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Ilyas Umakhanov, the Deputy Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the State Duma, the Hajj Advisor to the Government of the Russian Federation.
On March 29th the official Hajj season opened. An agreement between the Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia was signed then.
In addition to these, other agreements were signed with authorized representatives, aimed at settlling all the relevant issues.
According to these documents, Russia's quota is 20,500 people; this makes Russia a country with a really large number of people making hajj.
However, we believe that this figure is not enough, as in Russia there are many more people willing to make hajj.
Next year we are going to demand not only an increase in this quota, but to make the allotted number equal to the number of Muslims living in Russia.
We hope that this number will be estimated after the population census. The quota of 20,500 was divided between the Islamic regions of Russia and religious organizations.
Dagestan has a quota of 8,000 people, Chechnya - 3,000 people, Tatarstan - 2,000 people, Ingushetia - 1,500 people, a quota of 3,000 was given to the Council of Muftis of Russia,
a quota of 2,000 people to the Central Spiritual Governance of the Muslims, a quota of 1,000 people to the Organizational Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus.
We decided not to have any reserves and to divide the whole quota till June. Since that time we have held 4 meetings and one international seminar in Kazan devoted to hajj.
In general, the organization of hajj in Russia was made at a rather high level; the Russian hajj mission was named by Saudi officials as one of the best.
In spite of this, there are still some problems and we are doing our best to solve them. 8 operating companies were established to help pilgrims make hajj.
Now the Russian hajj mission has already been formed, it includes 200 people, some of whom have already left for Saudi Arabia.
We pay special attention to the transit states' borders. There are 2 representatives of the Russian hajj mission at each border.
We are trying to prevent tensions such as those that occurred last year on the Azerbaijani-Iranian border.
The majority of the pilgrims have already crossed the border. Each group has 50 doctors with it.
Among the distinguishing features of this year's hajj, I should name the fact that this year's charitable donations were enormous.
2,600 tours were sponsored by the Dagestani Senator Suleyman Kirimov, and 800 by the President of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
That means that 3,400 poor people will be able to make hajj for the first time. The quota itself was openly divided between believers in the Mosques by means of a simple lottery.
I suppose it's very important to preserve the tradition of a fair and open procedure of dividing these tours,
so that people will be certain that everything is fair and start hajj with a clear conscience. Now people from 42 regions of Russia are able to make hajj.
This is our great achievement, as we were always trying to change the existing ration.
That's an outstanding service by the Spiritual Governance of the Muslims and the Council of Muftis of Russia.
This year the number of Muslims from the central regions of Russia making hajj increased by 25-30%.
Another remarkable achievement is that we managed to change the ration between those who use surface transport and those who travel by plane.
Last year 12,400 people made hajj using surface transport.
This year the situation is quite the opposite, only 8,200 people are travelling to Saudi Arabia using surface transport and more than 12,000 are flying.
That's a very positive trend, as even in Turkey, which is much nearer to the Holy Land, almost all pilgrims travel by plane.
I hope that someday travelling by car will become rare, as it's simply dangerous, due to epidemics and armed conflicts that often occur in the Middle East.
In the recent past the Ministry of Emergency situations had to evacuate people from Saudi Arabia, as they were unable to return themselves by car.
Nowadays there are 42 direct flights from various Russian cities
such as Moscow, Makhachkala, Kazan, Ufa, Grozny, Beslan, Yekaterinburg, Samara, and Nijnekamsk (the total number of passengers is 7,600 people),
and 29 indirect flights (mainly from Moscow and Makhachkala), with the total number of about 4,600 passengers.
About 2,000 people are travelling by Turkish and Jordanian airlines.
About 8,200 people are travelling by car. 22 flights (with a total number of 4,000 passengers) have already been made, 8 of which are charity flights.
Almost 5,000 people have already left for Saudi Arabia by car.
The first pilgrims arrived in Saudi Arabia from Kazan on October 23rd by regular flights of Turkish airlines.
Yesterday, the last passports were issued to the pilgrims. This year the organization was on a higher level than last year.
I should thank the Embassies of Saudi Arabia and Iran in Russia. The employees of the Embassies worked till 2 a.m. in order to provide pilgrims with all necessary documents.
However, there still are some problems, the operating companies' work is not ideal, but we'll try to work it out.
There are some problems with vaccinations, some regions haven't got the necessary vaccines, but we are trying to solve this problem.
At the specially organized meeting in Makhachkala on September 15th, we decided that the fact of vaccination should be proved not only by simple certificates,
but by a special document of the Sanitary-and-Epidemiologic Service.
It's not a secret that last year many pilgrims, who had all the required certificates, had not really been vaccinated.
I hope that this year the situation will change for the better, and there will be no epidemics among our pilgrims.