CRIMEA HAS REACHED THE LIMIT

DETAILS

For six months, 2.5 million tourists arrived in Crimea. To get an annual total, this figure can be multiplied by two. So, five million is already a trend: 4,400,000 in 2000, 4,700,000 in 2001, five million in 2002 and a little more. ..

For six months, 2.5 million tourists arrived in Crimea. To get the annual total, this figure can be multiplied by two.

So, five million is already a trend: 4,400,000 in 2000, 4,700,000 in 2001, five million in 2002, and a little over four (very cold summer) in 2003. More, experts believe, will not. Five million is the limit of the new Ukrainian Crimea. And this is half the harvest of vacationers, which was collected in the Soviet years by the “all-Union health resort”.

In the 90s, the peninsula first suffered from its dubious reputation as a “smoldering point”, hitting Muscovites with dumping cheapness, then it tried to fight Caucasian resorts (unlike the Russian government, the Ukrainian government did not indulge Crimea with transport benefits and other preferences). The main part of the Soviet contingent was lost precisely in this competitive struggle: six million Russians prefer to go to Sochi and not mess with the Ukrainian customs. But something still managed to win back: in the 90s, the total number of holidaymakers sometimes fell short of two million.

There are other reasons for Crimea to surrender its former positions. New economic conditions have created a huge number of fans of "warm vodka and sweaty women." The Soviet people went on vacation strictly according to the schedule and did not have the opportunity to bargain with the trade union about the allocated vouchers. Today they go for hard-earned money and see no reason to spend it on the views of winter Yalta praised by Solovyov in Assa. Local officials from tourism in every possible way stimulate health resorts to build pools and thereby expand the boundaries of the season. The first artificial reservoirs have already appeared in Koktebel, Sudak, Alushta and Miskhor. But these are expensive boarding houses with foreign (often Russian) investors. Not everyone can afford winter swimming, and an ordinary tourist (if he is not a “walrus”) faces the uncontested prospect of mass swims on not very clean beaches.

The narrowing of the time frame of the season also leads to an increase in the cost of rest. Crimeans are mobilized before the summer to earn an annual budget. In early May, all restaurants and cafes on the peninsula raised their prices. The authorities do not lag behind private traders: in mid-July, the prices for travel in the intercity trolley bus Simferopol - Yalta were raised to two dollars. This summer's scandal is the rope business. This is when they block the entrance to some sight with a string and take a certain amount from the car. It is noteworthy that, having reached the natural monument, tourists have to pay again. The latest know-how is the energy crisis. The 95th gasoline disappeared from the gas station. Gas station owners explain this by the fact that factory wholesale prices have increased. However, the government of the republic believes that private traders have artificially created a shortage by hiding the available stocks of running gasoline in order to sell it later at new prices.

One Crimean newspaper calculated that if a tourist spends an average of $300 on vacation, then the whole season costs one and a half billion. A lot of money, but, unfortunately, mostly shady. Therefore, they do not invest in infrastructure. There is still no hot water in most health resorts, and in the villages of the Eastern Crimea, due to the regular breakthrough of water pipes, there is no cold either. The quality of the roads leaves much to be desired, and on the sides of the road you can see heaps of rubbish not removed by anyone. Dirty and on the beaches, while the rescue services there are practically absent, which leads to an increase in the number of drowned people. Those who have had time to taste the delights of Western resorts are outraged by the quality of service.

Crimea is trying to make up for the shortcomings of the service by holding countless festivals: fashion, break, graffiti, fireworks, waiter races, races on air mattresses. This is how the season goes: crowded and expensive, dirty and fun.