Moscow promotes halal tourism to attract Indonesian visitors

The Moscow City Government is promoting halal and Muslim-friendly tourism to boost the number of visitors from Indonesia to the Russian capital, according to the Moscow City Tourism Committee, also known as Mostourism.

“Moscow continues to develop a Muslim-friendly environment, including for Indonesian tourists, and we are working hard to increase the number of restaurants and hotels that can properly serve Muslim travellers,” said Maria Pasuginova, Head of the Department for Asia, CIS, and Latin American Affairs at Mostourism, during a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday.

She highlighted the positive growth momentum of Indonesian tourists to Moscow, which reached 3,600 people in the first half of 2026, a 12 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2025. The total number of Indonesian tourists in Moscow in 2025 stood at 7,500.

Despite this growth, Pasuginova acknowledged that these figures are still far from the levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic, when Indonesian visitor numbers to Moscow reached 16,000 in 2019.

Pasuginova expressed hope that the Moscow government’s efforts to promote halal tourism, including through the Moscow City Tourism Committee’s