The resorts of the Krasnodar Territory provide a spoiled vacation with E.coli

Irina Mishina, Anapa

According to ATOR, 10 days of rest in Sochi and Anapa, taking into account accommodation, meals and flights from Moscow and back, will cost 36 thousand rubles. I don't know where ATOR got such data. I chose tours to Sochi and Anapa for a long time - I was attracted by the antiquated measures introduced in this region. It was thought that rest there was a 100% guarantee not to get infected and not get sick. But the prices ...

10 days of rest in a 4-star hotel started at 170 thousand, not counting the flight. In 5-star prices, they approached half a million in 10 days.

But health is more expensive, I thought, believing the exhortations of hoteliers about social distance, disinfection and other mandatory PCR. In addition, the sites of Krasnodar hotels were attracted by the chic children's infrastructure. The reality turned out to be sadder than the darkest assumptions.

Let's start with the fact that the promised 20 thousand cashback on the Mir card is nothing more than a PR stunt: this very cashback is valid for tours from October to December, that is, during the dead off season. As for the children's infrastructure, the trampoline center promised at the hotel, as it turned out, was blown away for unknown reasons; laser tag is under repair, and it was only possible to ride electric scooters outside the hotel territory, which looked like the Nile River - a consequence of the rains and the total absence of storm sewers. Golf and basketball functioned on an incomprehensible schedule: as the administration explained, animators were in short supply. There were only two entertainments: the sea and the pool. But they also turned out to be poorly available.

The concentration of people at the pool and in it was such that it was impossible to swim. You can only stand, and then at the risk of being demolished by water polo players or randomly diving children. To find a free sunbed, it was necessary to take a seat almost until dawn. The reason was simple: the hotel sold a lot more than expected. Even the basement floors were converted into living rooms: each basement room had 2 bunk beds plus a cot. There was no social distance, you guessed it right, at all. All this could smooth the sea, but alas. It turned out to be the main source of problems.

Local authorities are inclined to blame the rains and flooding for everything, because of which the Krasnodar Territory literally drowned in the sewers. The stagnant water with a terrible smell, which flooded the streets, had to be disposed of somewhere. And the technical services of the hotels have not come up with anything better than pouring onto the beaches. From there a fetid ooze poured into the sea. In the same Black Sea, which was already recently polluted with an oil slick that spilled near Novorossiysk.

The sewage runoff to the coastal zone in the Krasnodar Territory already breaks all records. The coastal strip, built up to the limit, is a source of pollution on the beaches of Anapa, Sochi and other cities. One way or another, this August is an unprecedented influx of patients to Anapa hospitals. Most of all children with acute intestinal infections.

At least 110 patients visit the city children's hospital of Anapa a day, Anapa-region reports. Anapa blogger Yuri Ozerovsky filmed a video of what is happening on the territory of the Anapa children's hospital. Parents with sick children wait for their turn for several hours. Most of the patients are on the street. There are not enough benches for everyone, and parents with sick children lie right on the lawns.

This situation also developed because the infectious diseases hospital of Novorossiysk was redesigned as a covid one.

For some reason I recall a children's holiday in Anapa: golden beaches, a clear sea, no infections. What happened to the beaches of the Krasnodar Territory? As the old-timers of the city explained to us, in the days of the USSR, sewage treatment plants were also taken out to sea. No, but where else? You won't let the sewer into the ground - there won't be enough space. In addition, rocks are most often near the sea - there is nowhere to dig. And all this can easily seep into the groundwater, into the aquifer, which is fraught with epidemics. But if you send sewage discharges far into the sea through a pipe (for example, hundreds of meters), then thanks to diffusion and the huge layer of disinfecting hydrogen sulfide contained in the Black Sea, all this will dissolve in water and will not even reach the coast, that is, it does not pose a danger. And in some places such sewer outlets have been built. In some places they went out to sea at 100, 200, 500 or more meters from the coast, but the problem is that these pipes were laid back in the 70s of the last century, that is, at least 50 years ago. And where from dilapidation, and where also from mechanical damage (earthquakes, passage of ships, etc.), these pipes were damaged, or even completely destroyed. Over the years, no one bothered to build new ones: everything requires a lot of money, which for some reason is chronically lacking in the resort budget.

And then - for whom to build, if everything is private now? Under the USSR, this was done in order to organize sanitary zones in the area of the largest resorts with state sanatoriums and rest houses. The purity of the water was then strictly monitored. I remember that in the same 70s, when Vibrio cholerae was found in the water near Odessa, the authorities completely closed this millionth city - they did not let anyone in or let out for the duration of the quarantine. And now each hotel decides for itself whether to allow or prohibit swimming in the sewerage-polluted coastal zone.

Now think about whether such a vacation next to E. coli is worth the money that hoteliers are asking for? As for the statements of ATOR about "budget" and "healthy" rest in Anapa and Sochi - to save the resort season sunk in the sewers with such maxims, apparently, it is not possible: tours are massively canceled. Russian tourists have finally come to understand that health is more expensive.