“Open Tours” will take place simultaneously in eight cities of Transcarpathia

The project "Open Tours" founded by the guru of Transcarpathian tourism Fedir Shandor is expanding its geography.

Uzhgorod, Mukachevo, Perechyn, Vynogradiv, Irshava, Khust, Svalyava and Volovets are the cities of Transcarpathia, where open tours will take place on Sunday, January 21.

This is a good opportunity for the residents of these cities, as well as for tourists, to learn a lot of interesting things for free.

Fedir Shandor gave a short interview to the Mukachevo.net and told when the idea of ​​conducting such tours in the region was conceived, when the first one took place, who was the main initiator, and so on.

– In November 2012, on the initiative of Alla Hayatova and Tetyana Lemak, 4 open tours were conducted to introduce Uzhgorod residents to the architecture and history of the Halahov neighbourhood in the city of Uzhgorod. And when we conducted those four tours, I suggested to do it weekly. And so it started.

Over 5 years, about 200 guides have conducted tours for several thousand tourists. In 2014, open tours received the new name "Free Tours of Transcarpathia" since the name "open tour" started being used by other people.

– How did you manage to find guides to conduct the tours free of charge?

– Guides are a kind of family, so there were no problems with this – the only issue is that they are often busy on Sunday, so we often have had to replace the lead guides.

– Is this idea in demand?

– Unquestioningly, yes! As a result, this idea spread to other cities. Mukachevo and Vynogradiv joined in 2015, Perechyn, Irshava, Khust, Volovets – in 2017, and Svalyava in 2018, and by the end of the year we plan to organize them in all cities of Transcarpathia. For this purpose, free tours in all cities will be held only once a month, in particular every first Sunday of the month, except for January, which is busy for guides.

– How many tourists and local people come for these activities on average?

– It can be 5 to 80 people, but the number here does not matter, the important thing is the desire to learn knowledge from the guide and to see your city from an interesting and fascinating angle of history and culture. We invite everyone who loves their city.