Why Saudi tourists are flocking to wartime Russia

Much attention has been focused on Kremlin-affiliated oligarchs snapping up luxury Dubai villas and settling there full-time, and middle-class Russians shunned by the West vacationing in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain.

But what has gone largely unnoticed is the flow of travellers in the opposite direction. GCC holidaymakers are making a beeline for the most sanctioned country on earth, with Saudi citizens at the forefront of this unprecedented influx.

Thanks to an eight-fold surge in footfall over the past five years, Saudi tourists now constitute Russia’s third largest group of foreign guests, behind the Chinese and Turks respectively. Meanwhile, the 90-day mutual visa-free deal struck at the start of this month coupled with the launch of direct flights in August could see Moscow host more than 200,000 Saudi visitors next year.

The extended visa-free stay is expected to make Russia an attractive option for affluent Saudis in search of a long-term summer retreat. But many Gulf visitors are also drawn to Russia in winter, not least since heavy snow and subzero temperatures are a novelty for travellers accustomed to the Arabian Peninsula’s arid climate. Popular activities include ice skating at Moscow’s Red Square, skiing in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, and even husky sledding and reindeer rides in Siberia.

Security concerns linked to the ongoing war in Ukraine have not proved a major deterrent. The regular closure of Russia’s biggest airports and wider implications of near-daily Ukrainian drone strikes appear to have had little impact on incoming travellers from the kingdom for whom word-of-mouth testimonies carry significant weight. Likewise, financial restrictions caused by Russia’s exclusion from the SWIFT payment system are dismissed as a minor inconvenience.

If anything, some visitors identify with the Russian government’s portrayal of the war as a struggle “for the greater good”, to defend the nation against a fabricated external enemy.

Much like Vladimir Putin used the threat of NATO’s eastward expansion and claims of neo-Nazism in Ukraine as a justification for the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed Bin Salman waged a calamitous, decade-long military intervention and starvation siege of Yemen alongside the UAE under the pretext of countering Iranian influence in the Arab world’s poorest state.

The nationalist fervour Putin whipped up by creating the illusion of Russia’s existence being in peril undoubtedly resonates with the Saudi masses who had been force-fed a similar narrative during that conflict.

At the same time, tank driving excursions and bazooka shooting sessions contribute to the thrill of visiting a country on a war footing from a mundane Middle Eastern theocracy where the median age is only 29 years. The Kremlin, for its part, has spared no effort in pandering to the whims and fancies — religious or otherwise — of this lucrative target audience.

From adopting federal halal food standards and setting up dedicated prayer facilities at luxury five-star hotels to piloting sharia-compliant banking and the Moscow Metro releasing maps in Arabic, there is a concerted effort by the Russian authorities to accommodate Gulf tourists’ demands.

But this approach carries risks — excessive deference to conservative Gulf sensibilities could unsettle Russia’s own Muslim communities, numbering some 26 million, and reignite inter-denominational strife.

After all, similar divisions were exploited in the 1990s, when Saudi actors were accused of supporting separatism in Russia’s Muslim-majority republic of Chechnya. While Bin Salman has sought to portray himself internationally as a reformer curbing religious extremism at home, doubts remain over Riyadh’s ability to prevent more radical influences, including staunch adherents of the austere Wahhabi ideology, from travelling abroad.

Nevertheless, attracting Gulf tourists is seen as an economic necessity for Russia, whose tourism industry has plummeted after the full-scale invasion due to international isolation, economic sanctions and visa restrictions.

Russian state broadcaster RT has increasingly promoted Russia to Arabic-speaking audiences as a family-friendly alternative to Europe, portraying Western countries as morally permissive.

A similar narrative was pushed by RT regarding the United States under the previous Joe Biden administration while Saudi leisure seekers themselves questioned whether they should be contributing their petrodollars to a country whose then commander-in-chief labelled Bin Salman a “pariah” for his involvement in the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. 

The kingdom’s citizens launched an unofficial boycott of Türkiye in retaliation to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s outspokenness on the Khashoggi affair and what was considered an Ankara-led smear campaign against their revered leader.

Putin, by contrast, is regarded as a more statesmanlike figure in Riyadh given that he is nowhere near as vocal or meddlesome as Biden or Erdoğan on the human rights front. The Saudi ambassador to Russia, Sami Mohammed Alsadhan, acknowledged as much by attributing intensified Russo-Saudi cultural exchanges to the close personal rapport Bin Salman and Putin share.

For Moscow, on the other hand, Saudi Arabia is a pivotal partner for Putin’s “multipolar” world order. Increased tourism and mobility are presented as part of broader efforts by the world’s two biggest crude oil exporters to challenge Western dominance and reshape the global balance of power.