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.