Crimean Bridge: The Last Call for Local Authorities?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

What horrified the Crimeans when they escaped to the mainland across the great bridge? And what did the inhabitants of mainland Russia discover from an unexpected side? What has distinguished the local Crimean authorities in the main Russian construction site in recent years?

The past weekend brought a new record for the Crimean Bridge. On Saturday and Sunday, almost 45 thousand cars and buses flew "there and back". In general, the result of the first five days since the opening of automobile traffic is that 90 thousand cars have passed the bridge, and the pace is only growing.

Traffic to Crimea is almost 46 thousand cars. The rest, in the absolute majority, are Crimeans who go to the Kuban. A maximum of half an hour, and a resident of Kerch is already traveling on the Taman coast. And there it is a stone's throw to Krasnodar, by Crimean standards, the promised land.

This becomes a completely unusual factor in social upheaval. In fact, the Crimean Bridge opened a different reality for the inhabitants of the peninsula! Seemingly reuniting with Russia, the republic has existed for the fifth year in an incomprehensible "transitional period" status. Some special administrative conditions very soon turned into outright local lawlessness. Corruption, broken roads and, most importantly, prices inconceivable for any other region - all this was justified by the blockade, sanctions and difficulties in crossing. However, now there is an example very close to how one can and should live differently.

Today the Crimean leadership is like a knight at a crossroads. There are three ways - to close the bridge so that people cannot see the Kuban reality, to resign themselves, or to start working without fools. Otherwise, you will have to answer to your fellow countrymen, who really opened new horizons beyond the Kerch Strait.

The social effect of the Crimean Bridge still awaits its comprehension. But here is an amazing interview with Kerchanka Svetlana, which was among the first to get “on the other side”:

- We went to Anapa just like that, we had never been there before. We wanted to see the city, the embankment, compare prices in stores. In the grocery store they bought a whole wheelbarrow for five thousand, several times more than you can get in Kerch … In the shopping center they collected things. A shirt-style dress costs 1, 5 thousand rubles, a men's shirt 1000, branded T-shirts for 700. To say that the prices are lower in comparison with ours and the choice is wider is to say nothing! We met many friends of Kerch at KFC. We tasted the gorgeous Baskin Robbins ice cream, we don't have that …

Imported ice cream - by and large nonsense, Simferopol ice cream is an order of magnitude steeper. Another thing is important. It turned out that in Anapa "everything is trimmed and washed, flowers are growing everywhere." This is a real shock for the Crimean guest, who is accustomed to the fact that brand new Russian communal equipment is flowing to the peninsula, and the usual mess remains around.

Svetlana is sincerely surprised by "delicious huge pies that were sold on the Anapa embankment for only 30 rubles." Still, the banal Crimean samsa is already 2, 5 times more expensive: - On the embankment, the guys offered boat trips and asked where we were from. They laughed that there was an influx: Kerch, Evpatoria, Sevastopol.

The "population exchange" continues in full swing. If during the first days many people finished their voyage in one circle along the bridge crossing, now they are opening neighboring cities. Social networks of Crimea are overwhelmed with enthusiastic responses about the highways of the Krasnodar Territory. A typical comment is “you are driving, you don’t feel the speed, it’s very comfortable, the coverage is perfect”. And a logical question, why do we ride in holes?

The last gas station on the Kuban land became the last stunning chord for Sunday travelers. Long queues of cars - "yak said" suck petrol, diesel and gas. In the same way, Russian cars crossing the border are coming out to refuel under the neck. It is clear that the fuel on the independent territory is much more expensive.

However, we have exactly the same situation on the Crimean land. Compare the breakdown of fuel prices in Krasnodar and Simferopol: AI-92 gasoline - 41 and 44.50 rubles, AI-95 - 45 and 47 rubles. Simferopol diesel fuel is six rubles more expensive, gas - by 3.50!.. That is, it is necessary to pour a full tank into the cans, as if Tavrida did not let the yellow-blakit Ukrainian ensign.

At the same time, one realizes how badly we ourselves are ready to meet our relatives from the mainland. Already by May 16, the hero-city of Kerch was literally filled with cars with license plates from the Krasnodar region. Taman, all the villages of the district, Anapa and Novorossiysk moved here. Kubans decorated cars with tricolors and colorful balloons in order to express feelings that overwhelmed their souls. It is forbidden to take selfie on the bridge, and many people stopped at the entrance to the city, at the memorial sign "Kerch".

It is in the big world that they solve state problems, build super-bridges and gigantic highways. And in small things they just mess around. You cannot say otherwise if you analyze the preparation of the local administration to receive the expected guests. For example, it is very clear that the first thing people who have traveled a long distance will look for a bathroom. Here the bridge is left behind, the columns of cars are turning to the right and braking together at the "Kerch" sign. There is no toilet at all, but in just a week the surrounding bushes acquired the characteristic amber. It is good that the photo does not convey a smell.

Back in the spring of 2017, the Kerch mayor Sergey Borozdinquite rightly noted, they say, the bridge crossing will open soon, an unprecedented flow of people will rush and the tourist season will be completely different. “We need to understand what to do with so many people, where to settle them, feed them, how to detain them in the city for at least a few days.” Two months ago, the head of tourism in the city administration Irina Inogorodskayatold reporters about the plans to create a tourist website for the city, place the so-called. "Motivating billboards", to make and distribute informational printing products to guests. Well, what kind of billboards are there if they didn't bother to put up the farm push!

The tourist flow at the same sign "Kerch" goes day and night, but no one conducts explanatory work with tourists on visiting attractions. There is no remote trade. It comes to the ridiculous when the Kuban people tried to find and admire the Kerch Marine Station. In fact, this is a terrible ruin, unfinished on a filthy shore. Seeing this, the embarrassed residents of Krasnodar jumped on the bus and asked the driver "to urgently go to another place." A similar case is with those wishing to walk along the embankment. Alas, the people of Kerch still have a broken shame instead of the embankment, where even the lanterns do not burn at night. For the coast of the North Caucasus, this is simply unthinkable.

Practice has shown that a significant part of mainland residents make the current decision to travel to Crimea purely spontaneously, simply because the great bridge has been built. At the same time, the Kuban neighbors often do not even plan a specific voyage route, convinced that they are not traveling far. As a result, the journey ends in Kerch, but even here many do not know where to look. Vague information about the ancient Mount Mithridates, about some "catacombs" and nothing more.

In fact, a city with a rich history. Around - ancient settlements Bosporan Kingdom and Scythian burial mounds … Stayed pillboxes of the Eltigen landingand many monuments of the Great Patriotic War, including the tragic one, tearing the soul dungeon Adzhimushkaya … Finally, you can see the fortresses " Kerch" and " Yeni-Kale", Visit the famous Golden pantryand unique lapidaria- Museum of Stone Antiquities. The lunar landscape of local mud volcanoes is amazing, the healing mud of the Kerch lake Chokrak is really curative. Nearby are the pristine beaches of the Azov and Black Seas, a stone's throw to the protected lands of Opuk and Karalak. Of course, it would be nice to tell people about all this miracle. But it turns out that "who needs it."

For the fourth day, the temperature of sea water in the Kerch Strait is kept at around + 19. Thousands of visitors are looking for the city beach in their own cars. Still, come to Crimea and not swim! The city administration of Kerch celebrated the beginning of the holiday season on May 1. Pull up awnings, arrange sun loungers and simply clean out the sand haven't bothered so far. There is no public transport to the beach yet.

Buses have their own fun. According to the directorate of the Kerch Ferry, since May 18, ferries have not transported a single intercity bus. Everyone is driving across the bridge, and absolutely is free … However, the cost of tickets from Kerch to Krasnodar remained the same, 1000 rubles and more - as with ferries, when you had to pay serious money for the crossing. Why are carriers not lowering the price? And why, if you can plunder further. For comparison, a ticket from Kerch to Simferopol costs about 500 rubles, although the mileage with the Krasnodar direction is almost the same.

But enough about sad things. Immediately, indomitable bicycles began to break through the Crimean bridge. The police don't know what to do with them. It seems to be not prohibited, but how to let cyclists on a route of many kilometers, where stops are generally prohibited.

The bridge itself is 19 km long, plus another 90 km of access roads. At the Kerch bicycle biker Bulata Isigildinova with comrades there is enough strength for such a leap. But is it worth repeating their experience? For a stop on the bridge, Crimeans are already receiving "letters of happiness." It turned out that the pleasure of slowing down and settling in is almost guaranteed to cost a 2000-ruble fine. There are video cameras everywhere, the police shrug their shoulders: Russian traffic rules really prohibit stopping at bridges, overpasses and overpasses, including those intended for passage over a water obstacle, if the number of lanes in a certain direction is less than three.

Just suitable for the Crimean bridge. The only exception was made in the early morning of May 16, when the Night Wolves bikers stopped over the strait. The rest of the violators mercilessly detain, write an offensive fine, drag them to a paid special parking lot.

And the last "pavement joke". On May 17 alone, the Kerch ferry crossing transported 11 cars. At first, no one understood why the cars sailed on ferries, if the bridge is free, and according to the official price list of the ferry, the cost of transporting one car is 1,700 rubles. In addition, the driver and each passenger pay 150 rubles.

The mystery became clear when it became known about the problems of the Google Maps mapping service. The bridge across the Kerch Strait has appeared on Google, but it has not yet been possible to build a route through it. To get from the Krasnodar Temryuk to Kerch is proposed by the former, allegedly the only way - a ferry crossing. Fully trusting the navigator, night travelers found themselves right in front of the gates of the port "Kavkaz". The hook was too big to steer back to the bridge. It seems that the victims of the Internet were in such a hurry that they gave up and went swimming.