No water, no toilets How bridge closures are leaving Russian tourists stranded on the road to occupied Crimea
Russian tourists heading to occupied Crimea for vacation this year are finding themselves stranded for hours in traffic jams while trying to cross the bridge over the Kerch Strait. Russian-installed officials regularly close the span to traffic in response to the threat of Ukrainian strikes, creating backups that stretch for dozens of kilometers. Travelers are left to endure hours in the summer heat with little access to drinking water or toilets. RFE/RL’s Crimean service, Krym.Realii, learned how frequent closures have turned the bridge into a bottleneck and how drivers are coping. Meduza shares a summary of the outlet’s reporting.
In the early hours of August 7, Ukrainian drones and missiles targeted several Russian military sites on the occupied Crimean peninsula, prompting repeated closures of the bridge across the Kerch Strait. Russian-installed officials first halted vehicle traffic from 2:08 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. Local Telegram channels and chat groups lit up with reports of loud blasts and the sound of Russian air defenses firing. The Crimean Bridge closed again at 8:22 a.m. and didn’t reopen until 9:37.
By then, nearly 3,500 vehicles had backed up at inspection points on both sides. Wait times topped five hours on the Taman side and more than three on the Kerch side, and the lines thinned only gradually over the course of the day.
Scenes like this have become routine. Ukrainian forces regularly target Russian military infrastructure in occupied Crimea, and almost always, the bridge is shut down. On the night of August 1, blasts in Kerch and Feodosia stopped traffic for more than five hours, creating a record 41-kilometer (25-mile) backup by morning. A July 28 closure left more than 1,100 vehicles in line.
Occupation authorities began closing the bridge during attacks after it was damaged in an October 2022 explosion.
Meduza has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the very start, and we are committed to reporting objectively on a war we firmly oppose. Join Meduza in its mission to challenge the Kremlin’s censorship with the truth. Donate today.
‘Bring water and snacks’
Tourist traffic to Crimea from Russia is heavier this year than last. Many Russians have chosen the occupied peninsula over the neighboring Krasnodar Krai, where numerous beaches were polluted with fuel oil after a tanker spill in the Kerch Strait last December.
The situation on Crimean beaches isn’t much better, but Kremlin-installed authorities and Rospotrebnadzor insist otherwise.
It’s not just the surge in vacationers that’s causing bottlenecks. At the end of January, Russian authorities introduced full passport checks for everyone crossing the Crimean Bridge. Since then, traffic jams have become routine even in the absence of Ukrainian attacks, and tourists bound for the annexed peninsula have faced their own unique set of frustrations.
Judging by posts in Telegram groups where stranded drivers commiserate, what grates most isn’t the security inspection itself but the heat, the lack of toilets, and the scarcity of drinking water. One woman wrote that when volunteers do hand out water, it’s only to those who’ve been waiting more than an hour and a half — and even then, supplies are often insufficient.
Roadside conditions are another sore point. Travelers complain about the state of portable toilets along the route, with some drivers saying they avoid them altogether.
“Bring water and snacks. At peak times, waits can stretch past six hours,” one travel website warns. “Use the restroom in advance, because the only section of the road with facilities is near the inspection points.”
“The past few weeks have brought an enormous wave of tourists, and the checkpoints simply aren’t equipped for this volume,” said Russian blogger Alexander Gorny, who moved to Crimea after the annexation. “Yes, there are spots with water distribution and portable toilets, but you can’t possibly cover a line of cars stretching 30 to 50 kilometers [about 18–30 miles].”
“Last week I went to Krasnodar for work,” a Kerch resident told Krym.Realii on condition of anonymity. “The trip back was absolute hell. I sat in traffic for four hours before the bridge. I knew what I was in for, so I brought water — but for the bathroom, sorry, I had to use a plastic bottle. I just don’t get people who risk their own health and lives — and their kids’ — to come to Crimea, where you hear explosions every day and people get heatstroke daily in those lines to the bridge.”
