Tourists demand to fire customs officers because of queues in Verkhni Lars

The many-hours-long queues on the Russian-Georgian border have been created artificially; and the Russian customs officials guilty of that should be dismissed, said the author of the electronic petition, which was signed by more than 2400 people.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on August 8, the Russian Ministry for Emergencies (MfE) reported that the waiting time at the Russian-Georgian border made four hours, although tourists complained about nine-hour-long queues. On August 10, the MfE informed already about the waiting time of ten hours. On August 13, tourists had to wait for more than ten hours in the queue, the rescuers reported. However, according to tourists, they had to wait for 13 hours.

"You spend 30-40 minutes on the Georgian side and 10 hours at the Russian checkpoint. Down with creation of an artificial queues!!! If our specialists fail to cope with this work – down with such specialists!!! We are people who have a desire to have vacations in Georgia and Armenia, we are people who have relatives in Georgia and Armenia; we don't want to wait for hours to cross the Russian border," says the petition posted on the website "Petition to President" on July 30.

As of 10:53 p.m. Moscow time on August 13, it was signed by 2426 people. Other 36 people voted against it.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 13, 2018 at 10:53 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.