ANKARA, October 10 (Itar-Tass) —— As many as 58 Russian nationals died and 180 were injured in traffic accidents in the Turkish resort city of Antalya in 2011, Russia’s consul general in that city Alexander Tolstopyatenko told Itar-Tass on Monday.
“In the nine months of 2011, we registered 58 deaths among Russian vacationers,” he said. “Most of the deaths were caused by diseases, such as heart attacks. Drowning accounted for 25 percent of the deaths.”
The death statistics include five Russians who died of methanol poisoning after being treated with alcoholic drinks during a yacht voyage in the resort city of Bodrum on May 27, 2011. The yacht belonged to a Turkish company.
In the mean time, the Russian consul general noted that Russian death statistics is almost the same as that by other countries. Thus, about 50 deaths were reported from among two million German vacationers.
According to Tolstopyatenko, Russians got into several dozens of traffic accidents. “About 180 Russians were injured and 12 died in such accidents. At least half of the accidents was blamed on our citizens, pedestrians,” he said. A number of accidents were caused by mishandling of transportation vehicles, such as beach quad bikes, he noted.
Apart from that, as many as 34 Russians were sentenced in Turkey for various offences, including crimes. The bulk of court trials were on theft cases.