Named the reason for the inexhaustible flow of tourists to the Crimea: many travel for free

An offer hard to refuse

The next blows to the Crimea and all the new difficulties with ways to get to the coveted peninsula do not reduce the flow of people who want to sunbathe by the sea. What makes Crimea so attractive for tourists in the summer of 2023? It turned out, not only the lack of other budget places for sea holidays. Many go there not at their own expense, but on trade union and other preferential vouchers – as you know, it is most difficult to refuse a freebie.

– You should have looked at my children – pale, already green. And the older one needs to go to school, he needs to get stronger somehow. You can’t rest in our city, ecology. My parents tried to take me to the sea every year, but can’t I take my own? – Vitaly and his family are going to Feodosia by car from Zheleznogorsk and have already reached Rostov-on-Don. – If the bridge is closed again, we will use a new road. People get there, and nothing, it’s normal.

Vitaly is 35 years old, he works at one of the largest mining and processing plants in the country. He speaks with the help of a voice-forming apparatus – his vocal cords have been removed. Cancer of the larynx, which, along with silicosis and lung cancer, is an occupational disease of mine workers. Few survive until retirement. But the majority, like Vitaly, works to the last. But what to do – you have to feed your families, and you can’t find another job that is less harmful to health.

How can a summer holiday in the Crimea scare such people? Yes, they know about traffic jams, about the situation on the Crimean bridge, about the drone raids, about the difficulties when traveling through new territories… But they are going. They take their families to the sea. Many travel on trade union vouchers.

A trade union voucher is an offer that is hard to refuse. A two-week stay of a family of four in sanatoriums and holiday homes in Crimea costs 40-60 thousand rubles (meals included). And some enterprises, such as the Mikhailovsky GOK, also pay for travel, thanks to which thousands of residents of Zheleznogorsk vacation in Crimea every summer.

“Crimean accommodation facilities” offers its employees and many other enterprises of the Belgorod and Kursk regions. So it was in those days when the Crimea still belonged to Ukraine, and now nothing has changed for the workers – every summer they go to the Crimea, and this year was no exception. For example, Vladimir Evdokimov, director of social affairs at the Lebedinsky Mining and Processing Plant, deputy of the regional Duma, spoke about vouchers for family vacations in 2023: an employee can relax on the Black Sea coast for free for 10 days, and also take his spouse with him, paying 50% of the cost of the voucher. For each child you will have to pay only 10%. Workers of the plant can have a rest on preferential vouchers from May to September inclusive. This year, about 900 families of GOK employees have already had time to relax in the Crimea and in the resorts of the Krasnodar Territory.

Not all industrial enterprises offer free travel, and in this case, those who received a ticket most often try to get to the sea in their own cars – it’s cheaper, especially if you don’t stop along the way to relax at a hotel or have a bite to eat in a cafe. Yes, and it’s easier – now you can’t get to Crimea by plane, and it’s not so easy to buy train and bus tickets for the right dates; besides, it is an extra expense, and the journey will be no less tiring and no more secure.

– Worried? What should I be concerned about? – Tatyana from Pskov is sincerely perplexed. – One of our employees had a great rest in June. And where can I rest with three children? In Turkey? So this is one way how much it will cost! Yes, and I bought train tickets almost six months ago, as soon as I found out that they would give me a ticket. So let’s go from Pskov straight to Evpatoria. I heard that trains sometimes stop, they do not reach the place. But then they give buses, so we’ll get there …

Workers from the enterprises of Surgut, Novy Urengoy, Norilsk, Nizhnevatorsk, Noyabrsk, Novokuznetsk also go to the Crimea … They earn their living by hard work and with great damage to their health and are looking forward to the summer to wave south with their families. Last year, several hundred thousand people rested on the peninsula on trade union vouchers.

Rest in the Crimea is not an “old Soviet tradition” at all. For many, this is the only chance to bask in the sun, swim in the sea and eat plenty of fruit. The goal for which they work all year. And the summer of 2023 for them in this respect is no different from any other.