Results of the season: resorts suffocated from tourists, and tourists from rotavirus and wild prices

Novye Izvestia sorted out the results of the summer tourist season.

Irina Mishina

At the end of August, the head of Rostourism Zarina Doguzova lived incognito for several days at the White Beach Hotel in Anapa. This is one of the hotels that tourists have complained about en masse. In addition, the head of Rostourism examined several hotels of different categories in Anapa - three, four and five stars. During her stay, Doguzova evaluated the services provided by the checklist and found that 35% of the criteria did not correspond to the declared level of the "four stars" classification. "The discrepancy between the services provided to the declared level turned out to be a systemic problem in the Anapa hotels", - the Federal Tourism Agency noted.

"The huge number of complaints that came to me all season, and often from Anapa, I first of all associate with the fact that tourists who have not rested here before, this is a different audience", - says the head of Rostourism Zarina Doguzova . I think business is seeing growth not only in the number of people, but also in the size of the average check. Vacationers are ready to spend money, but they want to get a decent service", - the official said.

And now we offer you another review about hotels in Anapa. It is more realistic.

“Russian resorts are not at all ready to accept tourists with children. We faced so many problems that we are waiting for when we will return to Moscow. This was the first and last time I visited Russian resorts. There is nothing other than endless knocking out of money. We spent five days out of 10 at home and in the local clinic, because the complete unsanitary conditions in the city after the rains and the disposal of sewage into the sea led to an infection that is transmitted by airborne droplets. There are no places in the hospital, we sat two times to see a doctor for three hours in a queue. If you saw how many children with symptoms of vomiting, diarrhea, there were many in the queue and there were children with pneumonia. Everyone sat in the same queue, an ambulance brings and throws in the same queue. They wanted to leave earlier, but the child's condition did not allow. The rest has turned into a nightmare”, - writes Rena I. on Facebook, vacationing with her family in Anapa in August this year.

And here are some more reviews on the Anapa today Internet resource.

September 2, 2021: “Dear administration, wake up, Anapa suffocates from the smell of g ... and at night, and we are with her!!! Gentlemen, bosses, turn to the people in front, isn't it time to do something with the sewage treatment plants??? "

September 2, 2021: “The situation with nighttime stench emissions in resorts has become unbearable. If earlier it happened in the morning, now it is all night long. What is happening? How is this even possible at a resort? Where is the water curtain that was written about? Incredible technological advances are ringing on TV, and a federal resort city suffocates from the stench. Shame on you officials, you are worthless managers - here is your assessment of your work!"

...The head of Rostourism was lucky. Zarina Doguzova arrived in the Krasnodar Territory after the downpours and flooding ended, which turned the cities of the region and the sea into a solid, stagnant, fetid puddle. The sewers that had flooded the city from the streets began to be pumped out a week later. Was poured into the sand on the beaches and into the sea.

There are no complaints about the rains, but the total absence of storm sewers in the city due to the totally laid tiles is a question for the leadership of the Krasnodar Territory.

The inability to swim in the resorts of the Krasnodar Territory in the second half of August this year due to the ban of Rospotrebnadzor has become the smallest of the troubles. Unsanitary conditions, sewage overflowing the streets led to massive rotavirus diseases. The number of sick children in the Krasnodar Territory has exceeded all reasonable limits. Anapa blogger Yuri Ozerovsky filmed a video 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.

Against this background, the Association of Tour Operators stubbornly continued to advertise the resorts of the Krasnodar Territory as the most budgetary and popular. According to ATOR, 10 days of rest in Sochi and Anapa, taking into account accommodation, meals and flights from Moscow and back, cost 36 thousand rubles in the summer. It is not clear where ATOR got such data. 10 days of rest in a 4-star hotel in the Krasnodar Territory started this year at 170 thousand, not counting the flight. In 5-star prices, they approached half a million in 10 days. As for the promised 20 thousand cashback on the Mir card, it turned out to be nothing more than a PR move: this very cashback was applied exclusively to the off-season.

Nevertheless, this year's inflow to Russian resorts has caught up and surpassed the indicators of the USSR. "Most of the tourist routes ran across the country. We do not remember such indicators since Soviet times. Yes, there are quite frank flaws, we do not have enough qualified accommodation facilities, not all objects are at the proper level, but as the practice of this year has shown, people are still we strive not only to Sochi, Anapa and Crimea, but also fly charters to Sakhalin, Tyumen, and Murmansk. All this suggests that the country in general is actively developing in terms of tourism ", - said the director of the Association" Association of tour operators in the field of outbound tourism "Tourpomosch" "Alexander Osaulenko.

However, experienced experts in the tourism industry believe that it is too early to beat the timpani. “Domestic tourism experienced something like an upswing, and different factors played a role here: restrictions on traveling abroad, specifics of demand in an epidemic, the same cashback program launched by Rosturizm. It is worth noting that this year was in a fever due to covid restrictions. The weather also affected. And I would not be in a hurry to celebrate the restoration of the tourism industry. Moscow and St. Petersburg hotels were not overloaded, and in fact there usually more than 35% were foreigners. In general, domestic tourism suffered less than international tourism, but the season was not easy. Nature-oriented directions and types of tourism also won: ecological, adventure, sports tourism: these are Baikal, Altai, Karelia, Siberia, Astrakhan . It can be said that the pandemic has spurred the process of greening tourist demand", - Honorary President of the Russian Union of Travel Industry, Chairman of the RSPP Commission on the Travel Industry Sergei Shpilko told Novye Izvestia.

The rise in demand for domestic resorts this year was largely explained by the ban on flights to Turkey: “At the end of June, there were few offers on the market, and prices rose sharply, and price chaos arose. But as soon as the borders began to open, prices began to fall sharply. and everyone understood perfectly well that demand is regulated precisely by the quality of the product, by the very combination of price and quality that we are constantly talking about. We hope that this lesson was not in vain, especially for hoteliers, who will draw appropriate conclusions and next year we will see a new quality of hotels, and new hotels, and new objects of display, and new vehicles", - says the director of the Association" Association of Tour Operators in the Field of Outbound Tourism "Tourpomosch" Alexander Osaulenko.

It is worth noting here that the decline in demand for Russian resorts was outlined immediately after the opening of the Turkish and Egyptian destinations. And after the downpours and flooding of the resorts of the Krasnodar Territory, this demand has completely disappeared. So, as for the prospects for the quality of recreation at Russian resorts, no rosy forecasts are looming. Let's start with the fact that the Governor of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov this year expressed his thoughts about closing the direction in connection with a sharp increase in coronavirus diseases. What is the reason, it is not necessary to guess too much. In foreign hotels, you can hardly find such an infrastructure as in ours. Take, for example, the park-hotel of the Krasnodar Territory "Cote d'Azur". This huge complex is designed for 2 thousand people, while there are only 600 places on the beach, plus two small pools. Of course, this generates a crush, a crowd of people and nullifies social distance. This year, in Anapa hotels, even the basement floors were converted into rooms, where they put 2 bunk beds each.

The second point is the quality of sea water. Rotavirus is common in Russian Black Sea resorts. The reason is the sewerage drain into the sea from the first line, which is built up not only with hotels, but also with giant residential complexes, where apartments with sea views are sold quickly and well. All sewerage is discharged into the sea.

“There is no such thing at popular foreign resorts. There is a resort area with minimal historical buildings. Why Hurghada, Sharm al-Sheikh, Turkish, Caribbean resorts, Nusa Dua in Bali, were created mainly in new territories or liberated mainly from the pre-existing buildings? Because only an integrated approach to the tourist development of the territory, including the construction of roads, engineering networks, treatment facilities, not to mention hotels and restaurants, leads to the emergence of a modern resort competitive on the world market. We still have few such examples: the post-Olympic complex in Imeretinka and Krasnaya Polyana, Belokurikha. Now the creation of such new clusters is planned as part of the implementation of the national project "Tourism and the hospitality industry", - said Honorary President of the Russian Union of Travel Industry, Chairman of the RSPP Commission on the Tourism Industry Sergei Shpilko.

What happened to the beaches of the Krasnodar Territory and Crimea? The fact is that in the days of the USSR, sewage treatment plants were also taken out to sea. 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 the water and will not even reach the coast, that is, it is not dangerous. And such sewer outlets were built. In some places they went out to sea at 100, 200, 500 and 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 from mechanical damage (earthquakes, passage of ships, etc.), these pipes were damaged, or even completely destroyed. Nobody bothered to build new ones for all these years. And then for whom to build, if everything is private now? Each hotel is for itself - Rospotrebnadzor.

Novye Izvestia sent a request to the Krasnodar Territory Administration about the state of the treatment facilities and the city infrastructure in general, but at the time of publication, we have not received an answer. If he does, we will definitely publish it.

However, even without a comment from the governor of the Krasnodar Territory, everything is crystal clear. In December 2020, a new concept for the master plan was presented. It finally published shocking data on the treatment facilities of Anapa . In summer, their capacities are doubled! Equipment wear is close to 100%. Outdated cleaning methods (chlorine disinfection) are used. Such information was known back in December 2018. Since then, no reconstruction or construction of new sewage treatment plants has been carried out. Residents and guests of Anapa can sometimes observe the quality of sewage treatment with their own eyes. As a result of the breakthrough of the deep-water discharge pipe into the sea, a huge patch of turbid brown suspension periodically appears near the coast. Photos and videos of sewage floating near the children's resort can be viewed here and here. After that, should we be surprised at the appeals to our editorial office of readers, whose children brought a lot of outlandish viruses from the camp in Anapa, including Kaksaki's disease?

The reason is that the corruption schemes that have swallowed the storm sewers periodically consume the treatment facilities in the resorts of the Black and Azov seas. Most of all in this respect, unfortunately, the Crimea "distinguished" itself. Firstly, many private houses have been built in Crimea that do not have a centralized drainage system. As a result, private entrepreneurs, pumping out the contents of the cesspools, pour it all out anywhere. Most often at sea. Developers often make unauthorized "tie-ins" into the sewers, as well as illegal discharge of waste into rivers and the sea. As ecologists say, shallow rivers on the southern slopes of the Crimean mountains are a source of constant biological pollution, and this water eventually ends up in the sea. Secondly, there are sewage problems even in large cities. Vladimir Bazhenov, General Director of the State Unitary Enterprise of the Republic of Kazakhstan "Water of Crimea", explains: "If the length of the water conduit on the peninsula is 6440 kilometers, then the sewerage network is only 1822 kilometers." In Balaklava, wastewater is discharged into the sea without any treatment at all. In Sevastopol, at the Southern Wastewater Treatment Plant, only mechanical water treatment is carried out. It is estimated that 100% of the peninsula's sewage treatment facilities are in need of repair. According to Bazhenov, more than fifty additional drainage points must be built in Crimea. Also, all 12 deep-water sewer outlets are in emergency condition and need major repairs, 11 of which discharge waste into the Black Sea, and one into the Azov Sea.

Because of this state, the sea near Russian resorts turns into a kind of "Petri dish" in which bacteria grow. The rapid growth of algae is clear evidence of the unfavorable state of water due to its pollution. Vacationers recently often complain about the appearance of the Black Sea and Azov beaches, littered with rotting algae. The smell is such that the mayor of Saki had to reassure the concerned public: “I explain, there is no accident at the chemical plant! If only because our plant has not been operating for 30 years. Chlorine did not explode, ammonia was not spilled, dust was not sprinkled, no one was poisoned with arsenic".

Unfortunately, it is not only rotting algae that float in the spa water. Here is a quote from one of the portals of the city of Alushta: “Have you swam in excrement yet? Alushta is waiting for you. This happens almost every day. By lunchtime, “something” of brown color floats on all the beaches of Alushta, a mass of bubbles with debris and a huge number of dead insects”.

Let's make a reservation that the problem with sewerage in Crimea did not arise today. They tried to solve it after joining Russia, but everything stumbled over our corruption realities. For example, an advance payment in the amount of 2.056 billion rubles, allocated for the construction of a new system of sewage treatment plants "Yuzhnye" in Sevastopol, disappeared in an unknown direction. Vitaly Nakhlupin, deputy governor of Sergei Aksyonov, was also arrested due to problems with the implementation of the federal target program. This is how the Yalta journalist Sergey Sardyko commented on this situation: “ People win tenders by offering very low contract prices, which are really impossible to do. We keep records of how many firms in Yalta that grab an advance and run away with it, go bankrupt, and that's it - there is no money".

In general, this whole thing smells very bad.

But at the same time, prices for holidays in Russian resorts are growing exponentially, eclipsing five-star hotels in Turkey, Cyprus and Greece. What is the reason? Here is how the honorary president of the Russian Union of Travel Industry, Chairman of the RSPP Commission on the Travel Industry Sergey Shpilko explained this to Novye Izvestia: "Why are tours in Russia often more expensive than foreign ones?" The difference is that demand for high-quality accommodation exceeds supply during the high season. And this leads to higher prices. Plus, the share of transportation in the cost of the tour is higher in our country than in the implementation of charter programs to foreign resorts. Add to that high taxes, especially corporate property tax. VAT for hotels is twice as high as the EU average. As a result, the gap in the price and quality of tourism products is growing. Moreover, effective control over the quality of hotel classification has not yet been established. There are really few industries in Russia that could be promoted so quickly to the ranks of world leaders. And for this it is necessary not to reinvent the wheel, but to follow the best world practices of sustainable tourism development”.