“The prospect of not going anywhere in the summer is worse for me than dying under a drone.” Why St. Petersburg residents go to Crimea no matter what

This season, a trip to Crimea seems riskier than ever - UAVs hit trains and buses, fuel oil stains are found on beaches, and drivers stand in lines for several hours for gasoline. While some are hastily changing their vacation plans and canceling reservations on the peninsula, others continue to plan vacations there.

“Paper” spoke with St. Petersburg residents who decided to go on vacation to Crimea this season - despite all the risks and difficulties.

Those going to Crimea know about all the risks, but consider them insignificant for themselves

Thirty-year-old St. Petersburg IT specialist Andrei and engineer Alexander, together with two friends, went to Crimea by train. We bought tickets six months ago. They wanted to go around the peninsula in a carsharing car, but now these plans had to be adjusted.

At the end of May, restrictions on the sale of gasoline were introduced in Crimea, and on June 4, the head of the republic, Sergei Aksenov, announced the suspension of its free sale. Soon gasoline disappeared from most Crimean gas stations, and where it can be bought, queues of dozens of cars form. Because of this, some Crimeans began to travel to the neighboring Krasnodar region for fuel.

Due to the fuel crisis, the friends are planning to rent an electric car, although Alexander assumes that this will not be cheap. As of mid-June, a day of renting an electric car in Crimea costs from 5,500 ₽.

According to estimates by the republican authorities, last year 76% of tourists traveled to the peninsula by private cars and buses. The rest came to Crimea by rail, but after a UAV hit a diesel locomotive of the Moscow-Simferopol train on June 8, traffic between Kerch and Simferopol was suspended .

“Now we monitor the news live,” says Andrey .

Since June 10, half of long-distance trains travel only to Kerch, and then passengers are transferred to buses to Simferopol and other cities of Crimea. Simferopol airport remains closed since the beginning of 2022.

Alexander does not rule out that he will not go to the peninsula at all - if the bridge is completely closed to traffic. In this case, friends will get to Krasnodar, and then instead of Crimea they will go to the coast of Kuban or to Abkhazia.

They are not afraid of drones - Alexander believes that the likelihood of getting into an accident in St. Petersburg still remains higher. Andrei fears that in the event of a transport collapse he will not have time to return to St. Petersburg by the end of his vacation - he took a return train ticket so that he could arrive in the city on the morning of the first working day.

“It’s unlikely that the bridge will be bombed outright, but they could be blocked, and the traffic jam will be such that it’s easier to cross it on foot,” says Andrei.

Friends do not exclude the possibility that they will not be able to swim in the sea this season. Along the entire coast they are finding fuel oil that spilled into the Black Sea after Ukrainian attacks on the Tuapse oil refinery. At the end of May, the telegam channel Mash reported that oil products reached the beaches of Crimea, and the coast of Sevastopol suffered the most. Volunteers and employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations come to places where fuel oil is found, install protective nets and remove the liquid.

Despite all the difficulties, Andrey also sees advantages: due to the decline in tourist flow, housing prices in Crimea are significantly lower than in previous seasons - friends managed to rent a room with air conditioning for four for 350 ₽ per day per person. At the same time, Andrei assumes that due to the fuel crisis, food prices will become more expensive.

Barista from St. Petersburg Ekaterina bought a train ticket to Crimea for August 1 - her friends invited her to relax at their house near Evpatoria. Ekaterina is traveling to the peninsula for the first time and plans to stay there until September - she has long dreamed of visiting the Ottoman fortresses of Crimea. Because of the upcoming trip, the girl experiences severe anxiety:

“I’m terribly afraid of everything, but I just closed my eyes. I hope I survive. But for some reason the prospect of not going anywhere this summer is worse for me than dying under a drone or due to an explosion on the railway.”

The travel agency tells you how to get there safer and where to relax in Crimea more peacefully

The St. Petersburg company "Tour on 5" , which specializes in bus tours to the city of Sudak on the eastern coast of Crimea, is preparing for the first flight of this season. After a drone hit a Moscow-Simferopol bus, the company decided to reassure potential tourists and conducted a live broadcast .

The organizer of the broadcast, Sergei, noted that the Tour on 5 bus will travel from St. Petersburg via the M4 highway and the Crimean Bridge, and not along the Novorossiya highway, so he urged people not to worry about safety.

“Here are some questions for the organizers [of the Moscow-Simferopol flight]: why do people who travel to Crimea come to territories where there is a missile threat every day,” Sergei reflects.

In his opinion, tourists will not notice the fuel crisis - the bus refuels on the M4, and this is enough to get to Sudak without refueling in Crimea. The organizer of the broadcast himself calls Sudak a “corner of calm” and a place “as remote as possible” from hostilities. Sergei advises potential tourists to get ready for a vacation and stay positive.

“Every year they scare us with horror stories. We’ve been traveling for eleven years, and probably two of them have been without incident,” sums up Sergei.

In the comments, future tourists share their concerns, but do not intend to cancel their trips.

“Everyone understands that this year we are going at our own peril and risk. Unfortunately, the situation is not calm, to put it mildly, but I believe that everything will turn out favorably,” writes St. Petersburg resident Elena Titova.

“ There is no ban on holidays in Crimea from Rostourism, which means it’s safe,” tourist Alena Goruleva answers her.

“I’m going on August 7, but something is scary. But whatever happens, it cannot be avoided,” says travel agency client Olga Yudina.

Some “Tour 5” commentators still did not dare to vacation in Crimea this season:

“Going to places where there is increased risk and hoping for chance is almost Russian roulette. I don’t know, I want the sea, but the risk is not mine. I’m still thinking,” writes St. Petersburg resident Yulia Zenevich.

“We thought at first, but in light of recent events, my husband said: “We’re going to another place. I don’t want to tempt fate,” user Ana Maria agrees.

Crimeans have different expectations from the season. Some say that in resort towns the war is almost invisible

Crimean friends of barista Ekaterina, in the fifth year of the war, take drone activity for granted. Luka Kovsh from Alushta has the same opinion. For the last five years he has lived in St. Petersburg, and in May he went to the peninsula to visit his parents. According to him, last month Crimea was no different from usual, and everything related to the war on the peninsula has long been normalized.

After the start of the fuel crisis, Luka’s father had to go to the Krasnodar region for gasoline, but he did not attach much importance to this. Kuban media reported that some gas stations in the Temryuk region closest to Crimea had run out of gasoline, and fuel shortages were observed in Anapa and Krasnodar.

Luka notes that there are no important military installations in the resort towns of the southern coast and drones fly there extremely rarely. He doesn't believe the new holiday season will be much different from previous ones.

“ I don’t remember any disasters before that significantly affecting the number of people who come to Crimea. When oil spilled from the tanker, they said that it would be impossible to swim in the sea. People were still swimming. They won’t go if there are some massive bombings; in other cases, it seems to me, people will still vacation in Crimea,” Luka believes.

A St. Petersburg student who works as a counselor at the Artek camp said that in June they stopped taking children to events from the main camp in Gurzuf to the Sevastopol branch of Artek - the Korsun children's center . The reason is constant attacks on the city and fuel shortages. Moreover, in the spring, when children were still taken to Sevastopol, during a missile threat they had to go down to the basement of the center.

St. Petersburg student from Crimea Marina claims that residents of the peninsula do not expect anything good from the upcoming season. In July she plans to travel home by train with her family:

“They [the Crimeans] don’t have any expectations; constant air raids don’t allow them to live normally. There is fuel oil on the beaches, but local residents don’t particularly visit the beaches because they work. Public transport doesn’t work during attacks, it’s impossible [to live] without a car, and given the lack of gasoline, everything got worse.”

The tourist season in Crimea this year is really in jeopardy - according to the Travelline hotel reservation management system, from May 24 to June 6, 79% of bookings were canceled in Crimea. The founder of the Pink Elephant travel agency network, Alexan Mkrtchyan, told the Kommersant newspaper that for every two new bookings there are now ten cancellations of old ones - according to the OneTwoTrip service, the number of hotel bookings in Crimea from June 1 to June 7 decreased threefold year-on-year.

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What else to read:

• “I took out my phone and decided to film it for my comrades who deny reality.” Residents of Bolshaya Izhora talk about the drone attack and life after it.
• “Like a powder keg.” A drone attack through the eyes of those living near an oil terminal. Paper report .