American tourists to fly from Alaska to Chukotka

This year it is planned to open a route for small aircraft flying VFR (visual flight rules) from American Alaska to Russian Chukotka.

As a spokesman for the press service of the government of the Chukotsk Autonomous Area said, the route from the American town of Nome (Alaska) to the township of Provideniye (Chukotka) has already been entered in the international aviation reference-books.

Currently, the sides are discussing the issue of prolonging the route from Provideniye to the capital of the Autonomous Area, the city of Anadyr, and then further to the south - to Magadan and Khabarovsk.

According to the experts' estimates, the Alaska - Chukotka - Kolyma - Maritime Territory air bridge will be very popular among the American tourists. The Private Pilots Association on Alaska has now 17,000 members.

Last year, Russian and US experts conducted negotiations on this score in Magadan. Apart from the problem of visas and permits to enter the border zone, there is another one - that Russian region does not have fuel for the Cessna type of aircraft.

Both problems have been solved now: the tourist firms will settle the problems of receiving permits to enter the border zone, and 14 metric tons of fuel for small aircraft have been specially brought to Chukotka from Canada, the spokesman for the Chukotka government press service said.

At the beginning of the next week, the negotiations about the transport corridor will continue in Anchorage (Alaska). The Russian delegation, going to Alaska, consists of representatives of the Magadan Air Traffic Control Center, the government of Chukotka, and the enterprises of the Chukotaeronavigation and ChukotAvia. The sides intend to discuss technical problems.