Russian Border Cities to Legalize Bitcoin
Moscow city
In Leningrad region, cities that are on the border with Russian northern neighbors (Finland and Estonia) started the initiative to legalize Bitcoin as the usual method of payment according to Bitcoin.com. The reason is simple – economic growth.
St. Petersburg and the surrounding cities are visited by tourists (mostly by their neighbors), and of course they want to enable Bitcoin as a normal and very easy way of payment, in order to make their tourists feel more comfortable.
St. Petersburg
Two cities closest to the border
Kingiseppsky and Slantsevsky are the two cities that were named particularly. Their Estonian neighbors are very often visitors, and the city major stated that they would become much more attractive if this legalization would be carried out. Same thing is with the city called Vyborgsky that is located on the border with Finland.
First person to officially request to legalize Bitcoin
According to the local news, the major of Ivangorod – Viktor Karpenko, along with the other city chiefs Vladimir Petrov and Marina Chistova, are the first persons to formally request this “legalization process”. They submitted their requests to the bank of Russia with optimism.
Tourist need to spend their money easily here
Russia is not part of the European Union, so this border may be the main link to the western European countries. Petrov said that the Bitcoins are massively used in EU states, and of course in Estonia. He is concerned about tourists will or possibility to pay with some other currency rather than Bitcoins. So, he reflects the idea of the crypto-currencies legalization as a crucial thing to his city economy.
Petrov said that the government is planning to make exchange points and launch a series of restaurants, shops or petrol stations on the border – where the tourist could use the Bitcoins freely.