Tourism in Crimea: Is There a Holiday?
The history of Taurian tourism is interesting and ancient. The acquaintance of the 19th-century world with Crimea began precisely through the notes of travelers who journeyed to Crimea not on business, but for their own curiosity and pleasure.
Maksym Dubovyaz. "Krymska Svitlytsia" newspaper, 2016, issue No. 41
World Tourism Day on September 27 has always been a significant holiday for the resort Crimea. It is like a harvest festival for farmers. People working in the tourism sphere—tour operators and excursion organizers—gathered for corporate events to finally look at each other, as there was no time during the summer. In a good year, this was not yet the end of the season; in a good year, buses with excursion groups scurried along the highways of mountainous Crimea all through October, guests of Crimea enjoyed the velvet season, the absence of queues and crowds at the sites visited, prices that were moderate compared to their summer madness, and all that.
The history of Taurian tourism is interesting and ancient. The acquaintance of the 19th-century world with Crimea began precisely through the notes of travelers who journeyed to Crimea not on business, but for their own curiosity and pleasure. One can recall here, first of all, the representatives of the poetic craft: the Kapnists, Griboyedov, Pushkin, Mickiewicz, the 'Crimean judge' Sumarokov, and many others. For instance, from the notes of Muravyov-Apostol, we learn that the low Crimean Mountains 200 years ago were much more difficult for a traveler than the Caucasus Mountains, due to the Crimean mountain off-road conditions...
It is also worth mentioning the Crimean situation at the beginning of the second half of the same century. This is nothing less than the first steps of international tourism! The Empire, defeated in the 'Crimean' Eastern War, was forced to liquidate its Black Sea Fleet. Sevastopol began to flourish as a commercial port. In addition, Sevastopol, Balaklava, and Alma became very popular visiting spots for tourists from states that had inscribed the names of Crimean cities and valleys into the pages of their military histories. They were mostly the British—just as in our recent days, a significant majority of Crimean foreign tourists consisted mainly of poles and Germans.
We will not mention further a whole range of figures of general imperial and specifically Ukrainian literature and art in connection with Crimea, as they are widely known. This is regarding personalities.
On a mass level, since the end of the same century, the Crimean-Caucasian Mountain Club had already been active, and its branch network, though perhaps not monopolizing, confidently controlled the market of tourist and excursion services. On the occasion of its centenary, attempts were made to revive it because the brand is attractive. But it was already too late: many newly created travel agencies were already operating, and this element was already flourishing confidently and boldly. Only the network of trade union, and, in essence, state Crimean 'excursion bureaus' rooted back in the 60s, timely corporatized, maintained stability in this turbulent stream.
Since the interwar period, the excursion business in Crimea had occupied a very important mission—as a powerful apparatus of propaganda and agitation for the contingent of Soviet labor and military vacationers organized and housed in the former palaces of tsars and nobles. The aforementioned post-war official tourist and excursion institutions were further entrusted to carry out a similar function. Remnants of these structures still survive in Crimea, and it seems that they are currently performing the main excursion work in today's Crimea.
How the 'free,' private excursion teams that grew in this field in the 90s feel—those not directly connected to the once-state network of tourist bureaus—is currently unknown. The frantic and purposeful ideologization of all Crimean life after the cold spring of 2014 has hardly left them any operational space. At least in the information field of the last two years, we see the very same 'excursion bureaus' headed by stately former Soviet propagandists and agitators.
And, most importantly, the very contingent toward which the work of the free Crimean tourism business was oriented has sharply decreased: the Ukrainian and Russian intelligentsia. The Crimean health resorts, packed with Russian privileged budget 'tourists,' must somehow manage in this regard too, as there are enough objects of simple entertainment: dolphinariums, water parks... Probably monasteries are also popular... However, who really knows...