Ukrainian tourists storm Sivash

Konstantin Kovrigin, screenwriter

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

Heat. Border. Queues. Huge queues in both directions, which causes dissatisfaction among both Russian and Ukrainian border guards. After prolonged rains, when until the 10th of July the Crimea was flooded for a month and a half, the Great Summer Migration of Peoples closer to the sea began.

Believe me, people are not afraid of either the threat of war, or the inquisitive questions of customs, or the insolent taxi drivers who were given such an opportunity to earn money by the Maidan and then the Crimean referendum. Once in the car, passengers instantly turn into hostages of local drivers, who provide neither guarantees of safe passage nor guarantees that you will be taken at all.

Half of those who shout in Novoalekseevka: “Simferopol! Chongar! Only one seat!”, they take money from passengers in advance, load people with bags on their heads and take them only to the border, where they run into a queue that is many kilometers long. And so every day, starting at 8 am. Hidden at the back of the column, the drivers offer passengers the option of either sitting in a stuffy car on a hot day, or going faster on foot.

However, if the taxi driver manages to be the first to grab passengers in Novoalekseevka and rush headlong to the border, violating the speed limit, over potholes and asphalt dug up by caterpillars, then consider that you have pulled out a lucky ticket that day. Otherwise, any delay promises an unbearable headache. Despite this, and knowing this well, and having been warned more than once, people go to the sea in Crimea, where the surf is gentle.

What attracts you, “tourists”?! Who forced you to leave your native “lands” and the steppe, and subject yourself to such tests?! After all, the Kiev press says that there is no more Crimea, but only a miserable peninsula, deprived of food and fresh water?!

I'm not being sarcastic at all. I really wonder: why are people who hate Crimeans and may even have fought against Donetsk “separatists” so eager to go to Crimea?! After all, there are Berdyansk and Genichesk, Kherson and Zatoka?! Unlike the economy, the Ukrainian resort business is now experiencing a boom that will last for another month. For example, in Genichesk even the most seedy inns are packed. The locals are rushing to make money, but what next?

- What do we care about! - says the seller of healing Sivash mud, - everything is fine for now, but in September we can go to Crimea, our people pay taxes there, and it’s fine.

– What about mobilization?

- Well, I say: if anything happens, go to Crimea...

Vacationers who come to the Arabatskaya Strelka are not blind either. Going out to the beach, they see and feel the opposite shore, which is just a stone’s throw away, and where everything is different. This is abroad. And this is where human curiosity and simple envy kick in: why is it like this for them, but for us it’s the same as usual?! Why is it so “bad” for them, but there are wild queues at the border, and in Ukraine there are again re-elections of one revolutionary government by another?!

Most of the Ukrainians currently storming Russian checkpoints in Crimea are going to the sea, and they didn’t give a damn about the warnings of the Kyiv media. People want to go on vacation, to relax in a peaceful country, where there are no armed types and yellow-blue fences. As a rule, they sit on the Crimean beaches quietly, peacefully, avoiding “shock” whenever possible and practically not discussing politics, because “separatists” from Donbass may be nearby.

Another, and not insignificant, part of the pilgrims are visiting relatives with whom they quarreled a year ago and even cursed them for the referendum. But the grievances pass, and everyday affairs, work, family, funerals, love come to the fore. And it is not possible to stop this flow. That is life.

- Where is he, Putin?! - continues the seller of medicinal mud, - and their people are sitting nearby in their offices. My mother in Zaporozhye has a pension of a thousand, and a communal apartment of one and a half! They gave loans to the government, promised Europe, but what happened in the end? They retrained the people...

Such conversations can take place anywhere, but not at the border itself. Everything is quiet here and God forbid say anything about politics. They will hiss at you and shout at you: ears are all around, keep quiet, otherwise we will drop you off! Who needs problems, so when they see border guards with machine guns, and even more so when they see Ukrainian soldiers at a checkpoint near a tank, everyone tries to smile, everyone is flexible and almost apolitical, just to let them through. If only they would let us cross the mined bridge, which is no longer so scary. Think about it, mines?! I want to go to Crimea!

Having crossed the border, the “tourists” sigh, openly cursing the war and Poroshenko, and just as openly on the way back. After a peaceful vacation, they regret Crimea.