Passports of over 200 tourists perished during the floods in Kuban

It appears that the floods in Krasnodar area have deprived around 250 of Rostov citizens of their holidays in Greece. On the night of the 6^th of July, the car which was transporting passports from the consulate in Novorossyisk, turned out to be right in the epicentre of this natural disaster. Part of the documents were saved, however 243 passports were still exposed to water and may now be considered invalid.

The press service of the united service and visa centre of the VFS Global Company in Rostov on Don has reported that many passports have been deformed, and the information written on their pages has become unreadable. By rule, with damages like these, documents are usually considered void, which means that the owner of such a document will not be permitted on the territory of a foreign government. The delivery of the documents was being carried out by the currier company DHL. At the moment, VFS Global and DHL are conducting an internal investigation of the incident.

The VFS Global Company has assured that they are taking all possible measures, within their ability, for the quickest recovery or replacement of all ruined documents. Applications from tourists are being accepted at the address of the service and bias centre in Rostov on Don: Semashko Lane, 117g.

According to preliminary data, we’re talking about clients of a minimum of four tour operators – “Biblio Globus”, “Labyrint”, “Muzenidis Travel” and “Tez Tour”. Tour operators have confirmed the fact that they have received a notice from VFS Global, regarding the damage of passports. However no details have emerged regarding the situation, as the visa centre has not yet provided them with the names and surnames of tourists, whose passports have been affected by the incident. Most likely, this information will be available to tour companies no earlier than Wednesday. It will also then become clear how many of each tour operator’s clients have suffered. Likewise, it will then be established whether or not the cargo which was being transported was insured.

In this force majeure situation, which the market has come face to face with for the first time, the tour operators are relying on the understanding of the tourists. And the tourists, in their turn, are hoping for the support of the tour operators. The General Director of the “Muzenidis Travel” Company, Alexander Tsandekidi has told RATA-news, that as soon as the surnames of the affected tourists are known, employees of the company will personally get in touch with every client individually: “Of course people are upset that they won’t be able to go on their holiday. But, if you think about it, there are human casualties as a result of the flooding and many of them in fact, and in light of this, the loss of a passport should not seem so terrible”. Mr Tsandekidi has also made it known that the company is ready to refund the total cost of the tour for tourists which decide to cancel their holiday booking altogether. For others there is the option of moving the dates of their departure. “We will be using all possible options for the recovery of the tourists’ passports. I think that in reality it’s possible to achieve this in 7-10 days, and after that, people will be able to fly out to their vacation”, - Alexander Tsandekidi pointed out.