Baku topped the list of the most popular destinations for summer holidays among Russian citizens, according to TurStat.
The top-5 places also include Minsk, Almaty, Yerevan and Astana. They are followed by Tashkent, Chisinau, Dushanbe and Ashgabat.
The cheapest summer tours are in Chisinau and Bishkek.
On average, Russian tourists spend on holidays in cities and resorts of CIS countries from $50 to $100 per day for accommodation and food, according to the agency.
Earlier, TurStat reported that Azerbaijan entered the top-5 countries in terms of the number of trips to Russia.
Azerbaijan is on the 15th place in the TOP-20 countries Russian tourists are eager to visit in 2018.
The head of the Faculty of Entrepreneurship in Hospitality and Tourism of RANEPA, Irina Goncharova, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, stressed that Baku, which she visited several times, is a very beautiful, modern, absolutely European city with its own specifics.
"There is a very good cuisine there, it is unusual and very tasty, which also attracts our tourists. There are a lot of interesting sights in Baku. Wonderful films were shot in Baku, for example, The Diamond Arm. It is some kind of nostalgia to visit it," the expert suggested.
"In general, the city is very beautiful, very clean, with very good, comfortable hotels, very good infrastructure, very beautiful waterfront. So it's not surprising that it was named the best one," Irina Goncharova said.
Professor of the Department of Business Process Management in Production and Service of RANEPA, Galina Dekhtyar, noted that Baku's leadership in the rating is due to the fact that many young Russians are interested in places where their ancestors lived.
"Young people began to travel to the cities of the indigenous residence of their parents, grandparents, etc. Very often these are the cities of the former USSR, the same can be said about Tbilisi, Yerevan, etc." the expert explained.
"That is, on the one hand, these are nostalgic memories and travel to their native places." On the other hand, groups of children visit these cities with their parents," Galina Dekhtyar specified.
According to her, the factor that people do not need a visa to travel in all these countries is also essential.
