A two-hour flight to Sochi, you can watch a movie, play games: tourists are transported by a large airbus, which was usually used for transcontinental flights. The borders are closed, the tourist flow is huge: the Sochi airport barely manages to receive and send tourists to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ufa, Kazan, Yekaterinburg ... Judging by the crowds, there is no "death of Sochi tourism" due to the mandatory presentation of a vaccination certificate for hotels in the Krasnodar Territory or negative PCR with the obligation to vaccinate directly in Sochi, in one of the mobile vaccination points, does not bother.
I'll make a reservation right away: I stayed in Sochi for only a day and a half for work, and evaluated the beaches and service in my free time and, of course, looked only the most basic and in the center, which I myself read about on social networks.
I was in Sochi for the second time in my life, for the first time I was out of season and also for work.
My observations refer only to the resort area itself, to the Central District and its beaches.
Since August 1, additional restrictions have been introduced in the Krasnodar Territory in connection with the coronavirus: the work of catering establishments is prohibited after midnight, and you can check into a hotel only by presenting a certificate of a patient who has been ill, a certificate of vaccination or a negative PCR test with the obligation to be vaccinated within 3 days directly at the resort.
For this purpose, in Sochi, right next to the beaches - for example, opposite the Marine Station - there are mobile vaccination stations in the form of field tents.
However, this idea is criticized by both locals and tourists: people can go to get vaccinated without fulfilling the requirement that there is no alcohol in their blood and fail to comply with the requirement to give up alcohol for three days.
Locals say that while sales of tours in 4 and 5 star hotels are falling.
According to the Association of Tour Operators of Russia, the volume of tour sales in August fell by more than five times.
In turn, the Russian Union of Travel Industry recorded a fall of about 10%, while budget hotels continue to fill up.
But prices in the private sector have skyrocketed, especially since a year ago a new type of people living in Sochi appeared: these are Muscovites who fled from the lockdown to work remotely, some of whom decided not to return to Moscow.
Of the two hotels where I lived, I was asked for a vaccination certificate only in one.
Everything happens quickly: I just drop a screenshot of the certificate to the hotel administrator in the messenger and immediately get the key.
In the summer, social networks flooded with photos from Sochi, which can be roughly divided into two categories.
The first is the Sochi price tags from restaurants, beaches, and markets.
A separate scandal came out with a price tag for "paid rescue" from the "VIP-beach of the Zhemchuzhina" hotel.
As a result, the beach reported that the price tag appeared at random, those involved were fired.
The second is photographs of the "empty beaches" of Greater Sochi and its environs due to new anti-coronavirus restrictions.
Let's start with the second one.
Indeed, most hotels require a certificate, and I did not see the queues at mobile vaccination points.
The private sector does not require certificates, so you can rent an apartment from the locals even if there is no vaccination or PCR test.
They are not tested anywhere else.
The beaches are really not completely filled, but there are enough crowds of people on the streets and in the sea.
However, there is a hypothesis that some of the beaches are half empty not only because of new restrictions, but also because of prices.
Judging by the reviews, one of the most pretentious and expensive paid Sochi beaches is Del Mar in the Central District.
Sochi, Del Mar beach
RT
Renting a sun lounger on the first line costs 2,000 rubles, payment is possible, as on other beaches, by card.
You can take a sun lounger not on the first line for 2500 rubles, but you can take a "designer shell" even further from the sea, for 5-10 thousand rubles (depending on the size of the "shell").
"Shell" is essentially a round sofa with a canopy, comfortable for a large group of respectable people.
The basic rental price for 1500 - 2000 rubles includes a chaise lounge, mattress, towels, an umbrella, access to showers, changing rooms, as well as the ability to order food and drinks directly to the resting place without getting up from the lounger.
They call me "madam" (by the way, this appeal, which is practically not found in other regions, I will hear repeatedly in Sochi), they escorted me to the "elite" lounger, where snow-white towels are already waiting for me.
I stretch out on the first line, and I understand: my line is not at all the first.
According to the law of the Russian Federation, the coastal strip 20 meters from the sea is generally accessible.
And while respectable gentlemen pay for VIP sun loungers, ordinary vacationers are less comfortable, but closer to the sea, on their towels, with their food and drinks.
Well, in the sea itself, it is already unclear who is “elite vacationer” and who is “ordinary”.
Sochi, Riviera beach
RT
Municipal beaches in Sochi are located side by side with "private" ones (which, as already mentioned, are not at all closed and private).
Here you can also rent a chaise longue, towels, an umbrella.
The cafe is right there on the beach, you just have to walk about ten meters on your own, and pay (cards, again, they accept), you have to at the counter at the entrance.
Renting a sun lounger with a mattress and an umbrella costs me 700 rubles "for a complete set", you can also buy a towel for 700 rubles.
And - again: behind the sun loungers, but closer to the sea, you can sit on your towel with your things for free.
As a result, the "free" parts of the beach are filled so that the apple has nowhere to fall: to the sea you have to wade carefully, not only so as not to step on the pebbles, but also so as not to step on the vacationer.
But the sun loungers with umbrellas and towels are really half empty: only the first line is occupied, and literally several companies are sitting in the pretentious "shells".
Local guys and girls are clustered on the breakwaters, from which there is a descent right into the sea.
It's even more convenient: in Sochi, all the beaches are pebbles, which, out of habit, painfully bite into the legs, and the best option is to buy shoes for yourself in advance, in which you can even swim, which is designed for walking on corals, otherwise entering and leaving the sea turn into a painful adventure.
On the municipal beach "Riviera" in the area with sun loungers, dark sand is poured, but the descent to the sea is again pebbles.
By the way, municipal beaches, where the coastal strip without sun loungers is larger, are almost completely filled.
Subscribers write to me that rescuers drive people off the breakwaters, but I just don't find that.
Rescuers remind people completely free of charge that they cannot swim behind the buoys and require not to swim to the boats.
I walk along the embankment and do not see much difference between alternating "private" (more precisely, rented by private owners) and "municipal" beaches: pathos is manifested here only in the "elite" colors of towels and umbrellas - for example, one of the beaches is decorated with the emblems of a famous vodka brand.
By the way, this beach is almost empty.
Finally, I get to the "scandalous VIP-beach" of the "Pearl" hotel.
It is already evening, until the beach closes (8 pm) an hour is left, and I get into the "VIP-zone with paid rescue" for free, cautiously sit on a sun lounger, but no one drives me out of there.
The site of the hotel says that the visit to the beach itself is free only "for hotel guests", and for ordinary people it is 700 rubles a day.
In fact, as in other cases, no one will say a word for the passage to the water's edge with their belongings, since they have no right to say.
The only trick of the Pearl beach is a sharp descent to the sea from the sun lounger area.
This is probably done on purpose to reduce the number of "free" tourists.
Sochi, the beach of the hotel "Pearl"
RT
The price tag for "paid rescue" on the Pearl beach is now gone, and pathos and prices, as it turned out, refer not to the beach, but to the area by the large pool: for adults, the entrance costs 1,500 rubles on weekdays and 2,000 on weekends. For an umbrella and two sun loungers with mattresses (there is a separate extra charge for them) they ask 3,500 rubles a day. At sea, as already mentioned, free tourists from the first line and elite vacationers from VIP sun loungers with mattresses and tables are mixed. Again: the first line is mostly filled, but there are enough people. But the crowds walk along the embankments.
As for fast food, apart from the usual stalls all over Russia with shawarma, burgers (by the way, there are not many of them in Sochi), hot dogs, in Sochi there is a different kind of snack at every step: “Mussels”.
A saucepan with mussels (sauces: cheese, tom-yam, tomato - your choice) costs about 500 rubles, you can take more fries or a baguette with it.
In cafes and restaurants on the embankment, again, even in the evenings there is no full seating - but at sunset there is nowhere to sit on the embankment, and the smell of mussels even clogs the salty smell of the sea.
In restaurants, for the same 500 rubles, they will serve a saucepan with mussels of a slightly smaller volume, but they will offer a free baguette.
Vacationers look very different.
There are ladies who suffer in the heat in heels and with full make-up with the indispensable red lipstick, others prefer light colors and loose clothing.
In social networks, I came across indignant statements from Sochi residents about “vacationers who go to a restaurant in shorts,” but I didn’t meet such people: leaving the beach, people put on T-shirts and shorts.
As for restaurants, in most of them prices are Moscow-based, and not low, but there are discounts as well.
So, in one restaurant I find a special price for Black Sea oysters "at sunset time", for 159 rubles a piece.
A hot dish in a restaurant will cost, on average, from 400 to 1000 rubles (if you do not look for discounts).
This situation also causes discontent among the locals: unlike vacationers, they live here every day, but at prices for vacationers.
In general, Sochi does not give the impression of either a cheap or a "Soviet" resort.
"Did you like everything?"
- the girl at the reception asks me goodbye.
“I really, especially liked that everyone is polite,” I answer.
“What are you, how nice.
And they say we are all boors here, ”the girl is surprised.
I never meet with rudeness, neither on the part of vacationers, nor on the part of locals, rather, on the contrary, with exaggerated politeness and the notorious "madam".
Sochi claims to be not just a massive, but the very best resort, and not of Russian, but of global importance.
The city is very clean, the security makes sure that people do not smoke or litter on the beach, the shops sell clothes and souvenirs for every taste.
It comes to the ridiculous: the legendary southern churchkhela, it turns out, is more difficult to find than an expensive seafood restaurant.
The local barkers, who were so complained about on social networks just a few years ago, are also not visible.
Maximum - they will give a flyer on the street with an invitation to a party.
They also offered to tell fortunes.
There are also downsides.
I am sitting on the beach "Pearls" already under closing.
And then he appears.
Sewer smell.
It is everywhere, my neighbors feel it too and begin to discuss it.
According to them, waste is thrown directly into the sea (officials have denied this many times, but there is a smell).
The smell lasts for about ten minutes, and then disappears again.
As for the purity of the sea itself, it differs depending on the beach.
The overcrowded municipal beach "Riviera" cannot boast of crystal clear water, but a little away from the center on the beach "Imeretinsky" the sea is quite clean.
Finally, this glossiness and smoothness of today's Sochi makes it a beautiful, but somewhat impersonal resort. It is easy to find a restaurant of any cuisine here, but it is more difficult to find a small home establishment. Shops offer souvenirs that are not produced here, not local crafts, and culinary shops are full of cheeses, honey, teas for every taste, but again, from fairly large farms. In central Sochi, there is no chamber coziness, which, however, is not far away: you just need to leave the central regions and the main points of attraction for tourists.
There are crowds of tourists at the Sochi airport. On the speakerphone every minute they only have time to call out those who are late for boarding in their native Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Arkhangelsk and, of course, Moscow. Our large liner is completely full, so it is impossible to say that “they stopped going to Sochi at all”. Rather, there is probably a conflict between the expectations of the same tour operators (who have already suffered from the crisis due to the closure of the borders) with reality. Calling the crowds on the waterfront, crowded municipal beaches and crowds at the airport "destroyed by the season" would be incorrect.
To call Sochi a cheap resort, and even at the height of the tourist season with closed borders, of course, is impossible.
At the same time, it is obvious that at the price of Sochi remains and will remain more expensive than the opening budget resorts in Turkey, Egypt, Cyprus, Tunisia and others operating on the all inclusive system.
The calculation for rich tourists is also not yet fully justified, and this can be seen with the naked eye: people are clearly not ready to pay the same 10-30 thousand only for a sun lounger with a mattress and an umbrella on the beach in addition to vouchers.
However, the sea remains free, and the pathos of elite beaches looks really strange if you can just lie down with a book on the very first, first of all elite, coastline, watching the southern sun finally fall into the sea.