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 Europe's smallest independent state after Vatican City and Monaco
last month began offering the Russian Sputnik V COVID-19 shot to
tourists. About 250 have so far received their first dose.
Hotels handle the paperwork after a tourist sends an email. The
visitors typically stay three days for both first and second jabs.
"The guest arrives, stays here for three days, the day after his
arrival we accompany him to receive the first dose, and then he
comes back after 21 days for the second dose," said Francesco
Brigante, director of the IDesign Hotel.
The programme, which is helping San Marino's tourism sector emerge
from a COVID slump, is restricted to people who are not resident in
Italy.
Igor Pershin, a Russian who lives in the Czech Republic, travelled
to San Marino with his wife and stayed at the IDesign after hearing
about the programme on Russian TV.
"In the Czech Republic, it is difficult to get vaccinated,
especially for foreigners," Pershin said. "I only wanted to get the
Sputnik vaccine and I only wanted to get it in San Marino so I
booked a hotel."
San Marino is not a European Union member and Sputnik V has not yet
been approved for use in the EU. The vaccine is under review by the
bloc's regulator, the European Medicines Agency.
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 Apart from hotel costs, the
price for two doses of the vaccine is about 50
euros.
"We came here from Germany because we want to
get vaccinated with Sputnik V and because in
Germany they haven't given us an appointment
yet", said Gioele Cozzolino.
The 24-square-mile (61-square-kilometer) enclave
began using Sputnik in February and has so far
vaccinated 25,000 of its population of 34,000.
San Marino, which traces its origins to the
fourth century, has a robust banking sector. It
turned a page in 2017 when the EU's Economic and
Financial Affairs Council removed it from its
blacklist of non-cooperative countries.
(Pullella reported from Rome; Writing by Philip
Pullella; Additional reporting by Fabiano
Franchitti and Eleanor Biles; Editing by Giles
Elgood)
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