Baltic States – CIS, Estonia, Legislation, Tourism, Transport

"Where in the first 11 months of last year 100,160 citizens of Russia filed an application for an Estonian visa, approximately 72,200 visa applications were filed during the same period this year," spokesperson for the Estonian Foreign Ministry Mariann Sudakov told BNS.

This corresponds to a decline of 28%.

A decline bigger still has taken place in the number of visa applications filed by citizens of Belarus, which fell 34% from 38,600 to 26,000.

Despite the reduction in the numbers of visa applicants, the Foreign Ministry intends to deploy extra staff at the consular offices to handle the applications filed by Russian and Belarusian nationals wishing to visit Estonia during the New Year holiday.

"As things stand now, we will send four visa specialists to work in shifts handling visa applications at the consulate general in St. Petersburg in the first three weeks of December," Sudakov said.

She added that one consul will be sent to Minsk to work there in the second week of December.

In 2014, 9,500 out of the total 109,600 applications for an Estonian visa filed in Russia were filed in December. In Belarus, altogether 42,000 visa applications were filed during the year, of them roughly 3,400 in December.