Irkutsk tourists were held hostage

In Manchuria, 27 tourists from Irkutsk, Shelekhov and Usolye Sibirskoye were kept in a hotel for two days and their passports were withheld because of a debt owed by an Irkutsk carrier to a Chinese tour operator. The situation had to be urgently resolved by the director of another company, who paid the debt from his own pocket, but the people still face risk because their visas are expiring.

A trip to the Middle Kingdom will be long remembered by 27 of our fellow countrymen. Tourists from Irkutsk, Shelekhov, and Usolye-Sibirskoye, who were in Manchuria, were not allowed out of the hotel and were not given their passports for two days. The reason was a debt owed by the Irkutsk carrier (sole proprietor Yu. Olesyuk) to a Chinese tour operator in the amount of 220,000 rubles.
The travel agency said the situation would be resolved. However, the owner then simply turned off the phone. The money, however, never reached China.
The tourists tried to pay on their own, but the amount was too large for them.
In the end, the situation was resolved by Stanislav Donets, the director of the company that had sent only two tourists with Yulia Olesyuk’s group. He paid this money out of his own pocket.
People have now been released, but there are still reasons for concern: many of them are about to have their visas expire, and if they do not manage to cross the border in time, they will also become lawbreakers.