Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s love affair with Russia is growing stronger with time. Modi is travelling to Russia’s largest resort city of Sochi, located in the Krasnodar Krai region, on May 21 for an informal summit level meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The visit makes Russia one of the three countries, along with Germany and China, that has been visited four times by the Indian Prime Minister in the four years that he has been in office.
Modi twice visited Russia in 2015, first for the 2015 BRICS Summit in Ufa that was followed by a State Visit to Moscow in December the same year. In 2017 the Indian Prime Minister visited the country for the India-Russia Annual Summit in St. Petersburg, also coinciding with the establishment of 70 years of diplomatic relation between the two countries. Russia was the first country with which India established its diplomatic relation in August 1947, about a week before Indian attained independence.
Given the international hype around the Indian Prime Minister’s visits and his growing stature as one of the most powerful leaders in the world today, the forthcoming visit is also being viewed significant in boosting awareness about Sochi as a tourism destination in India. Sochi, represented by Krasnodar Krai, the federal region Sochi is located in, opened its tourism office in India last year in order to boost its visibility in this fastest growing outbound travel market and attract increasing number of India tourists.
“Prime Minister Modi is a one of the most influential and tallest global leaders of the time. Forbes Magazine puts him amongst the 10 most powerful people in the world in its latest issue. His stature as a world leader attracts a lot of media attention to the destination he has visited. Besides, Mr Modi has always spoken about developing bilateral tourism wherever he has visited. We are confident that on 21st of this month when he sets his foot to Sochi, he will discover one of the most beautiful destinations that he has ever visited and will also talk about it,” said, Prashant Chaudhary, Managing Director, Salvia Promoters. Salvia has been appointed as the tourism representation office by the Russian federal region of Krasnodar Krai in which Sochi is located.
Perched on the Black Sea coast and hailed as the Switzerland of Russia, Sochi has emerged as one of the prominent cities on the world map for key international summits and meeting place of world leaders. The resort city is already Russia’s biggest tourism hotspot and has also gained hugely in its destination profile internationally since it played host to the 2014 Winter Olympics that has further transformed it into one of the most modern city with a highly developed tourism infrastructure.
