St. Petersburg hands out paper maps to tourists amid internet outages

St. Petersburg has developed measures to “insure” tourists against mobile internet outages, Governor Alexander Beglov told TASS.

Among those measures, Beglov named paper maps and guidebooks distributed by tourism industry representatives and city authorities.

“At the pavilions of the City Tourist Information Bureau, guests will be told about how public transit works, given paper maps and guidebooks, and simply pointed in the right direction. Employees of the Ask Me mobile information service also hand out maps to people and answer questions,” the governor said, responding to a question about measures to “insure” tourists during connectivity outages.

Authorities have also submitted a request for the city’s tourism portal Visit Petersburg to be added to what is known as the white list — a registry of websites that remain accessible in Russia during internet blockages.

Tourists can also reach the city’s contact center by phone or through a chatbot on the Max messenger, Beglov said. During internet outages, he added, St. Petersburg has an alternative in the citywide free Wi-Fi network SPB_Free.

The St. Petersburg-based news outlet Bumaga tested the city’s Wi-Fi hotspots in December of last year and in March of this year, finding that the SPB_Free network could not be detected at many locations marked on the St. Petersburg administration’s map — and where it was available, the connection was slow.

In St. Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad region, as in many other parts of Russia, authorities regularly shut down mobile internet. They say the restrictions are a security measure in response to Ukrainian drone attacks. According to calculations by the outlet Bumaga, mobile internet was restricted for 34 days between March 1 and May 21 in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.