “I had to see how I ran around Moscow looking for a mask with a filter. I found it. I thought that was the end of the problem. But a few days before the flight, it turned out that tourists going to African countries are advised to take malaria pills and get vaccinated against yellow fever. I mean, if you buy a tour, they probably warn you about it, but I bought the tickets online,” Alexey says.
According to Alexey, he simply did not have time to deal with these medical issues, and he made the final decision – whether to go or not – a few hours before leaving for the airport. “I hesitated, but the choice was between my mental health, which was really shaken during the quarantine, and the hypothetical possibility of contracting an African disease. Mental health won out, and I have no regrets,” says Alexey.