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Traveling Czechs with and without visas

As Radio Prague reports, the most beloved and traditional vacation spot for Czech families has become the Croatian beaches, where a citizen of the Czech Republic can spend 90 days without a visa. A visa is also not needed for Czech travelers going to New Zealand, Israel, Japan, South Africa, and Mexico. But if you want to visit Brazil, where there are "many wild monkeys," or Australia, teeming with rabbits, kangaroos, and crocodiles, or Canada, where you can meet a polar bear and a reindeer, you cannot do without a visa. Moreover, Canada reintroduced visas after a brief period of visa-free relations. Because it wasn't flora and fauna enthusiasts who rushed there, but economic migrants and asylum seekers from the Czech Republic.

In roughly the same way—that is, by the irresponsible behavior of traveling Czech citizens—the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Cyril Svoboda, explains the persistent reluctance of the United States to abolish visas for Czechs. Even after the Czech Republic became an EU member: "The main thing is that every citizen of ours traveling to the US goes there for the purpose stated in the declaration. Not the case where one writes that he is going on vacation, but then studies or works there. The number of visa refusals for Czechs remains too high, which prevents the US Congress from allowing the abolition of the visa regime."

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Cyril Svoboda, is in the US on an official visit. With his American colleagues, he will discuss the prospects of abolishing visas for citizens of the Czech Republic. If we limit ourselves to Europe, then if "orders have been given for him to go west," you can safely travel without visas—a passport is enough—but if "in the other direction," then first you have to storm the consulates of the respective states, and then, having obtained it, the cherished one, travel across the vast Russian expanses, for example. Or treat yourself to Ukrainian salo, "Kyiv Cake," and "Chicken Kiev." Or swim in Belarusian blue lakes, fish, and in the evenings bake young potatoes over a campfire.