Russian tourists who visited popular resorts in Greece spoke about the cases of aggressive Russophobia they witnessed or participated in. The stories of tourists were cited by the pro-Kremlin newspaper Lenta.ru.
The first incident was on the island of Kos
One evening on the city beach of a resort island, a Russian woman had a picnic with her friends and at some point decided to take a walk on the beach. When she returned to her belongings, she found everything upside down, food in the sand and shoes strewn about, she complained. As it turned out, a group of young tourists, who look like Englishmen, were defeated. Following the Russian woman, they shouted “fuck Russians!”.
The second one is in Athens
Another Russian traveler also experienced aggressive Russophobia. According to her, she and her companion were sitting in a street cafe when a woman suddenly sitting next to her, who looked like a tourist from Northern Europe, started insulting them and filming them on her phone camera.
“Imagine: you don’t touch anyone, but they almost point a finger at you and shout: “You shouldn’t be here, stay at home and don’t be ashamed,” she said.
We will remind you that with the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian tourists began to complain about hostility during vacations abroad (ed. I wonder why this happens…). We are talking about stickers on airplanes with the inscription “Airplanes with Russian tourists must crash”, the refusal to accommodate Russians, accepted by the large hotel chain RIU Hotels, the suspension of Schengen visas by several states, as well as individual cases of threats of physical violence – such stories happened.
In early July, representatives of the tourism sector, whose clients recently vacationed in Greece, spoke about whether the rumors about the wave of Russophobia that has swept the country are true. Thus, the owner of a travel agency on the Greek resort island of Corfu reported that there is a risk of encountering aggression if tourists leave the tourist area.
At the end of June, for the first time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs began to talk about undisguised Russophobia in Greece. The Director of the Fourth European Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Yuriy Pilipson, then claimed that Greece is not a safe place for Russians to relax.
At the same time, Greek banks often loosely interpreted the sanctions imposed by the EU against the Russian Federation and block the accounts of ordinary Russians based on their national identity, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
A few days later, the Russian ambassador to Greece, Andriy Maslov, also commented on the situation. “There are quite a lot of nationalist Ukrainians in Greece now. This should be kept in mind,” he explained.
Experts emphasized that there are different manifestations of aggression towards Russians at resorts. First, negative attitudes can come from residents who work in the tourism sector. As a rule, this manifests itself in a refusal to check in at a hotel, a ban on visiting a restaurant/cafe, or they will let you in, but basically not serve you. Secondly, aggressive behavior on the part of other vacationers.