Alaska Airlines Opens Russia's 'Wild East' (original) (raw)

Travel|Alaska Airlines Opens Russia's 'Wild East'

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/30/travel/alaska-airlines-opens-russia-s-wild-east.html

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

TRAVEL ADVISORY: CORRESPONDENT'S REPORT

March 30, 1997

See the article in its original context from
March 30, 1997

Section 5, Page

3Buy Reprints

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers.

FOR most of the 20th century, Russia's Far East has been off limits to Americans. The closest part of Russia to the United States, Russia east of Siberia, seemed also the most forbidding. Among its sites: Magadan, port of entry to Stalin's Arctic gold mines; Sakhalin Island, home base to the Soviet fighter that shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007; and Vladivostok, a city closed to all Westerners when it was home port to the Soviet Pacific fleet.

But the ice curtain has melted, and Alaska Airlines is building a network of flights between Seattle and Anchorage and Russia's back door.

It began flying there in 1991. In its latest expansion, it will offer weekly service starting on May 10 from Seattle and Anchorage to the airline's fifth destination in the region, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the provincial capital of Sakhalin Island.

In another innovation, this summer Americans holding multiple-entry visas will be able to city-hop within Russia on Alaska Airlines.

The airline, which says it makes money on its Russian routes, has built its service gradually. In 1991, summer service started to two cities: Magadan, a sister city to Anchorage, and Khabarovsk, a European-style interior city is the industrial and commercial hub for Russia's Far East.

In 1993, to facilitate trans-Pacific tourism and trade, Russia opened a consulate in Seattle and the United States opened a consulate in Vladivostok. That year, Alaska Airlines started flying to ''Vlad,'' a hilly city overlooking the Pacific that once was known as Russia's San Francisco. After consolidating summer service, the airline started year-round flights in 1994.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT