Last year, the question of the Anapa-Kerch route was of little relevance. How to get from one seaport to another, except by sea? According to the schedule, passenger ships ran along it, but this route could not be called particularly busy. It was equally easy to overcome this distance by land, with a ferry crossing the Kerch Strait.
Against the backdrop of recent political events
The revolutionary events of the spring of this year radically changed the situation on the peninsula and around it. After the incorporation of Crimea into the Russian Federation, many problems arose. Among other things, I had to think about the Anapa-Kerch marine passenger line. How to get as soon as possible from the Caucasian coast to the Crimean peninsula, it became interesting to those who are going to the Crimea on vacation. Particularly relevant to this issue were made by such factors as the difficulty of traveling to Crimea by rail through unstable Ukraine and the high cost of flying there by air. A simple statistic indicates that the majority of holidaymakers in previous years arrived on the Crimean peninsula through the Perekop Isthmus by rail. And Crimea was much more interested in the arrival of holidaymakers than they were in it.
Transport problems
Crossing the Kerch Strait was put into operation back in 1956. It successfully connects the coast to this day. But the existing ferry crossing from the port of Kavkaz to Kerch back in April 2014 ceased to cope with the flow of passengers. On the shore of the Kerch Strait, a long line of cars formed, the passengers of which want to get to the Crimean coast. Now waiting for loading by ferry in the port of Kavkaz takes more than a day. Thus, Anapa-Kerch (the distance between the end points of which is only 127 kilometers), which was easily overcome in the past, from the Caucasus to the Crimea, became very problematic. The situation is further complicated by the fact that it is impossible to know in advance how much time will have to be spent in line for crossing. Needless to say that such an adventure can seriously poison the entire summer vacation?
What to do?
The technical capabilities of the ferry in the Kerch Strait have been exhausted. In principle, the situation could not be changed even by the urgent commissioning of new ferry facilities. I had to urgently look for alternative solutions to the emerging transport problem. In particular, they remembered the long-existing passenger line Anapa-Kerch. How to get a ferry to Crimea? Is it necessary to create a crush for this in the narrow Kerch Strait? Of course not. Moreover, there are well-equipped passenger terminals nearby.
Anapa-Kerch. Ferry to the Peninsula
At the end of March, technical tests were successfully completed, and in April two of the same type of high-speed catamaran vessel went on commercial operation on the Anapa-Kerch line. They are even called almost the same - Sochi-1 and Sochi-2. When fully loaded in three hundred people, the travel time is about three hours. In the future, this ensures the stability of the functioning of the Anapa-Kerch ferry line, the schedule of which will provide a guarantee of timely arrival to the place of rest for everyone who decided to spend a vacation in Crimea. The ticket cost is one thousand rubles. This is a serious step towards solving the transport problem that suddenly arose before the start of the summer tourist season. In the near future, other ferry lines from Anapa to the ports of the Crimean peninsula should appear. First of all, in the direction of Feodosia, Yalta and Sevastopol. Also promising is the expansion of communication on the route between Sochi and Yalta.
Kerch-Anapa. Bus to the Caucasus
The measures taken to create alternative lines of communication with the Crimean peninsula should radically unload the ferry crossing in the Kerch Strait and stabilize its operation. Already today, tourists traveling on a vacation to the Crimea are offered bus tickets for the return trip along the Kerch-Anapa route at a reduced rate. And the Kerch ferry crossing will remain relevant for those who prefer to travel to Crimea behind the wheel of their own car.
Strait bridge
Currently, a draft bridge over the Kerch Strait is being developed. After putting it into operation, and this will happen in the most optimal case in five years, it will be possible to overcome the Anapa-Kerch route in an hour and a half. "How to get to the Crimea and how to return back?" - you can no longer ask because of the obviousness of the answer. All other options, except the bridge, will go to the deeply secondary section and will be of interest only to lovers of sea walks. And the main flow of passengers will move to the Crimea and back by road. But the implementation of such a grandiose project as a bridge across the Kerch Strait is fraught with significant difficulties of both a technical and economic nature. To imagine the scale of the construction being erected, it is enough to recall that the bridge should not create obstacles to sea vessels following in the direction of the Sea of Azov and vice versa. Among other things, the Kerch Strait is characterized by strong currents and often there is a difficult ice situation in the winter. To summarize the above, one should not expect that the bridge across the strait will be built very quickly.