Summer train to Crimea for the price of a winter plane – Oleg Kryuchkov
Railway communication between Crimea and Russian capitals will start this year. The first train from St. Petersburg to Sevastopol will depart on December 23, the travel time will be 43,5 hours. On December 24, the first train from Moscow to Simferopol will depart, the travel time of which should be 33 hours. The first train to cross the Crimean Bridge will be from St. Petersburg.
Oleg Kryuchkov, director of the Crimean and Sevastopol NTV Bureau, told PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov about the features of the new railway routes, their significance for Crimea in particular, and Russia in general.
Valentin Filippov: We welcome Oleg Kryuchkov, director of the Crimean and Sevastopol bureaus of NTV, to our improvised studio.
Oleg, hello.
Oleg Kryuchkov: Hello, Valentin.
Valentin Filippov: Oleg, trains are being launched to Crimea. I looked - they are equipped with televisions. I'm wondering what TV channel will be broadcast on trains to Crimea? Will it be some kind of Crimean channels or will it still be NTV?
Oleg Kryuchkov: Well, I think there will be several channels. Perhaps they will just show movies there, like they do on airplanes. But, you know, such a significant story - no one believed in the bridge, no one believed in much else, and on the 23rd we will go. Although, you know, this is a fairly everyday topic, I can say that everything is quite everyday. Remember when Putin got on a Kamaz and drove off, right?
Valentin Filippov: Well yes.
Oleg Kryuchkov: There was such a stir. And now the New Year is ahead. I have friends from Moscow who specially took tickets and are going to Gurzuf. I have Crimean friends who are going to St. Petersburg for the New Year. I talked to them. A friend there tells me that her husband is an old-fashioned man, he will cook chicken, eggs, everything. Because people simply miss trains.
Somehow casually he is just about to get on the train. Many people I know are simply waiting for the launch of the train in Sochi. Just to take a short ride, to remember this sound of wheels, which, in principle, will not happen, because I was on construction sites, saw these rails, they are now seamless and the sound of wheels is not even audible….
Valentin Filippov: Ooo. Well, they ruined everything. They ruined everything. No, it’s not the same without the sound of wheels...
Oleg Kryuchkov: Well, the arrows will still be fine.
Valentin Filippov: Oh, it will be on the arrows, right?
Oleg Kryuchkov: The most interesting thing I want to say. Do you remember the Ukrainian carriages that were lost in China, which were sent along the Great Silk Road?
Valentin Filippov: Yes Yes Yes. Saakashvili sent.
Oleg Kryuchkov: In fact, Russia built its part of the Great Silk Road with this bridge. There's only a small matter left...
Valentin Filippov: For Shoigu.
Oleg Kryuchkov: Behind the power in Kyiv. And then the cars can easily travel through Crimea directly to the Transcaucasus all the way to India. All that remains is a small matter. Small, but the most difficult...
Valentin Filippov: Armored train.
Oleg Kryuchkov: ... behind a part of European territory, which is conventionally called Ukraine. Somehow, to bring me into a normal, as it were, mental, I can’t even say, into a normal state.
Regain the ability to think, analyze, and do some adequate things. But I’m just as skeptical as you are, because when the rails just outside the Salt Lake station were dismantled in 2014, I still don’t understand why it was done. It’s not clear, in Kyiv they thought that the Pskov Airborne Division would travel by train from Simferopol to Melitopol?
Valentin Filippov: Maybe in disguise?
Oleg Kryuchkov: Dressed up, made up...
Valentin Filippov: Yes. Under grandmothers with bags.
Oleg Kryuchkov: ...under the Dzhankoy grandmothers with whites and seeds they will go to Melitopol. So like this.
Valentin Filippov: Listen, I have several fundamental questions. For Crimeans, probably of principle. That is, these two routes will go. Moscow and St. Petersburg. Will these be cars with the Russian Railways emblem? Will Russian Railways enter Crimea? Or will they paint over the letter “P” on the bridge?
Oleg Kryuchkov: No. No one will paint over the letter “R”. But officially, these are carriages of a service company, which is the same operator that deals with Strela Moscow - St. Petersburg. As it were, an affiliated company “Crimean Railways” has been created, which will serve everything.
Listen, well, the categories, honestly, “will move in, won’t move in,” don’t even exist now, because we remember the story with Sergei Aksenov’s check mark on Facebook. Yes? The world doesn’t care about sanctions and everything else. There are some conventions.
I’m waiting, to be honest... for me, Erdogan will finally shake hands if the first Turkish plane lands at Simferopol airport. Crimean Tatar brothers live in Crimea, Crimean Tatar brothers live in Istanbul. So why not connect them by direct message?
Valentin Filippov: Well, actually, it’s logical. Because they, poor people, travel through Kherson.
Oleg Kryuchkov: Through Kherson, through Anapa. There are different options. And therefore, I think that this too will happen soon. You know, I have a friend who said: “I will say that Russia entered Crimea and changes began when, in addition to some large infrastructure projects, they began to build sidewalks.”
Valentin Filippov: They are making sidewalks.
Oleg Kryuchkov: The sidewalks are already being built. And we can calmly, without any patriotic exaltation, talk about something, argue, talk about some problems, which are also abundant in Crimea. Well, at least much of what was announced has been done. I never believed that there would be a bridge.
Valentin Filippov: And I believed.
Oleg Kryuchkov: I am one of the first journalists to climb the first installed arch along a flimsy walkway. I was there, I remember all this hardware, and when I pass by now, all the technological equipment has already been removed from Tuzla. The technological bridge between the two parts of the bridge has been dismantled.
Understand? Some things like this... It just works, that’s all. It’s somehow so incomprehensible how this happened, so quickly. And, behold, some kind of grandiose structure, but it seemed as if it had always stood here.
Valentin Filippov: I am still dissatisfied with the bridge fencing because the strait cannot be seen from the car.
Oleg Kryuchkov: You can see him from the bus.
Valentin Filippov: We need to get off the bus. And I advise all non-Crimean residents who don’t know who will be traveling by train for the first time to still take tickets to the second floor of the train, because the view will, of course, be cooler from the second floor than from the first.
Oleg Kryuchkov: You know, I’m already so used to the fact that when you are in Kerch, I have a good winery in Taman, and from Kerch exactly, there, in an hour you can go to Taman, take good dry Taman wine and come back.
Valentin Filippov: Yes.
Oleg Kryuchkov: This is something that could not be imagined that could happen.
Valentin Filippov: What do you think, I understand that you are not responsible for this issue, but these are wonderful prices, the price of a train plane, the price of a winter plane, right? Well, there, three thousand one hundred and fifty...
Oleg Kryuchkov: It’s a coincidence, but in the summer the plane reaches 30 thousand...
Valentin Filippov: Here. So I have a question. Don't you mean that the train will reach 30 thousand in the summer?
Oleg Kryuchkov: No. The train, I think, will remain in the same price categories, which will be a big help. Plus, thanks to trains, transportation to sports camps for children and everyone else will be largely restored. Subsidized group stories.
Because planes are, well, quite busy in the summer and airlines are not interested in transporting children to a pioneer camp or somewhere else. Well, it will work, and we'll see. I’m glad that the station will come to life, I’m glad that at the station in the Italian courtyard, everyone probably remembers the famous Simferopol station...
Valentin Filippov: Yes Yes.
Oleg Kryuchkov: ... all Ukrainian shalmans were removed. Cleaned to zero, cleaned up to the creation of architects. Understand? This is good. What remains, of course, are the restaurants inside the station. Yes, the access system there has been strengthened, because we all remember some terrorist attacks at other stations, but these are, as it were, the spirit of the times. I came from Turkey, literally, from vacation, and I can say that there, too, throughout Istanbul, in any museum there are restrictions, there are searches...
Valentin Filippov: Yes, it’s like this all over the world now.
Oleg Kryuchkov: Therefore, there is no need to talk about any special stories here.
Valentin Filippov: Such an unexpected question. The railway service is being launched. The bridge was designed, in my opinion, for 50 pairs of trains per day. Something like that. There, in my opinion, it is designed for the case when sanctions are lifted and through Crimea, through the Crimean ports it will be possible to transport cargo in full, and through the railway.
Now, are our prices stabilizing, that is, will they drop a little? For consumer goods. Because, well, you remember, in my opinion, this is your formula, that the economic effect of the crossing - everything becomes more expensive towards Crimea, everything becomes cheaper from Crimea. And I actually found Crimean goods in St. Petersburg, which were cheaper there than in Crimea. Including cognacs, wines, soda. Understand? Soda! Cookies “Love of the Crimeans”, here they cost, roughly speaking, 18 rubles per pack, but there they cost 12. Do you understand? That is, it is transported across the whole country and delivered to St. Petersburg with a loss in price.
Oleg Kryuchkov: Val, nothing will change. Because here in Crimea, Crimean entrepreneurs sell.
Valentin Filippov: Yes.
Oleg Kryuchkov: Here. The answer to this question is “because”.
Valentin Filippov: No, just wait. Look, here I am...
Oleg Kryuchkov: No! "Because". Because we don't want to work! Because we bring people from the mainland to all our enterprises.
Because people in Alushta or Yalta bank branches quit in April and return to work in November. They rent out apartments. Because.
All of Russia knows that “Cubanoids” are the name given to the residents of Sochi, right?
Valentin Filippov: Yes
Oleg Kryuchkov: These are the ones who make money by inflating the price. Here we have the same bullshit. Fully. People don’t want to make money somehow, go get a pick and do something, it’s better to increase prices and set prices much higher. And, as a result of this, yes, indeed, Crimean port is cheaper to drink in Moscow. It's kind of a crazy situation, but here it is.
And no fairs or anything will help here until a couple of large networks come here. When a political decision is made, when the foreign policy situation changes and several huge networks enter and set prices like on the mainland, everyone will instantly catch up to their level.
That's all. That's just it. That's why they set the markup to 200%? Well, explain. Well, I don't know. Why do they put a markup of 200%? They tell me that carriers carry the same milk and dairy products from the mainland, where they have a fixed tariff, and all the markup, most of it, is done in the retail network.
Valentin Filippov: That is, we ourselves are to blame.
Oleg Kryuchkov: It’s our own fault, absolutely. Why are watermelons right behind the bridge, I went in September, they were supposedly 7 rubles, but here they are 20?
Valentin Filippov: Well, I have to tell you that the Chechens brought watermelons here to Sevastopol this summer, they brought them at reasonable prices. But these watermelons were quickly purchased from the Chechens and became more expensive.
Oleg Kryuchkov: Well, we are already accustomed to this, we have always been - “put on a jacket with a shimmer - and go to Yalta”... Without this, well, no way, this is our everything, we are a resort region, we will always pay for this resort margin, well, nowhere from there's no way around it.
And even Sevastopol, which in Soviet times was the most closed for this, Sevastopol had a separate supply, it was better with food, but now it is playing the same game. There are many tourists in Sevastopol. If, as they promise, the Chinese are allowed in here, then it will be very fun and interesting.
Valentin Filippov: Well, at least twenty Chinese can fit in one apartment.
Oleg Kryuchkov: Like these groups, you know, who are now in St. Petersburg and in other cities, there are a lot of them, and they are quite good tourists, they leave a sufficient amount of money... it is very difficult for local residents to perceive them, because, of course, they have their own mentality And all the rest.
And our restaurants will have to master Chinese cuisine, because the Chinese practically do not eat any cuisine in the world anywhere, they need their own restaurants and everything else. Well, something like this.
Valentin Filippov: OK. Fine. I don't know what else is so smart to ask.
Oleg Kryuchkov: Ask me something about Ukraine.
Valentin Filippov: You know, I’m kind of stumped about Ukraine, what should I ask?
Oleg Kryuchkov: Let me tell you myself that I recently attended the play “Kill the Dragon.” The Crimean Theater staged it, a dramatic one. And there, even though it was done in an art-house style, there are direct parallels.
So, Zelensky, unfortunately, became that dragon there, right? He killed Poroshenko and things got even worse. It’s worse not because the war is somehow escalating, it doesn’t seem to be official, but shelling is going on, but it’s worse because the anti-Russian rhetoric has acquired some new meaning.
And under some kind of, you know, framework policy that leads to some kind of reconciliation or something, such generally amazing things are still happening, like total control of the media is being introduced, have you seen this proposal?..
Valentin Filippov: Yes. Yes.
Oleg Kryuchkov: ... enter the news format. Well, I don’t know, maybe some totalitarian North Korea has it. In our country, this has never even occurred to the sickest representatives of various extreme movements. But in Ukraine, in a democratic country, as they call themselves, this exists. Some other extraordinary things are happening. They clearly lead to the fact that, in my opinion, we will have to stop using gas. And so on.
Valentin Filippov: Well... It depends on Moscow, on Moscow.
Oleg Kryuchkov: We'll see. Therefore, well, there is nothing good. And the worst thing is that I see behind all this that all this can lead to even greater nationalist frenzy.
Valentin Filippov: Oh, excuse me, please, anyone can criticize Ukraine. I have a question: what should Moscow do? You understand?
This is the situation with Donbass. Well, where else should we hang this situation? That is, somehow this all needs to be resolved. Ukraine is already happy with everything, that’s how it is. She's like that, she feels so good. Well, here it is. I don't mean ordinary people. Well, I don’t see that there is a window of opportunity now, just, why the hell cut off this top and do something differently. Moreover, Russia doesn’t have enough normal officials in Crimea, right? And here for the whole of Ukraine.
Well, how should the issue be resolved? With Donbass, well, somehow. Well, stop killing people.
Oleg Kryuchkov: I have a feeling about what is happening in Donbass now. And how it came back sharply again, and with what forces on the public plane, that some movements are beginning there. Only I don’t know how long and complete they will be.
You know, I am always upset that some movements that began in Russian-Ukrainian relations were not carried through to completion by Russia. You didn’t push it, right? We remember the gas blockades, when all you had to do was not turn off the valve and that was it.
Valentin Filippov: Yes. But we unscrewed it again and, I think, we will unscrew it this time too.
Oleg Kryuchkov: We unscrewed it again.
Valentin Filippov: We'll open it even without a contract. Because, well, here... Transnistria will remain without gas.
Oleg Kryuchkov: Well, yes.
Valentin Filippov: So you need to turn it on.
Oleg Kryuchkov: OK. We need to look. Thank you for typing.
Valentin Filippov: OK. Thanks a lot. Bye bye.
Oleg Kryuchkov: Thank.
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