Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
or Sputnik. Border checks at the Soviet border were sufficient in this case
(Kostiainen, 2002).
Starting in the 1950s, tourism in Central Asia began to include so-
called “wild” tourism, not directly connected to organized groups. In addi-
tion to scientific expeditions, this type of travel primarily involved nature
lovers, hikers and tourists engaging in other kinds of sport (Maurer, 2006).
Participants in these trips got a much better view of the real situation of
the local people and life under the Soviet regime. These tourists made
frequent complaints about controls and attempts by militias and tourism
organizers to include them in the officially permitted trips (at the very least
by including them in organized expeditions) (Janouch, 1966; Maťašák,
1981, 1983). One of the chief problems for this type of tourism was the
obligation that both foreign tourists and domestic Soviet tourists had to
register.
1
Despite the bureaucratic difficulties imposed, however, sport and
hiking expeditions were increasingly arriving at mountain camps in the
Pamir, Fan and Tan-Shan mountains.
Another important source of foreign tourism has been student exchang-
es from the socialist and, later, capitalist countries as well. These have led
to word-of-mouth recountings an official reports (Blazek et al., 2012).
CONSEQUENCES OF VISA POLICY IN THE CENTRAL ASIAN
COUNTRIES
After the breakup of the Soviet Union and the rise of the independent states
of Central Asia, new border controls and border crossings appeared along
borders which had heretofore been only formal. Visa requirements and
other bureaucratic demands were introduced for citizens of countries out-
side the CIS. Particularly in the early years, however, these requirements
were subject to a high degree of ambiguity. No embassies were established
at which it would be possible to obtain a visa, and the conditions and
payment required for visas to be issued varied considerably.
2
Normally,
1
Residents of the so-called Socialist Bloc had it better in this regard; normally an official paper written
in Russian and issued by an institution sending the tourists was adequate. (This institution might even
be the tourist's university.) Similar looking documents were often falsified and carried fake stamps
(so-called potato stamps).
2
A colleague of mine who traveled to Central Asia in 1992 (to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan)
indicated that his group was held at the border between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, where border
agents demanded an Uzbek visa that was impossible to obtain formally. By contrast, at the still open
borders with the former Soviet republics, no one was interested in such a formality.
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