Press releases

GRODNO, 22 November (BelTA) – Tourists from Scandinavia will soon be able to travel to Belarus’ Grodno Oblast by bike, Grodno Oblast Governor Vladimir Kravtsov said as he met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sweden to Belarus Martin Aberg.

“Swedish tourists will soon have a wonderful opportunity to visit the tourism and recreation park Augustow Canal and Grodno without visas via the Lesnaya-Rudawka border checkpoint. We work hard to develop cycling routes, create the necessary infrastructure in the park and include our routes in the European cycle route network that already features the Green Velo trail between the Baltic countries and Transcarpathia and the R11 Greece-Scandinavia route. The recent launch of visa-free travel to the park has opened up a great opportunity for Swedish tourists to visit Belarus,” Vladimir Kravtsov noted. He invited Martin Aberg to test a section of the route during his next visit to Grodno Oblast.

For his part, the Swedish diplomat said that the initiative is very promising. “Cycling tourism looks very attractive here. It is well combined with agrotourism and ecotourism. I like the canal and believe that it has great development prospects,” Martin Aberg noted. His four-day visit to Grodno Oblast stated with a visit to the Augustow Canal.

The diplomat expressed confidence that the tourist exchange and business cooperation between Belarus and Sweden will be growing stronger. The meeting at the Grodno Oblast Executive Committee also discussed ways to step up cooperation in education, culture and sports. The Grodno Oblast authorities stressed that Grodno has built a good basis for the development of IT technology. A branch of Belarus’ Hi-Tech Park will open in Grodno in December. Sweden is ready to establish partner relations with Belarus in this field.