Russian tourists complain president Putin about long queue at Upper  Lars checkpoint

ArmInfo. Down with artificial queues on the border between Russia and Georgia! Russian tourists turned to the Russian President Vladimir Putin with such a petition,  which was published on "Petition to the President" website on July  30. "Russia's customs office on the border with Georgia is simply  mocking people. One spends 30-40 minutes on the Georgian side,  whereas 10 hours at the Russian checkpoint.

Down with the creation of artificial queue!!! If our specialists cannot cope with such work,  down with such specialists!!! We are people who wish to spend  vacations in Georgia and Armenia. We are people who have relatives in  Georgia and Armenia. We do not want to wait for hours to cross the  Russian border. Give the road to us!!!" the petition reads, signed by  more than 2500 people.  Many people expressed their discontent with  the current situation and agreed with the author's appeals under the  petition. 

A user named Snejana Ikonomova said there is the same stream of cars  both in Russian and Georgian Customs offices. "At the same time we  have multi-kilometer queues in both directions, whereas there are  almost no queues in Georgia," she stated. Another tourist Oleg  Davidov also complained that they had to wait for 7 hours, from 3  p.m. to 10 p.m last year! "It was just a nightmare," he noted.  As it  was reported earlier, Acting Spokesperson of the Armenian Foreign  Ministry Anna Naghdalyan said that the Ministry of Transport,  Communications and Information Technologies of Armenia, the Armenian  Embassy in Georgia and the Consulate General of the Republic of  Armenia in Rostov-on-Don are in constant contact with the local  authorities over the traffic congestion at Upper Lars checkpoint.  "All measures are being taken to quickly solve the problems," she  said. According to the recent information, 300 cars were registered  at Upper Lars checkpoint with the Georgian side, the queue length is  about 2.5 km, it is about 3 km from the Russian side," Naghdalyan  said. There are long-length queues at Upper Lars checkpoint for more  than a week. Citizens have to stand in queue for several hours.