Busan wants Russian medical tourists from Vladivostok.

Found an article in Korean on medical tourism in Busan from Vladivostok, Russia.

First some background: Busan is Korea's second-largest city, and has a relatively higher number of both Japanese and Russian people than the capital Seoul. A glance at the map shows why this is the case:


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Busan is a big port city located right in the middle of the easiest trade route between the far east of Russia, Japan, and China. Meanwhile Seoul, though technically a port city if you include Incheon, is quite out of the way.

And as for Vladivostok: it's Russia's largest city in the far east. Few people know that it exists though since flights there are super expensive and it has quite the reputation for high crime.

Now to the articles:

Article 1 explains how the Busan city government is putting up 6 x 3 metre billboards in the city of Vladivostok promoting medical tourism. The billboards are to say something to the effect of "come visit the health care Mecca of Busan" in Russian and English.

The article ends with some numbers: of the 5,921 patients who came to Busan from abroad, 28.9% (1,709) of them were Russian.

Health care, of course, usually means plastic surgery. Sometimes also cheaper health care, though I'm not sure how much general health care is in Vladivostok.

Their site promoting medical tourism is this one, and besides Korean it's in English, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian.