RUSSIAN TRAVEL BAN LIFTED

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27074, 24 June 1953, Page 9

RUSSIAN TRAVEL BAN LIFTED

Journeys Of Foreign Diplomats

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) MOSCOW, June 22. The Soviet Union tonight lifted many of its restrictions on the movements of foreign diplomats, says the United Press. Restrictions limiting the movements of all foreign envoys were imposed in 1948 and in 1952. A “considerable extension” of travel privileges within the Soviet Union was announced, along with the lifting of many other restrictions. The lifting of the travel restrictions was announced ip Notes to all the foreign envoys in Moscow tonight. Previously they had been limited to a radius of 30 miles around Moscow except in special cases. Under the relaxed restrictions diplomats and other foreigners may now travel to many areas of the Soviet Union previously banned, including parts of Siberia, Central Asia, the Ukraine, and the Baltic Republics. This opens up for them the capital cities of Kiev in the Ukraine, Minsk in. Byelorussia, and the central Russian centres of Tashkent, Samarkand, Bokhara, and Alma Ata. Unrestricted travel will now be possible along most of the entire length of the river Volga, across Soviet Asia by the Trans-Siberian express. Areas Affected

Except for transit travel between cities, the restrictions on the movement of foreigners in the Moscow region remains much the same. Travel is still confined to the limits of a 25 miles radius, but even within this circle a number of restrictions have been lifted, notably at the western approaches to the city. The lifting of the bans means that places accessible to the foreigners are: Health resorts on the Black Sea. Crimea, except Sebastopol, Kerch and Theosodia, most of the Caucasian spas, and Yalta, Sochi, Sukumi; in the Trans-Caucasus all Armenia except for the frontier strip, all Azerbaijan, including the oil city of Baku, except the areas south of the Baku-Tbilisi line. The TransCaspian area, Turkmenia, is opened up, except the Kransnoyodsk area. A Soviet Note handed to foreign embassies in Moscow on January 16 last year extended the restrictions of September, 1948. which limited diplomats to a radius of about 30 miles from Moscow unless the Soviet authorities first received full retails of the proposed journey. The 1952 Note cut the radius to 25 miles and listed 22 more cities to which travel was banned to members of the diplomatic colony. The British Government retaliated by restricting the movement of Soviet diplomats in Britain. Possible Tourist Trade Some Western observers in Moscow believe that the announcement of. the lifting of travel restrictions for foreigners over vast areas of the Soviet Union foreshadows the opening of Russia to tourists from the West. Western diplomats regard the new Russian move as another aspect of the general trend to be more liberal towards diplomats, foreign residents and visitors. Among the first Western diplomats likely to take advantage of the new opportunities to visit hitherto forbidden areas of the Soviet Union, particularly in the Asian sector, is believed to be th 6 British Ambassador, Sir Alvary Gascoigne. He has long wanted to visit Tashkent, in the far south-east, before 'he returns to London at the approaching end of his term.