Both Greece and Bulgaria, two of Turkey’s neighbors, have stepped forward to lure Russian tourists, who have abstained from their most popular destination as part of Moscow sanctions on Ankara due to the downing of Russian military plane last November.

Greece has started granting three-year visas for Russian tourists with a single-day procedure, as Bulgaria has lowered its visa fees, according to information gathered by daily Milliyet.

Last year, some 3.5 million Russian tourists visited Turkey, where they enjoyed visa-free travel. Many of them chose “all-inclusive” packages offered by hotels in the country’s Mediterranean and Aegean resorts.

Oleg Safonov, the head of the Russian Tourism Agency, told RSN, a Moscow-based radio, that Bulgaria and Greece were in action to replace Turkey.

Greece has opened new visa offices in Russia and employed more staff, in a bid to break a 2013 record of 1.5 million Russian visitors, he said.

Bulgaria, meanwhile, has stopped demanding fingerprints from Russian visitors.

Ankara and Moscow have been at odds since Turkey downed a Russian fighter jet operating in Syria on Nov 24, 2015, for insistent violation of its airspace.

Scheduled flights between Russia and Turkey by the two countries’ flag carriers have dropped almost 50 percent along with the number of passengers after the downing of Russian jet since then, a Turkish tourism executive said last week.