Come to Russia, says war-waging Kremlin as it chases tourist custom of foreign visitors

Image of the week: Moscow mausoleum

Even as he continues to wage his 18-month illegal war on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin appears in the mood for some inbound tourism, with Russia this month relaunching an electronic visa (e-visa) service that it says will “simplify” visits of up to 16 days for citizens of 55 countries, including, er, Ireland and the rest of the European Union. “Have a nice trip!” the consular portal of its ministry of foreign affairs declares.

But before anyone with off-the-beaten-track holiday ideas starts to fancy dropping in on the mausoleum of Vladimir Lenin in Moscow’s Red Square – as the Russian tourists pictured here are seen doing – it might be worth remembering that the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs has recommended against all travel to the Russian Federation until further notice.

Currently, about 90 per cent of travellers visiting the Russian capital are domestic tourists, mostly from the Moscow region, St Petersburg, Nizhny, Novgorod and Tatarstan, according to the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Undeterred by the raft of “do not travel” orders since February 2022, Moscow is now working to attract visitors from “friendly” countries, including India, China and Iran.

Meanwhile, a glut of blue-skied online travel content continues to dish out stars, ratings and glowing reviews to Russian tourist attractions with next to no mention of the war.

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Four-bed period house and mews a short walk from Greystones for €975,000

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In numbers: Book deal

99

Years since the establishment of Simon & Schuster, whose authors include Stephen King, best-seller factory Colleen Hoover and (in the US and Canadian markets) Ireland’s own Liz Nugent.

$1.62 billion

Sum in cash (€1.48 million) for which private-equity giant KKR has snapped up the company, one of the publishing industry’s “big five”. Simon & Schuster chief executive Jonathan Karp said executives were “impressed with the depth of KKR’s interest in our business”.

$2.2 billion

Price tag on the deal that Simon & Schuster’s owner, Paramount Global, struck with Penguin Random House in late 2020 in a previous bid to offload the publisher. In a page-turner of a court case, the US department of justice successfully sued to block the merger on competition grounds.

Getting to know: Ethan Brown

Spirits could do with a boost at Beyond Meat, the plant-based food company led by its environmentalist chief executive Ethan Brown. Earlier this week, its stock plunged after it was forced to cut its sales outlook, seeding fresh doubts among the investors and analysts who not too long ago were hailing its beefless burgers as a darling of the vegan world.

The American businessman, who founded Beyond Meat back in 2009, says he became a vegan after he started having trouble distinguishing, morally, between his dog and a pig on his father’s farm. But not as many consumers share his vision of a plant-based diet as the company had previously hoped, with some believing its products to be over-processed. This has prompted Beyond Meat to whittle down its 2023 revenue forecast from as much as $415 million to $360 million-$380 million.

“What we initially thought was going to be a quicker pace to mainstream adoption has proven to be slower,” Brown admitted. But he remains optimistic: if anything, a spate of heatwaves should have reinforced in people’s minds the need to cut carbon emissions, while “much more aggressive” marketing is now in the works.

The list: Windfall taxes

While the EU’s two largest economies, Germany and France, and the UK, have all shunned them, windfall taxes on companies have spread across Europe, with this week’s market-rattling surprise announcement by Italy’s far-right-led coalition just the latest such move. So what policies are in place?

1. Italy: Financial stocks tumbled after Giorgia Meloni’s government announced a one-off 40 per cent tax on the profits banks are reaping from higher interest rates – it clarified soon after that it would not exceed 0.1 per cent of their total assets. The move comes after the aggregate profits of the five biggest Italian banks soared 64 per cent year on year in the first half of 2023.

2. Czech Republic: Its parliament last year introduced a 60 per cent windfall tax on both energy companies and banks to redistribute excessive profits to those hit by the surge in electricity and gas prices.

3. Spain: At the time of writing, Spain is without a government after last month’s inconclusive election but last year the previous administration approved a 4.8 per cent charge on banks’ net interest income and net commissions above a threshold of €800 million.

4. Lithuania: In May, Lithuania implemented a 60 per cent bank levy for 2023 and 2024, applying it to any net interest income that exceeds the average of the previous years by 50 per cent. The funds will be used to boost defence spending.

5. Sweden: The Swedish government was a characteristically early mover here, announcing back in 2021 that it would bring in a “risk tax” for institutions with liabilities linked to Swedish operations of more than 150 billion Swedish crowns (€13 billion). No, the Swedish banking lobby was not best pleased.