“We saw a terrible end”: extreme excursions are prohibited in resort areas

The death of excursionists in the metropolitan dungeons frightened fans of extreme sports and those who help them in this, not only throughout Russia, but also in the near and even far abroad. Impressed by the tragedy in the sewer near Moscow, which claimed the lives of 8 people, unsafe offers were removed from the Web not only by official travel agencies, but also by private guides, who had previously reacted to the bitter experience of their colleagues with an optimistic “But this doesn’t happen with us!”. We found out which excursions and where exactly are prohibited or limited after the terrible end of the Moscow underground walk.

“Of course, after such an emergency, checks were made on the organizers of excursions,” they say in the capital’s travel agency, known for its extreme walks in haunted places. – Especially, on informal author’s tours. And many are now winding down risky offers. Frightened – and not only checks. Because this is the first time in the memory of all current guides in Moscow.

In the wake of the tragedy in the Moscow sewer, State Duma deputy Yana Lantratova turned to the Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov with a proposal to establish a special register of legal entities with the right to conduct excursions with an increased risk to the health of tourists. Together with the mandatory state certification, which is mandatory for all Russian guides from July 1 this year, a separate license for extreme sports will help protect excursion lovers from illegal guides who endanger them. In the meantime, the authorities are looking for administrative solutions, some came to their senses on their own.

– We have a drainage adit No. 13, – Tatyana, a resident of Nizhny Novgorod, shares. – Amateur guides, such as author’s tours, led there. But I always thought it was dangerous, I myself was not there and did not let my 15-year-old daughter, although she was very eager. And now these adit guides have disappeared, and from ads, and even from digger chats. Personally, I’m very happy!

A similar situation is in the Krasnodar Territory, in the foothills of which there are many catacombs, adits and mines, as well as those who like to climb on them themselves and curious people to lead for a small bribe.

– Last week we were invited to an informal tour of the WWII bunkers, – says the mother, who is now resting with her 6-year-old son in Gelendzhik. – My son was very fired up, but I doubted. And today, the family who signed up for this walk said that it was canceled as dangerous. So, no wonder I doubted! There, military facilities have been standing by themselves since the war itself, no one is watching them, no one is repairing them, and there is no one to answer if they fill up the curious somewhere in a dugout.

Vacationers in the Crimea report that the guides stopped leading to the Tualak cave in the village of Rybachye.

“Skulls and bones are constantly found in this cave,” an elderly resident of Rybachy is horrified. – And climbing continued until this Tuesday. Like, the bones are old. Who knows if they’re old? Maybe not so long ago someone got lost there, and died of hunger and fear. But now they have closed the hole there. And thank God! We saw what a terrible end can be!

Vacationers in the Crimean village of Novy Svet said that they blocked the passage to the “Troll’s Tongue” – a sharp rock at a high altitude above the sea, from where lovers of extreme photos periodically broke.

From Sevastopol they report that they have “covered” “Object 100” – a military dungeon, an abandoned underground missile system.

“This is a huge and dangerous place,” says the mother of a 14-year-old teenager from Sevastopol. “I go crazy when kids go there. The complex is not guarded, it is in an emergency condition, but amateur guides who call themselves stalkers and lovers of abandoned places lead there. But now, they say, everything has been blocked there and guards have been set up.

Ingushetia took control of previously free access to the Lyazginsky waterfall, where a tourist from the Stavropol Territory died posing for a photo and losing her balance.

In Dagestan and Altai, according to local travel agencies, they have limited access to dangerous cliffs in the mountains and places with probable landslides. And in Abkhazia, a similar place, called “Stone Bag” among tourists (Yupsharsky Canyon of the Ritsa National Park), was completely closed to visitors due to more frequent rockfalls, which scientists cannot yet explain.

Even those far abroad were impressed by the tragic death of Moscow sightseers. If a number of hikes in the mountains and some nature reserves were recently banned due to forest fires, then the Dzhevizdibi canyon in the Asmapinar region was taken under control precisely from the “dummies”.

“Just as only professional plumbers or diggers can descend into a real, operating, and not a tourist collector, so now only professional athletes and climbers can get into our Dzhevizdibi,” they say at the local travel agency.

Well, it’s better, as they say, to be safe than to lose your life. As if by warning, tragic news came from the German Alps on Thursday: a young Russian scientist, Dmitry Fedyanin, fell from a height of 150 m when he decided to go solo along a route found in a smartphone application for hiking enthusiasts – walks in the mountains.

Read also: Metropolitan diggers closed underground tours after the death of 8 people