For many Russian citizens, the annexation of Crimea is a significant event. However, many more questions remain unresolved. It is no secret to anyone that the tourism business brings the main revenues to the budget of the peninsula, and in recent years it has rapidly faded away. Lost the former splendor of sanatoriums and hotels, the infrastructure leaves much to be desired, tourist routes “overgrown with grass”. Currently, the Russian government is sending huge sums to revive the resort in Crimea, and this summer the peninsula is ready to receive tens of thousands of tourists. However, a problem arose in the way of the republic’s integration - the transport component. How to get to the Crimea today, when the path through the territory of Ukraine is closed? How to get to the peninsula, bypassing this state? How much money and time will have to spend? This will be discussed in the article.
Temporarily Occupied Territory
On April 27, 2014, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a law on the Crimea peninsula, according to one of the provisions of which foreigners must now obtain special permission to cross the Ukrainian-Crimean border. Thus, it turns out that from now on, the route to Crimea by land (by train or car) via Ukraine is virtually impossible, because hardly anyone decides to go to Kiev for special permission. And an attempt to cross the border without him will be punishable by a fine or arrest. Starting May 27, Russia may suspend the sale of tickets for trains traveling along the Ukrainian territory to Crimea, as train schedules have not yet been finalized with the State Administration of Railway Transport of Ukraine. As everyone knows, there is no land border between mainland Russia and the peninsula, since getting to the Crimea? There are two options: either by air or through the Kerch Strait.
Aircraft first thing
Of course, the fastest and most convenient way to get to the peninsula is flight. From April 25, Sheremetyevo International Airport in the direction "Moscow-Simferopol" began to fly Aeroflot aircraft. With all fees, the price of a one-way ticket is 4 thousand rubles, and a round-trip flight costs 7.5 thousand rubles. Starting June 1, Aeroflot will operate 8 flights to Simferopol from Moscow daily. Other airlines offer affordable fares, sometimes ticket prices start at 3 thousand rubles, but not every flight has them. Also, flights to other cities of Russia are regularly carried out to Simferopol: St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Orenburg. The plans to establish air links with Kazan, Surgut, Omsk, Mineralnye Vody, Kirov, Grozny. You should take care of buying a ticket in advance, otherwise there may not be free places for the required dates.
Single ticket
For those people who cannot travel to Crimea otherwise than by train, from April 28, the sale of uniform tickets began, combining sea, bus and rail links. Initially, the Ministry of Transport reported that it would be possible to buy such tickets only from the beginning of June, but the department’s specialists managed to resolve all organizational issues ahead of schedule. Already on the first day of sale, April 28, more than a hundred combined tickets were sold, and by May 5 nearly seven hundred travel documents had been sold. You can buy a single ticket in any city at the railway ticket office, but keep in mind that the sale ends a day before the date of travel, since the operator must have all the information about the number of passengers in advance. So, how to get to the Crimea on such a travel document? At the box office, along with a train ticket, you will be given a combined bus-ferry-bus boarding pass. Thus, passengers are invited from their city (or another city from which trains depart on the required route) to first go by train to one of the nearest railway stations - Anapa or Krasnodar. Then transfer to the bus that will go to the port "Kavkaz", transfer to the sea ferry, next to Kerch, then transfer to the bus again and get there to your destination. The Ministry of Transport for a long time pondered how cheaper it is for people to get to Crimea, bypassing Ukrainian territory, and decided that such intermodal transport is the best option. Next, we’ll talk about the cash and time costs of traveling on a single ticket.
Moscow-Crimea: how to get to the peninsula?
Traveling through the Kerch crossing to passengers will cost about the same price as before, on a direct railway route through Ukraine, but the trip will take much longer. For example, now a ticket to the reserved seat car of the Moscow-Anapa train costs 2,400 rubles, the purchase of a single ticket on the Anapa-Simferopol route will cost 350 rubles, totaling 2750 rubles. Last year, the ticket for the direct train "Moscow-Simferopol" following through Ukraine had exactly the same price. True, this train arrived in Simferopol in 20 hours, now only it takes 28 hours to travel to Anapa, and 30 hours to Krasnodar (speed trains are not taken into account). Then, holders of a single ticket need to transfer by bus to the Kavkaz port - the road from Anapa will take another 1.5 hours, from Krasnodar - 3 hours. To this we add a trip to the Crimean coast by ferry - 40 minutes. In the port "Crimea", on the other side of the strait, tourists are again waiting for buses that will take them to places of rest. The distance to Sevastopol is 300 kilometers, you can get on average in 5 hours, to Simferopol - 210 km (4 hours), to Sudak and Feodosia - 150 km (3.15 hours), to Yalta - 281 km (5 hours), Evpatoria - 289 km (5 hours).
Thus, according to the most minimal estimates, the road to Simferopol from Moscow (via Anapa) will take you 34 hours. This is theoretically. It will practically come out an order of magnitude longer, because we did not take into account the time for transfers, traffic jams, and so on. But the biggest problem today is the speed of the ferry across the Kerch Strait. Despite the fact that it works in intensive mode, the matter is not limited to 40 minutes, as a rule.
For reference
The fixed cost of a single ticket is:
- From Anapa: 430 rubles to Sevastopol, 420 rubles to Yevpatoria, 350 rubles to Simferopol, Sudak, Feodosia, Yalta, and 150 rubles to Kerch.
- From Krasnodar: to Sevastopol - 830 rubles, to Evpatoria - 820 rubles, to Simferopol, Sudak, Feodosia, Yalta - 750 rubles, to Kerch - 250 rubles.
Crimea: how to get there by car
From the European part of the country to the Krasnodar Territory should go along the federal highway M4 "Don" - this is one of the most modern and high-quality roads in Russia. For travelers from the east (from the Volga region, the Urals, from Siberia), the route through Saratov-Balashov-Novokhopersk-Kalach-Boguchar with an exit to the same M4 highway will be attractive. Please note: from the M4 highway 90 kilometers south of Rostov-on-Don, follow the Leningradskaya sign and continue on through Kislyakovskaya-Leningradskaya-Timashevsk-Slavyansk-on-Kuban-Temryuk to the port of Kavkaz. Learn that on the M4 highway there will be five toll sections of the road. Day for them (from 7 am to midnight) will have to pay 290 rubles, at night - 205 rubles.
Crossing, crossing! Left bank, right bank ...
Now you know how to get to Crimea by land. The paths of those traveling by car and those traveling by a single ticket (by train, then by bus) will ultimately converge at one point - on the western tip of the Taman Peninsula, from where the ferry across the Kerch Strait will be crossed. It is not wide, only 4 kilometers, however, until the bridge is built (it is expected to appear no earlier than 2018), you have to use ferries. Now there are three ferries plying through the strait: the latest Nikolai Aksenenko automobile and passenger watercraft, commissioned only at the end of 2013, the Yeisk automobile ferry and the Kerch-2 icebreaker ferry.
Through a strait on a catamaran
Also, from May 1, regular flights of the Sochi-1 and Sochi-2 high-speed catamarans opened. They run to Kerch not only from the port "Caucasus", but also directly from Anapa. A trip along the Anapa-Kerch route will take about two hours and will cost 1000 rubles. There are four flights per day. A catamaran moving to Kerch from the Kavkaz port travels on average in 30 minutes; a ticket for it costs 162 rubles. He manages to make eight flights a day. Catamarans are designed to carry three hundred passengers, these are two-deck forty-meter ships with panoramic glazing, equipped with air conditioning. According to the ANO United Transport Directorate, both vessels are capable of carrying 3,600 people daily.
From Russia to Russia
We hope that from the article it became clear to you how to get to the Crimea by different means of transport. But we decided to advise those who decide to travel by car to be patient. The fact is that huge lines of cars accumulate at the crossing. Traffic jams reach seven kilometers in length. And if buses do not stand in the general queue and enter the ferry relatively quickly (time losses do not exceed, as a rule, two hours), then the drivers and passengers of passenger cars on May holidays had to wait their turn for ten or more hours, and freight wagons “got stuck "For several days. The authorities had to urgently take measures: every five hundred meters, tents with water and food were put up and medical posts were organized. And in order to brighten up the waiting process, they set the stage and invited famous Kuban groups for performances.
Finally
After reading the article, everyone will determine for himself how best to get to the Crimea. Of course, transport logistics is not yet built in an ideal way, but the transport organizers are doing everything possible to establish smooth operation. Nevertheless, people who had to wait long hours for their ferry line say they have not lost their positive attitude. Perhaps it was in a special spirit of the heroic cities of Crimea? In the cathedral of St. Vladimir in Sevastopol flickering outside the window, the Swallow's Nest castle hanging over the sea near Yalta or the intoxicating smell of Simferopol lilac?