People will go on a pilgrimage only by air

About 460 citizens of Bashkortostan will go on pilgrimage to Mecca this year. The first group of the pilgrims will leave for Mecca on October 25 and the last – on October 29. They will travel to the holy Muslim places exclusively by air to the route “Ufa-Istanbul-Jidda”. But the first flights from Ufa will begin already on October 18, the head of the tourist company, specializing in hajj travels, Jamila Gilfanova reports.

As she said, some citizens of the Republic prefer to go Mecca, using the tourist companies of Kazan, Yekaterinburg and Moscow.

“All hajj-companies RB have reached the agreement with the Republican leadership that people should travel to Saudi Arabia only by air” - she explained - “Earlier the pilgrims traveled by air to Jordan and further by buses to Mecca. But because of the intensities in some countries of the Middle East it becomes safer to travel by air with the change in Turkey”.

The pilgrims will stay in Mecca 16-31 days – depending upon the price of the tickets , the tour program and the services. Every group, consisting of 49 people, will be accompanied by the experienced guides, mastering Arab, Russian, Tatar and Bashkir languages, as well as by medics.