Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Russians Are Eager to Embrace Turkey Again

Days after Putin made peace with Erdogan, Turkey is again a favorite tourist destination.

July 5, 2016 at 1:13 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Friends, again.
Photographer: Dmitry Azarov/Kommersant Photo via Getty Images

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In the few days since Russian President Vladimir Putin's decree allowing travel agencies to sell trips to Turkey again, Turkey regained its status as Russians' favorite holiday destination. The speed of the turnaround has astonished some nationalists in Russia and showed that public reactions to Putin's foreign-policy somersaults are only skin deep.

In November, the Turkish air force downed a Russian plane that briefly intruded into Turkey's airspace from Syria. Putin called this "a stab in the back delivered by terrorist supporters," demanded an apology and, after he was rebuffed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ordered sanctions against Turkey. On Nov. 28, Putin banned charter flights to Turkey and "recommended" that travel agencies "refrain" from selling trips to the newly hostile nation.