“Some are on fire, others are shaking”: prices for tours explained in Turkey

Given the fall of the ruble, prices for vacations, as if from former, carefree times, seem to many, if not a hoax, then a real miracle. Domestic sellers of tours call it the “incident of September 1”, explaining the price failure by the fact that vacationers with children have already left, and the target audience of the velvet seasons (sweet couples, pensioners, corporate parties, forums, scientific symposiums, etc.) has not yet arrived. It is time for the first to prepare for the new academic year, and for the second, Turkish resorts are still too hot and crowded. That’s why you can catch the price “magic” by buying a last-minute tour on August 25-27, and then the carriage will turn back into a pumpkin – before the influx of “velvet” guests, prices will return to their usual indicators. True, some Turkish hoteliers, although they are interested in guests, explain the “magic” with bitter realities.

“A friend called me yesterday for advice on whether she should buy a tour for 60 thousand rubles for two, otherwise this summer she and her daughter didn’t escape to the sea,” says 42-year-old Polina, who has been permanently residing in the province of Antalya for a year. – To be honest, I didn’t really know everything about it, but I promised to find out. I stopped in the morning at the hotel where the relatives of my Turkish husband work, and asked if it was true that “all inclusive” had fallen in price by half? They say yes, it’s true. But twice only three-stars.

– That is, 30 thousand per person is a week in the “three rubles”?

– Well, the hotel does not know these prices, it is Russian tour operators that form them on the basis of accommodation and flights. They only know that their accommodation has fallen in price, and they are dissatisfied. Cheaper means losses for the owner, and less wages for hired employees.

But why has the price dropped? Because everyone left on September 1st?

– Russians, of course, in our province most of all, but there are other tourists. And even the Russians are not all tied to the 1st of September. And the Turks do not know what kind of September 1st is, here the academic year begins on September 15th. And in regions where it is very hot, they can also postpone it to October. No, the locals explain the fall in prices by the difficulties that have fallen on the country. All of them are not new, but this time everything immediately piled up. Heat waves, forest fires, earthquakes every month, inflation, illegal rental business. And now there is an epidemic.

But if about fires (a forest burning near the Aegean resort of Canakkale is equated with a national disaster, because of it, Turkey closed the Dardanelles for the first time in modern history) and about earthquakes (on Friday, another 4.8 magnitude shook the eastern province of Malatya), the locals are ready to tell, then when asked what kind of epidemic they have, they modestly fall silent.

“It’s not customary to discuss diseases and scare people here,” explains the Russian wife of a Turkish husband. – I will say one thing: nothing special, in Russia it happens every autumn.

But not all compatriots are so restrained. The Russians, now vacationing in the 4-star Alanya, are actively scaring the RuNet with pictures of “detachments in white coats and masks taking samples of food and water.”

“Half of the hotel fell down with an intestinal disorder, although everything seems to be clean, the food is normal,” one of the sick tourists shares. – My neighbor’s son had a temperature of 40 for two days, Turkish doctors diagnosed an infection. But at least he is in the room, and some ambulances in hospitals. Now they check everything – the water in the pool, in the sea, from the tap, for cooking, in the bathrooms. It seems to me that they know something, since the emphasis is on water. And in other cases, in case of mass poisoning, the first thing they do is check the kitchen and food storage, but ours didn’t even go there.

Guests of other hotels in Alanya confirm: for some reason, there are queues in Russian-speaking pharmacies, people buy remedies for vomiting and indigestion, pharmacists nod with understanding, but do not comment.

– And at us in general have forbidden from under the crane even to wash! – says our tourist from Bodrum. – Moreover, the mailing came only to the locals, and our Turkish waiter told me. Tourists, they say, do not want to scare. It turns out that some plumbing communications have massively burst due to fires and now there are “pathogenic bacteria” in the water. I got to the bottom of our hotel doctor, which ones? And he told me: rotavirus! But even I, not a doctor, know that it is either a bacterium or a virus. Something they are dark!

“This is Coxsackie,” a Russian woman who works in a hotel on the Turkish Riviera clarifies the situation on condition of anonymity. – The virus is such, it manifests itself first with vomiting, diarrhea and fever, and if left untreated, then blisters all over the body and other troubles. But Turkish doctors know how to treat Coxsackie, although they never pronounce this diagnosis aloud and write it down. They have such control centers, otherwise, according to the protocol, quarantine must be declared. And where else is quarantine, and so the holiday season is a failure.

In an unofficial field, Turkish doctors assure that Coxsackie is not fatal, the main thing is not to run it. The worst thing about this disease is a possible complication on the heart or brain.

– Yes, Turkey is now generally “at the peak of its form,” lamented a Muscovite who moved to Antalya this spring with her husband and 9-year-old son. – Some are burning, others are shaking, others are sick. And then on TV they say that a young Turkish architect died of rabies. You see, not a bum, not a beggar, but successful and not poor, and for a whole month he was treated in a good clinic, but he was never cured. Moreover, he fell ill from the bite of his own dog, and it was apparently bitten by some stray. And only at the end of the story about the funeral they say that this is all “because the local stray animals now have an epidemic of rabies.” How is that at all? I look out the window, and in our yard, children just kiss street cats, right there it’s sacred! And one of our boys was bitten by a stray cat on the hand, his mother took him to a local aybolit to get rabies vaccination. And he was like this to her: why the vaccine? The wound is small!