Translated material
Inaccessible chicken
How residents of the Russian Kuril Islands can become a damage
Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Japan this week, one of the topics of the negotiations will again be the territorial problem of the two countries. Japan claims four islands of the Kuril ridge - Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and groups of Habomai Islands (as the islands of the Malaya Kuril ridge are called in Japan). Russia, on the other hand, declares that its sovereignty over these territories is not subject to doubt. While Moscow and Tokyo are trying to find a compromise in such a difficult business, Russian citizens living in the Kuril Islands may lose the last affordable connection with their homeland.
Since January, the internal air transportation system has been changing in the Sakhalin Region. The size of the subsidy from the regional budget, which helped to restrain the prices for flights, is reduced by half. How much will a ticket cost for subsidies of the residents of the region is not yet clear. But it is already known that for those who do not have constant Sakhalin registration, the prices of regional flights will grow three times. An hourly flight from Yuzhno-Kurilsk to Sakhalin will cost 16 and a half thousand rubles instead of the current 5.1 thousand.
One of the most popular entertainment on the Internet among residents smoking now is to look for tickets to European or Asian capitals on air carriers and compare their prices with those that you will have to pay for flights to Sakhalin. The Kurilcans are afraid that a decrease in subsidies will make them simply by the attendants.
- We had a problem before to get to Sakhalin. Tickets must always be bought in a month and a half, ”says Oksana Gromova, a resident of Yuzhno-Kurilsk. -If suddenly it is urgent-to the hospital or something else, then you give the cashier 3 thousand over the price and fly. This system has been working for many years. I was returning from vacation in early September. There were no places, but overpaid at the checkout, and they were immediately found. I openly talked about this when Governor Oleg Kozhemyako and the general director of Aurora, Konstantin Sukhorebrik, came to us in Yuzhno-Kurilsk. Sukhorebrik just laughed and said that while we are paying, it will be so.
The head of the region and the head of the Aurora airline - the only regional air carrier - came to Kunashir in mid -November in order to reassure the Kuril residents. Flights from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to OHU, Shakhtersk, Yuzhno-Kurilsk and Kurilsk have always subsidized the regional budget. For the island region, internal air traffic is a vital necessity. At the same time, the cost of tickets with subsidies and without significantly. The flight from the regional center to Kurilsk now, thanks to subsidies, costs passengers of 5100 rubles, and the price declared by the airline is 16,700. Tickets to Yuzhno-Kurilsk are sold for 5300 rubles with their market value of 14,800 rubles. Thanks to subsidies, you can fly to the most northern city of the island of OHO for 6800 (19,000 rubles - the price of airline), to Shakhtersk - for 2500 rubles (market value of 14,700 rubles).
On subsidies, only half of the requested amount will be allocated to the air carrier - approximately 600 million rubles
The difference between airlines was covered by subsidies from the regional budget. But this cost the regional treasury. For 2017, Aurora requested 1.147 billion rubles as a subsidy. However, at the next meeting of the regional government, it was announced that there was no such money in the budget. Now we are talking about the fact that only half of the requested amount will be allocated to the air carrier - about 600 million rubles.
As in this situation it will be possible to provide more or less affordable tickets of residents of the region, it is not entirely clear. The authorities say they are looking for a new subsidy mechanism. Initially, the option was voiced according to which subsidies are paid only to residents of the region and after the passengers buy a ticket for the full cost. It was assumed that the Sakhalin residents and Kuril residents will then contact the social protection authorities, where they are compensated for the difference. In addition, quotas were installed - at social tariffs, Kuril residents can buy tickets only four times a year (there and back), and the Sakhalin residents - two.
This caused a wave of indignation in the region. On the Internet, the collection of signatures against raising tariffs for flights in the region began:
“Where can a resident find this unbearable amount, then to run along the corridors in social protection and beg compensation, collecting documents? When will this money be returned and will be returned at all? How much should you hate people to offer this,” the petition says.
The indignation was so strong that the regional government decided to abandon the initial mechanism for the payment of subsidies.
- The new procedure for compensation is still under development, and when the document is finally ready, I can’t say. But it is already known that the inhabitants of the Sakhalin region will buy a ticket at a discount. It will be enough to predict a passport with a local registration in a plane crash, ”says Gennady Kotlikov, Deputy Minister of Transport of the region. - The social tariff will not radically increase, it will grow only by the amount of inflation.
However, the mechanism of milking raises a lot of questions. What will be this discount in the end? How, for example, will money for tickets purchased via the Internet be returned? But what about those who were born on the Kurils, but moved to live and work for the mainland: they will also have to pay more than 30 thousand rubles to the islands to visit, say, parents?
Only on the road to Sakhalin and back we will need 65 thousand rubles
The problem is that there are a lot of visiting specialists on the Kurils: builders, doctors, teachers. More than a thousand people in the regiment, located in Kurilsk. And there is also a military unit in the village of Gorny. Only units of military personnel have constant Sakhalin residence permit. The rest are temporary at best. For them, tickets will be sold at new prices.
“We have been living on the Kurils for three years, but are registered in our homeland, in Volgograd,” says contractor Vasily Valuev . - The Ministry of Defense pays for me and one family member, and four of us. We will have to buy two tickets with our money. Only on the road to Sakhalin and back we will need 65 thousand rubles. And also a flight to Moscow, and then to Volgograd. This is a lot of money for us.
Although Sakhalin associates a naval message to Iturup, Kunashir and Shikotan, today there are practically no alternatives to air transport.
The price increased from scratch in just a couple of days
On the line, instead of two motor ships, one “Igor Farkhutdinov” remained, and he often idle due to storms. The last two years, the Polaris ship also went between the islands. But in July, he broke and has been in the dock since then. When the ship goes to sea, they do not know in the Ministry of Transport. It turned out that "Polaris" would need to replace the main engine. Paper procedures for the choice of the contractor and the repair itself will take several months.
The regional authorities bought Polaris in 2013 in Murmansk, and the purchase came out scandalous.
“Initially, the seller’s website hung that the ship costs 75 million rubles,” says Galina Podoynikova, deputy of the regional Duma. - After some time, it became known that the price of Polaris is already 118 million, plus another 22 million - its distillation to Sakhalin. The price increased from scratch in just a couple of days. But this is not even the main thing. "Polaris" of 1968. It is low -flowing, the speed of only 11 knots, it is not intended for transportation of goods. Why was it even to purchase it?
Когда суда выбывают из строя – из-за поломок или штормов, транспортная ситуация снова осложняется
Nevertheless, by a majority vote in the regional Duma, the purchase was approved, and the head of the regional Ministry of Transport Vladimir Diagerev convinced everyone that his experts examined the ship from above to bottom and it was "like Yaichko." Nevertheless, in two years on Sakhalin Polaris, they put it for repairs several times. Now he needs a major upgrade that will cost the treasury of 180 million rubles. This whole story cost the minister of space. At least, in the official government’s official release, his resignation is explained precisely by the complaints of the inhabitants of Iturup and Kunashir about endless problems with air and sea transport.
But this resignation did not solve the problems. One motor ship with a passenger flow does not cope for chicken. A particularly difficult situation in summer and autumn, when fish industries import hundreds of workers to the salmon Putin.
“In principle, when motor ships come on a schedule, twice a week, this is enough,” says and. O. Mayor of Yuzhno-Kurilsk Alexei Zadirako . -On average, 70 passengers rises aboard the ship in Yuzhno-Kurilsk. And if the flights will be held regularly, we will have neither queues nor the tile of the cash desk. But when the vessels are out of order-due to breakdowns or storms, the transport situation is complicated again.
The budget of the region provides for money for the construction of new vessels for messages with the Kurils, but even in the most optimistic situation, they will appear in the region no earlier than two years later. Earlier, the authorities announced a tender for the construction of two ferries for the Vanino-Kholmsk crossing, but the auctions did not take place-each wanted to build ships for 2.5 billion rubles was not found.
The air carrier - the governor ordered the temporary absence of Polaris to compensate for the aircraft to fly daily, while usually made five flights a week. But even if there are no tickets of tickets, who will now afford air travel?
In addition, new tariffs and a new subsidy procedure destroy only nascent entry tourism in the Kurils. The Sakhalin authorities have stated many times that the development of tourism is one of the priorities of the region.
This year we brought everyone with airplanes. Who will fly to us for 33 thousand?
“The situation with transport does our work meaningless,” says Marina Evgenova , the head of the hydraulic engine working on the Hydostroy Tour company. - We reconstructed the hotel, developed new routes, presented our capabilities at specialized exhibitions, but all that is inaccessible to the islands. This year, due to the breakdown of Polaris and the fact that Igor Farkhutdinov served the Iturup youth forum, we lost from 70 to 100 tourists. And in our summer, about 200 guests come over the summer. We know that our other colleagues also suffered huge losses. Previously, we tried to bring tourists with a ship, air travel is too dependent on the weather, and we have a changeable one. This year we brought everyone with airplanes. Who will fly to us for 33 thousand? Nobody.
- During the meeting, we asked the governor what to do with the purchases of tickets over the Internet, what to do to the wives of the military, at what price will the road to those who fly to their relatives go to the islands? -Says a resident of Yuzhno-Kurilsk Oksana Gromova. -And we were reassured in every possible way: they say, the wives of the military will take some certificates from the commander of the units, and the Kuril residents will be able to draw up some calls to their guests, and according to these documents in the airlines they will provide discounts. And about the students will be guided in Aurora like some lists ... .. All this seemed to me somehow unconvincing. In practice, what will it look like? It is incomprehensible.
The new subsidy procedure has not yet been made public. Although after a couple of weeks he must enter into force. But no one in the region still knows how much flights to regional flights will cost, what will be the mechanism of subsidizing them.