Humanities & Social Sciences 3 (2015 8) 437-451 ~ ~ ~ УДК 338.486 Border Tourism on the Russian-Chinese Border Ekaterina V. Mikhailova* Higher School of Economics 20 Miasnitskaia, Moscow, 101000, Russia Received 27.07.2014, received in revised form 29.12.2014, accepted 14.01.2015 The paper focuses on the tourism development strategy of the Amur Oblast called “Twin Cities”. <...> Said initiative became the fi rst attempt of the Russian Far Eastern regions to create the hospitality industry towards Chinese tourists in the Sino-Russian borderlands. <...> Bringing together such sub-disciplines as border tourism, urban planning and territorial development helps to fi nd out the peculiarities of Blagoveshchensk and Heihe relations among other adjacent settlements along the Russian-Chinese border. <...> Detected features give the ground to defi ne “twin-cities” rhetoric around the border city pair under the scrutiny as a touristic brand construction. <...> On the basis on Blagoveshchensk and Heihe investment plans analysis, the author argues that studied initiative might reshape unbalanced onesided structure of current tourist fl ow across the Russian-Chinese border. <...> Introduction Nowadays the transborder tourist fl ow in the Russian-Chinese borderlands is mainly onesided – Russians are visiting Chinese border cities to buy goods and services enjoying visafree regime there. <...> At increasing frequency Russian border the same time, with regions tend to name tourism industry as a potential tool for diversifi cation of their regional economy (for instance see Government of Amur oblast, 2011). <...> Taking into account increasing level of life among certain groups of Chinese society (Guo, Kim and Timothy, 2007, p. 329) and enhancing demand for outbound international tourism among Mainland China’s residents (ibid, p. 315), the author examines the idea of © Siberian Federal University. <...> All rights reserved * Corresponding author E-mail address: mikhaylovaev@yandex.ru # 437 # attracting Chinese visitors to cross the border to Blagoveshchensk using “twin-cities” as a touristic brand. <...> As a result Russian border policy in the Eastern direction mostly was aimed to limit informal economic practices and eradicate illegal migration. <...> Current initiative of the Amur oblast Government represents the fi rst attempt to create the hospitality industry towards Chinese tourists with the ambition later on to gain the permanently <...>