“The Millionth Tourist” about Crimea: Poverty, construction sites, grabbers, scoop
Poverty, construction, the desire to rip off money from vacationers, the infrastructure left over from Soviet times - this is how St. Petersburg resident Tatyana Shubina remembered Crimea, who was recently greeted with pomp at the Simferopol airport by local officials, declaring the visitor the “millionth tourist” since the beginning of the 2015 season.
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The woman had already rested in one of the hotels on the peninsula and went home. I took a few impressions with me. He says that what was most annoying was the transfer from the airport to the hotel, organized by the tour operator.
“Unfortunately, the peninsula is not much different from Soviet Crimea. I was taken, like everyone else who arrived in a general transfer, to a boarding house in Miskhor. The transfer took more than four hours. You can imagine the level of dissatisfaction among tourists. But this, I think, is not a problem of Crimea, but the savings of the tour operator on organizing a transfer or its partners in Crimea, who choose more than one destination - for example, everyone to Yalta, but stop in Alushta, Alupka, and so on. In addition, the behavior of the driver, who was calmly talking on the phone, driving a minibus with one hand on a mountain serpentine along a broken road, was unnerving,” Tatyana said in an interview with the Crimean Telegraph newspaper.
At the same time, according to the tourist, despite the long journey, drivers do not take tourists directly to their destination: “Either there is a fee, or a closed pass to the territory, or it is physically impossible to get through - the path is narrow and the tourist has to stomp around with a stroller and suitcase.”
The vacationer from St. Petersburg was also “pleased” by the prices for food: “Just an open cafe with plastic chairs prices its services as if it were a chic restaurant. Prices for dishes range from 300 to 500 rubles, which is very expensive for this level.”
The only things that did not disappoint the tourist were the excursions and Crimean views: “It seemed to me that Crimea was similar to Montenegro and Croatia, maybe even to Sicily. Yes, there are poor people and construction around, but the nature is very beautiful. The vegetation, the mountains – it’s captivating.”
English version :: Read in English “The Millionth Tourist” about Crimea: Poverty, construction sites, profiteers, the Soviet Union