Impact of Putin's invasion of Ukraine on Turkey

I have about a week in Türkiye since Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2014, but I suspect you are referring to the most recent of the invasions.

In that case, over the last 30 days I have changed planes twice in Istanbul.

Didn't notice anything different than on my other trips through IST.

I just spent 3 weeks in Eastern Europe and, again, didn't notice any impact from the war.

We were in Turkey when the Syrians were fleeing. No impact noticed. I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s a great place to visit.

Thank you both for responding. Indeed, I did mean the current invasion of Ukraine! Thanks for the clarification. I welcome all comments of your experiences. Iit may take me a bit to respond to comments, but eventually I will. I am leaning more and more to scheduling my flights as the prices are totally crazy right now and most likely will get worse. That includes, who knows what will be happening in the world next year, so I really don't want to put off this trip!

I would not have a great deal of concern as the situation applies to the Ukraine/Russia war. You may see more Russians trying to avoid things at home, Turkey welcomes them, their leader, while helping Ukraine, also plays up to Putin, keeping both sides somewhat happy.

Turkey's internal politics and attitude toward individual rights are a separate matter, if your fine with that, then it should not be a problem.

Planning to fly into Istanbul for a month in Turkey without any serious impact concerns. One effect is that there may be a lot of accommodation availability once outside of Istanbul as Russian tourists were expected to number 10 million this year and now that is not going to happen. They, along with Ukrainians, composed a large block of Turkey’s visitors. There now will be a substantial gap for Turkey’s hotel and restaurant industry to fill.

Agree with Kenko. Turkey attracts a lot of visitors from Russia and Ukraine, and those numbers are going to be way down this year. I am headed to Antalya next month, and I was reading in a Turkish newspaper recently that in Antalya 30% of the tourists come from Russia and 25% come from Ukraine.

Other than many Russians moving to Istanbul, there isn't much difference. Ramadan is happening, people go to the markets to buy food and life goes on. As someone else said, we were their during the height of the Syrian war and refugees and didn't notice a thing.

I just got back from the Best of Turkey tour which was March 28 to April 9. There was no impact that we could see from the war. All the tours and travelling went smoothly as planned!

Again, really appreciate all of the responses! Thanks, Eileen, great to hear you had a good tour. I am looking forward to mine end of September!

Booked my flights the other day, which was my way of committing to go on this trip! Tracking prices on a day-to-day basis was crazy, and I didn't want to think about it anymore, so booked! Thanks all again for your comments.

Just returned from three weeks and two RS tours in Turkey. Has to be one of the most special vacations that we have had. There was never a suggestion of a security issue. Wonderful experience! Just do it!

Rae Brown

I am in Istanbul now and have been for more than a week. Was in other parts of Turkey the week before. There is no sign of the war in the Ukraine. Daily life and tourism are going on as usual.

Glad to hear it's smoothe sailing in Turkey as I'm visiting with friends there later this month.
Happy Travels!

I have considered closing this thread, but it may be serving a purpose for other travelers heading to Turkey too, so will leave it for now. Thanks everyone for your responses.

Please don’t close this thread…I too am traveling 3rd week of Sept 2022 & worry about Putin & the war. So I come to this thread to check on new posts. Please if anyone has any new news let us know!!! 🥺

I am in Antalya right now, and there are Russian tourists everywhere. You would never know that there is a war going on.

Nova, thanks for suggesting the thread continue for now. Sounds like we could be in the same tour group (9/26 in Istanbul)? And thanks, Marie, for you input on what you are experiencing now.

An update from my 3 weeks in Turkïye in June.... not a sign of war from the perspective of my 2 tours: Best of Istanbul and Best of Turkey. We also heard that it's negatively affecting Antalya, with its reliance on Russian tourism. Perhaps we had the benefit of reduced crowds.

Thanks for your input. I enjoyed reading your daily journal of your tours. Wonderful voice for writing! Looking forward to my tour end of September!

Thank you, selzkz. I sure enjoyed sharing my trip and I know you're in for a wonderful experience!

Currently in Cirali near Olympos National Park and there are a lot of Russian-speaking travelers here. This area of Turkey has historically been very popular with Russian tourists and, hotel and guest houses appear to be running at less than 30% capacity. Where I am now staying— only 3 rooms out of 14 are occupied. I’ve looked online and accommodation rates have actually fallen a lot below what I saw when looking last January, before the war started. Last night at dinner our travel group was the only one in the restaurant we ate at, although there were more diners a couple nights before.

There also was low hotel occupancy in both Dalyan and Kalkan where I’ve stayed during the last week. So, it does look like the war has taken been a big toll on Turkey’s tourism industry, at least here in Anatolia.

Another notable thing was in driving from Kalkan to Cirali, the highway was virtually empty. Difficult to tell if that is from a lack of tourists or the high price of fuel ( $6.50 per gallon ) keeping Turks off the roads, or both.

In comparison, I was also in Kos and Rhodes prior to arriving here. Both islands are in Greece and it was much busier. Kos was very busy and in Rhodes the cruise ships were just beginning their return and both Rhodes Town itself and down island Lindos were quite crowded. My accommodations were at full occupancy.

Thanks, Kenko, that all makes sense that there's been an impact on tourism in Turkey due to the war.

A Turkish gentleman in Antalya was telling me that a lot of Russians just packed their suitcases and rented furnished apartments with six month to one year leases in Antalya as soon as the war began. They are just hanging out and waiting to see what happens. I still saw a tremendous number of Russian tour groups, though.

Thanks, Marie.

Turkey is still wide open to Russian tourists with daily flights to Russia.

There shouldn't be any problems for Turkey since they are a NATO country and the Soviets would be even crazier than they have been with Ukraine so far to cause problems with Turkey. I have to say though it wouldn't be the highlight of my trip to rub shoulders or share cafe seating with a bunch of tourists from Soviet Russia. To me it would be like being an American citizen visiting Turkey in 1940 and being around tourists from Nazi Germany.