Mt. Elbrus

[xara]

Border guard office brings more and more problems to tourists in the area.
Before it was easy to get a border zone permission. Starting from this year border zone permit application has even more points to fill out than Russian entry visa application. Moreover the new regulation says that people must apply for border zone permit 60 days in advance.

Fortunately Elbrus itself is not within border zone and no need of border permission to climb it.

However visiting mountains to the South from the Baksan river (valley) may become questionable. Because this new regulation appears in June, officially there is no time to get permits for the period until mid August if border guard office still insists on 60 days.

At the moment situation is as follows:
Border guard office returned all our applications for all groups (because they do not have necessary details according to new regulation) and we begin to send new application forms with these details. We will see how that works. If border guard office processes them fast customers will have border zone permission. If not - there will be no permissions this season and we will be forced to change the itineraries of groups in order to avoid the border zone.