The Nikolay Zharkov motor ship will begin its journey on September 19 from Rostov-on-Don. It will make stops in Volgograd and Makhachkala, and the cruise will end on September 28 in Astrakhan. The ship will stay in the capital of Dagestan for three days. During this time, vacationers will go on excursions and see various sights of the region. It is known that they will also go by bus to Derbent. Although the ancient city is located on the seashore, it does not have its own port.
The four-deck passenger ship Nikolay Zharkov is a new vessel on the Russian cruise market. The passenger-to-crew ratio is at the world-class “luxury two to one” level, meaning there are 97 crew members for every 176 guests. The ship will be launched and set sail for its first voyage in 2025.
The route to Dagestan is called “Legends of the Caucasus”, it is still at the development stage. How much will a ten-day trip cost lovers of sea cruises? The price of a trip starts from 387 thousand rubles per person, as indicated on the website of the company that organizes the cruise.
The price includes three meals a day on board, a cultural program and excursions on shore. A luxury cabin on the sun deck will cost about a million rubles, a junior suite with a balcony – 774 thousand.
Dagestani tour operators responded with interest to the news about the upcoming cruise.
– The Caspian Sea is one of the main attractions of the republic. But there is still no opportunity to organize boat and yacht trips here. I think that if this project is implemented, it will give a strong impetus to the development of tourism in the region, – says the head of the travel company Shamil Shangereev.
If a cruise ship could make a stop in Derbent, the route would undoubtedly become very popular. Plans to build a seaport in the city have been reported many times, but no concrete steps have been taken.
Several years ago, the Ministry of Tourism and Folk Arts and Crafts of Dagestan announced that, according to the Strategy for the Development of Russian Sea Ports in the Caspian Basin, by 2025, a berthing embankment was planned to be built in the port of Makhachkala, as well as a sea terminal for cruise ships, yachts and boats in Derbent. But the plans were never implemented. Not everything is so simple with the infrastructure for passenger ships in the Makhachkala port. It does not exist, since ships of this type have never moored here.
There is another problem. In recent years, the Caspian Sea has been shallowing. Fishermen have already sounded the alarm. The shallowing and silting of the entrance to the port of Makhachkala leads to the downtime of ships, loss of fishing time and money, industry representatives said at a meeting devoted to the organization of sprat fishing in the Caspian Sea, which was held at the beginning of the year by the head of the Federal Agency for Fisheries Ilya Shestakov.
The Director General of the Makhachkala Sea Trade Port, Jamal Aliyev, told the RG correspondent that the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rosmorport is taking all necessary measures to mitigate the negative impact of shallowing, and the design depths in the port’s waters have been met, including through dredging. He also confirmed that the Makhachkala seaport is planning to receive the first cruise ship.
– At the initial stage, this will be a cabotage voyage in Russian waters between the ports of one state. In the future, the cruise may become international with the liner calling at the ports of Azerbaijan, Iran and Kazakhstan, – said Jamal Aliyev.
He also added that problems with the port infrastructure necessary to receive passenger ships do indeed exist.
– So far we are talking about test runs. In order to accept passengers on a permanent basis, it is necessary to make changes to the operation of the checkpoint. The port should be not only a cargo port, but also a passenger port. To do this, it is necessary to change regulatory and legal documents at the federal level. In addition, it is necessary to build a sea terminal in the waters of the Makhachkala port. At the moment, all these issues are at the development stage, – concluded the head of the Makhachkala Sea Trade Port.
