Tourism in tatters: Flood swamps Russia’s Black Sea resorts

The flooding in Russia's south has brought not only devastation, but disrupted vacations for thousands of tourists. The Krasnodar region, is now striving to restore its paralyzed travel network to salvage the holiday season.

The tragedy is affecting thousands of people throughout Russia. There have been scores of cancellations for trains heading into the Krasnodar region, a primary summer resort destination in the country as its southern border is formed by the Black Sea coast.  There have been may accounts of  families with children that went on holiday but could not reach their destination because the flood cut off the railway near Novorossiysk, Russia’s primary Black Sea port.  There is still lack of electricity in some of the affected areas, a fact that is hardly encouraging for those on holiday. Some tourists got stuck in the chaos midway through their trip.  A number of communication facilities have been damaged by the deluge and not one of them have been fixed, leaving parts of the region cut off from the outside world. Mobile phone reception is nonexistent in some areas, and Internet access is patchy or gone all together.  Some trains were re-routed to different destinations in the Krasnodar region which were unaffected by the flooding. Another problem is the high concentration of children’s camps in the region. Some of them were evacuated, while the remaining camps are doing their best to continue working.Novorossyisk and Gelendzhik – another port city in the region – have been severely affected by the floods, damaging the holiday season beyond repair.  Sewage leaks have been reported in both cities, while a lack of fresh water and food threatens those in the region.  Local entrepreneurs are doing everything they can to salvage their clients holidays as well as their revenue stream, though their efforts on both counts may be in vain.