Russian tourists stranded abroad as crisis deepens

And as new sanctions by the U.S. and the European Union start to bite, companies worry about a looming recession and a future without access to the West’s massive financial markets.

Great news. Maybe Putin's approval ratings will take a much-needed hit as his countrymen feel the pinch of what his arrogance is creating.

Roflmao, these news are so messed up! These tour companies have been working in a minus for a long time and the sanctions have 0 effect on them. They've been going bankrupt many times in a past few years, so there is definately no "sign of russian economy cracking".Not sure about poland though... Crying that they will need at least 500 mil dollars(maybe it was euros, not sure) to cover up the hole for not being able to sell fruits to russia. On top of that russia is planning to ban all fruit imports from EU, and ban all airline companies from flying over russia. Lets see how they handle that.

Really good news, hopefully some major Russian companies can collapse as to erode Putin's Oligarch support base.

I assume most of the wealthy elite in Russia are completely against Putin due to the exposure of their wealth, but cannot publicly go against him otherwise they'd lost it

Seems pretty tacky to attack Poland.

the International Monetary Fund slashed its forecast for 2014 from 1.3 percent to 0.2 percent

Wow, this is a big trouble.

Though the Russian government is in relatively good shape financially, with little public debt....

That's not entirely accurate. Russia, much like China, conducts much of its business through state-owned companies. The debt these companies incur is not listed on the government balance sheet but is due facto government debt - and there is a lot of it. Once these companies become unable to refinance, either the state must step in or lose vital functions.

Effects caused by this will likely appear soon.

Last week, tens of thousands of Russians sunning themselves on Italian beaches and Turkish resorts received an unpleasant surprise

dcog9065 Really good news, hopefully some major Russian companies can collapse as to erode Putin's Oligarch support base.

Sorry - you hate Russian or what ?

Everyone attacks Poland when the going gets tough.

Russian tourists being stranded in the Med is bad news. They are reputedly almost as awful as the English and the Germans.

This means that billions of dollars which would have been spent in foreign tourists markets are now going to be spent inside Russia, including the new tourist hotspot Crimea.

Perhaps, but they won't soon be flying Dobrolyot, which, according to the article, has cancelled "all flights." Perhaps they can travel there via the new bridge that Putin has pledged to build (funding uncertain).

Russian tourists typically spend billions of dollars a year overseas

I think you find that they are spending rubles which are changed into euros etc.

@Wakarimasen

Russian tourists being stranded in the Med is bad news. They are reputedly almost as awful as the English and the Germans.

Asian countries at least get rid of Germans (and all North European people), but unfortunately it takes more than Russian flying ban to get rid of British.

Maybe these Russians need to find the wonders of Thailand?? Me love you long time baby??

Any attempt by Moscow to fighting back against the sanctions is also likely to come at a high cost to Russian consumers and investors. Russia has banned a range of fruit and vegetable imports from Poland

We have a large amount of cheap fruits of good quality without Polish or EU import

Huge amount - from Central Asia from Caucasus from Middle East .... from...

Russia needs to get with the times unless they want to end up like North Korea.... A crumbling empire stuck in the dark with no friends.

it'll be a bumper year on the Black Sea this year.

To spend a holiday at a war zone?

I don't think so.

Companies also blamed the collapse in tourism on Moscow’s request that members of the security service, interior ministry, and military report where they travel to. The move, which authorities justified as an attempt to keep government employees out of any country that has an extradition agreement with the U.S., has discouraged trips abroad among the several million people who work in those sectors.

Creepy.

Always buy flight cancellation insurance. It is cheap, and takes care of health emergency and flight delays or cancellations. Any American over 65 must buy it-Medicare pays no bills outside of the USA. Too bad these people didn't have the opportunity to buy it. It is not available to them.

There are close to 200 countries in the world, less than 20 have imposed sanctions on Russia, for the other 180 countries it's business as usual.

It's not the # of countries; it's the size of the economies that they do business with. Most other countries have much smaller economies that don't do much business.

And BRIC isn't as it once was:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af6e8b08-1136-11e2-8d5f-00144feabdc0.html

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-10-08/news/42829445_1_credit-growth-emerging-markets-economies

http://business.time.com/2014/01/10/brics-in-trouble/

Burning BushAug. 06, 2014 - 03:55PM JST

Even the IMF acknowledges that the Russian economy will still grow this year, despite these sanctions.

And the same IMF predicts Russia GDP growth to 0,2%. The 0.2% is almost no growth.

the International Monetary Fund slashed its forecast for 2014 from 1.3 percent to 0.2 percent

Burning BushAug. 06, 2014 - 11:40PM JST

There are close to 200 countries in the world, less than 20 have imposed sanctions on Russia, for the other 180 countries it's business as usual.

These countries are not buying as much as US and EU.

What exactly do the US and EU buy from Russia, except gas, which is of course exempt from the sanctions

Who get hurt the most? Russians because they import 40% of food from abroad. .There will be a food ration as food becomes less available in the near future..

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118992/putin-bans-import-food-countries-sanctioned-russia

globalwatcher Who get hurt the most? Russians because they import 40% of food from abroad. .There will be a food ration as food becomes less available in the near future.

Sweet dreams ....