Estonia, Good for Business, Russia, Tourism, Transport

Jevgeni Beloussov, general manager and head of Central and Eastern Europe at Bolt, said that by bringing in competition, ride-hailing services will be more reliable and affordable.

"We aim to create more choices and offer better conditions for both passengers and drivers; and by doing so, improve the overall quality of the service for everyone. We look forward to cooperating with Russian cities to solve local problems in transportation and I believe that we can offer the same quality in the Russian market as we are offering in over 60 cities all over Europe," Beloussov said.

St. Petersburg is the fourth largest city in Europe after Istanbul, Moscow and London. In 2018, the city was visited by some eight million tourists. The Russian market has so far been dominated by Yandex Taxi, which merged with the Uber ride-sharing service in Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia at the start of 2018.

Last week, Bolt announced the start of operations in Stockholm. Bolt also launched an electric scooter rental service in the Spanish capital Madrid in April and announced recently that it plans to start offering a food delivery service shortly, launching it first in Estonia, Finland and South Africa.

Bolt has 25 million users in 30 countries and it employs a workforce of 850 people, more than 250 of whom work at the head office in Tallinn.