Russians and citizens of another 47 countries will be able to visit Sri Lanka with free visas from August 1 to February 1, 2020. Beginning from August 1, the authorities of Sri Lanka canceled visa fees for citizens of 48 countries, including Russia, Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia and others.

      This way they want to attract tourists after the terrorist attack on Catholic Easter, when the tourist flow by 70.8%, which was the sharpest decline ever. Free visas will be issued at the airport upon arrival. Earlier, Russians had to pay $ 35-40 for issuing visas to Sri Lanka. As TheStar notes, the experiment with free visas will last for six months, then the results will be assessed. In the first half of 2019, tourist flow to the country decreased by 13.4%. A series of explosions  occurred in Sri Lanka on April 21.