A tourist air route linking Harbin City in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province with Moscow will be open between August 12 and October 5, with the approval of the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Taking off at 9:30 a.m. (Beijing Time) from Harbin's Taiping International Airport, the flight will take eight hours and arrive in Moscow in the afternoon of local time.

There will be altogether 10 charter flights to meet rising tourist demand during the bustling travel season.

When the air route starts up, Chinese tourists flying to Moscow will no longer have to stop over at the Russian cities of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk.

Nor do they need to deal with visas in Shenyang City in Liaoning Province beforehand since tourists on this route are not required to have visas.

( People's Daily August 2, 2002)