Ethnic tourism
Nostalgic or ethnic tour (nostalgic tour), another wonderful exotic type of vacation. During such trips, tourists study a certain ethnic group of the population, study their life, cultural features, everyday life, etc. This is a good way to learn more about their roots or to study the history of the required people to scholars, amateurs. Thanks to this innovation in travel agencies, many even found their distant relatives on foreign lands. Sometimes people visited places where their fathers, grandfathers lived, or in distant youth they themselves were evicted from these neighborhoods. Now it’s probably clear why the second name is a nostalgic tour, because it is nostalgia that calls the majority instead of relaxing on the sea waves to indulge in the study of some kind of culture.
And there are many immigrants in the world, conditionally resettlement can be divided into forced and voluntary. There were all sorts of reasons for the forced resettlement of entire peoples in history, these are military, political, religious. The reason for voluntary resettlement is the economic factor, people were looking for a better life in other countries, on other lands, continents.
Thousands of Norwegians and Irish migrated in due time to Iceland, Greenland. Once upon a time, pilgrims from religious beliefs left their lands and rushed to America. World wars brought many more waves of migration. The Volga Germans in their history, and this is the last two hundred years, have changed more than one land, the change of laws drove them to Russia, then to Kazakhstan, and now back to Germany.
For a long time, it is possible to list the migration stages of different peoples, and this led to the creation of ethnic tours (nostalgic tour), this was an opportunity to understand the life of their ancestors and, possibly, choose a new habitat, return home.
In the early 90s, nostalgic tours began to gain momentum in Russia. Thousands of Finnish tourists come here to visit the old places of their not-so-distant ancestors. Basically, these are old people who do not even go to the lands of their relatives, but to their youthful places. During the Second World War, half a million Finns left the Leningrad region (the Karelian Isthmus) and left, some to Finland, some to Sweden. Now many are returning to remember their former life. And for the realization of a dream, travel agencies have been created that specialize in this. The first in the list of companies that provide such trips for the Finns is Matka Maailma OY, FinnSovtours. A great contribution was made by the “Council on Tourism and Excursions of St. Petersburg”. In the village of Lososevoi, there is an international-class hotel “Lososevskaya”, which provides high-quality service for Finns visiting familiar places.
Speaking about nostalgic tours, one can distinguish one of the subspecies of such tourism as visiting relatives and friends (relative & visitors tour). But this type of tourism is not suitable for all people, most of them are those who have blood connections with the lands they travel to.
Religious pilgrimage (religious or pilgrim tour), one of the most popular types of tourism. Religion has enveloped the whole world, and this entails its consequences and travel to religious famous places, instituted a very long time ago. The pilgrimage to the Vatican, the Holy Land, Mecca has been carried out for centuries.
Today’s reasons for the pilgrimage are different, ranging from ordinary curiosity to trips to the shrines of their faith. Many rush to strengthen faith. There are those who want to be cured of diseases and visit literally all the holy places of the planet. After all, this is sometimes the only chance to regain health.
Centuries ago, people also went to worship shrines, time passes, and the number of people wandering from the causes of faith has not decreased, but even increased. Now it is possible to visit the holy places without any difficulties. Previously, a man walked thousands of kilometers for months to visit, say, Jerusalem and bow to the Holy Sepulcher. Now this distance on the plane is overcome quickly. And there are many memorable places, these are Jerusalem, the Vatican, Mecca, it all depends on religion. There are those who visit all the shrines of the earth. It is not necessary to be a Muslim to travel to Mecca. You can find a famous cathedral with gracious icons closer. Russia, famous for the Valaam monastery, on Kononets island. In Ukraine, people often visit St. Sophia Cathedral (Kiev, the capital of Ukraine) or Pochaev Lavra (Ternopil Oblast). They are known worldwide on a religious scale. Each country and even region has its own significant churches, monasteries or simply chapels. Sometimes small churches in villages have great holy power, and believers know them and travel thousands of kilometers to this place, although the population of the village is no more than a hundred people. And all this leads to religious pilgrimage, as a form of tourism.
