Koblevo-2012. Season. Start
Summer this year started in April. It would seem that for the local resort of Koblevo this is a great chance to open the season in May, thereby extending it for at least a month. The sea has warmed up, the sun is gentle - what else does a Nikolaev tired of winter need? In early June, I decided to run away from the city for a week at sea. Colleagues saw me off with the words "tell me later how it is... , and we'll see whether to go or not. " I'm telling.
Part one. "Internet as an engine of trade. . . "
Agree - to go at random and run with a suitcase around the recreation area in search of a free room is inconvenient. A modern person is looking for information on the Internet. An experienced tourist finds not only offers from agencies and hotels, but also reviews of tourists. Experienced stories allow future generations of tourists not to plunge into a room overlooking a disco, not to walk two kilometers to the beach in the heat, not to get poisoned in a restaurant and stock up on repellent, an umbrella and activated charcoal in advance. For those who are eager to relax in Koblevo, there are a couple of good sites. In my opinion, the most useful one is "koblevo. com" - don't take it for advertising. A large list of hotels, convenient search, map, direct phone numbers, photos of boarding houses and rooms, prices, living conditions, forum and reviews. This year, almost all normal Koblev bases were noted on the Internet. The most advanced were able to make their sites. Some, by the way, are not represented on the above site, you have to search the net (if you know the name). We look, compare, read reviews, book - our own tour operator!
Prices. No wonder they say that Koblevo is more expensive than Turkey. The ratio "price - quality" is not in favor of the domestic resort. The top of the service is the presence of a pool, the size is usually bashfully silent. "All-inclusive" means three meals a day according to the schedule of the pioneer camp. Renovation - cheap Turkish plumbing, cardboard doors, plastic cafe furniture and beds with plywood bottoms. Those who spent a little more - proudly set prices in dollars and euros. Whom they hope for is unclear. All the same, the vast majority of vacationers from the Nikolaev region with hard-earned hryvnia. The average price of a room with private facilities and air conditioning is 100-150 hryvnias "without food". VIP-level rooms - up to 3000 hryvnia. The water park enjoys a monopoly position and therefore is 30 percent more expensive than its Crimean counterparts.
The imagination of hotel owners is amazing. Previously, the names of the bases were associated with the professional composition of the contingent - Energetik, Svyazist, Avtomobilist, Zarya. Now the names reflect the ideas of the owners about the ideal vacation - "Paradise", "Birch - New", "VIP Hotel", "Old Castle", "Rodeo Inn". Nonsense comes across - a group of wooden cottages of the Carpathian type with a view of the swamp and mosquitoes for some reason was called "Eden". The pinnacle of creativity is a bunch of two-story houses on the third line in a dusty pine grove without any hope of seeing the sea, but with a memorial plaque on the gate - “Elysium Park Hotel”. In front of Elysium, there are half a meter potholes on the road that has never seen asphalt. Nearby - the restaurant "Terrassa" (former "Ararat") - where the terrace itself is unknown, plaster lions and other masterpieces of landscape gardening kitsch remained.
Part two. “On deer early in the morning…”
For non-car owners, a trip to the resort begins from the Nikolaev bus station, or rather, from the loud cries of a colorful two-meter barker. He should sing in Boris Godunov's opera, and he is on the street from morning to evening the same thing: “Odessa! ! Koblevo!! " What is surprising is that minibuses go to the bases from June 1 to September 1, and no global climate shifts will force carriers to quickly respond to demand. Lord! Let minibuses for tourists in May and September! Earn yourself and let the resort earn!
Service is standard. Travel 30 hryvnia. There is no timetable, minibuses of various sizes will not set off until they are fully stocked. Our minibus was waiting for the last passenger for about half an hour. The driver calmly offered to the angry passengers to pay for an empty seat. We waited, paid (as always, no tickets, I don’t mention insurance), and off we went. There is no trunk in the minibus, so the aisles are practically clogged with bags, suitcases and trunks. The usual comfort of domestic carriers - with a breeze from a broken hatch to a heartbreaking prison chanson. Closer to Koblevo, the salon filled to the eyeballs was condensed by passing local entrepreneurs with pies and corn, experiencing the hardships of a trip while standing in a half-bent state with the dignity of hereditary yogis.
The way back differs only in the presence of a schedule and the filling of minibuses "on record" - again, without tickets. It's funny to listen to the roll call at the mini-bus station. Our bus left Koblevo without waiting for a couple with the charming surname Tykovka.
Part three. "Welcome, or strangers. . . "
Koblevo in early June resembles a sleepy slut. Garbage cheekily lying on the side of the road from last year. Between the "Moldovan" and "Ukrainian" zones is a centuries-old wasteland with reeds and weeds. The road is broken up to the state of "test drive for jeeps with experienced pilots. " The main “pilots” are minibuses, the local long-suffering bus of the Zarya-Aquapark route at three hryvnias per fare and an overwhelming number of trucks with building materials. Roadsides plastered with small cars and jeeps without any signs of parking. It is not clear how to go to the beach with children in such an environment. A gaping pedestrian can overnight continue his rest in the regional traumatology department of the emergency hospital.
I will make a reservation right away - the further description concerns the so-called "Moldovan part". Its main difference is that there is asphalt (!!! ), markets, shops, cafes, a moon-park and several nightclubs. One of them, on my head, already worked. The noise at night is unimaginable, for five nights I studied the DJ's repertoire and jokes thoroughly - they were repeated every night. The Ukrainian part is quieter, but there is no asphalt and even the semblance of an embankment.
Everywhere there are signs, signs and posters hastily typed on the computer in files and without them “There are places”. At the same time, most hotels, bases and cafes are simply not ready to receive tourists. The hastily recruited staff finishes painting something, smearing it, finishing it, drilling it. Koblevo is one big and stupid construction site. People in the area of the amusement park and the local "supermarket" make their way between the boards and glass wool. It smells not of the sea, but of stain. Small traders set up summer stalls and sheds of the most unimaginable configurations. Simple resort goods, beer and ice cream are imported.
The market struck in the heart. Not in the southern desert. At the height of the season, there were no cherries, no strawberries, no vegetables on the market. On Tuesday, sellers compassionately promised mothers “tomorrow by eight in the morning they should deliver”. Delivered on Saturday. On the other hand, the assortment of plastic bottles with “natural factory Koblev wines” is widely represented at the local “Mini-Privoz”, plus a very tired smoked fish from last year’s catch.
Pleasantly surprised by the local "supermarkets". For a resort town, an unusually rich, almost “urban” assortment, fresh products, prices are not much higher. Various cafes were active. There were always people in Brazil, Celentano, Glechik. I don’t know where they get water for cooking (in our hotel, the water from the tap ran sea salty), but the people actively ate from morning to evening. I didn’t buy a ticket “with meals”, and I spent one and a half times less on food, this is taking into account ice cream, beer and kvass.
Part four. "I'm ready to kiss the sand. . . "
Koblevo is sorely lacking the embankment that is obligatory for any seaside resort. Our "quay" is a narrow path of paving slabs with a concrete fence from the Meliorator to the Old Castle. Broken wooden boards on concrete are our answer to the Yalta snow-white benches. There is no answer to the famous Yalta lanterns - lighting is only from coastal cafes. Concrete circles, apparently, were conceived by designers as tubs for flowers or trees. Not a single tree. Instead, pyramids of plastic cups and cigarette packs. The landscape is dreary and hopeless. In the evenings, by no means cheerful guests of the resort roam along this "quay". Among them come across deputies of the regional level, heads of large enterprises and high-ranking officials. They also need to relax on the weekend with the family. Everyone is equal in front of the Koblevsky beach - from entertainment "with a view of the sea" - beer in a bottle, beer in a tent, beer in a cafe.
The apotheosis of building creativity is the beach inevitably disappearing under concrete tiles and wooden flooring of future liquor stores and discos. Moreover, every year there are more and more such “squatters”, and the scale is ever grander. Why build a “VIP zone with a pool” (white wooden flooring, painted pseudo-rattan and gray mattresses in cabins under a canopy + a three-meter cheap country pool) five steps from the edge of the surf - I don’t understand. Turkey cannot be outdone by this.
Dear hotel owners! Understand - people go first of all TO THE SEA! And the beach in Koblevo is gray poorly cleaned (or never cleaned? ) sand; blockages of algae, which are sometimes cleaned by a bulldozer; lack of urns; unique rusty locker rooms (the height of the clearance is a meter from the floor, only basketball players can change clothes there). Doctors scare the active sun, but finding a canopy in Koblevo is a problem. But every morning, the hardworking rulers of sunbeds diligently fill as much space as possible with sun loungers. Creative, by the way, people - either in a checkerboard pattern, or diagonally, but certainly with a distance of one and a half meters from one plastic paid rookery to another. No umbrellas. Those who like to lie down for free on the sand every morning play Tetris with sun loungers, trying to squeeze into the gaps.
And, of course, photographers with camels, the ubiquitous "sugar corn", seeds and gobies. Normal Black Sea set. The love of our people to chew on the beach will not be overcome by any E. coli - they ate, they eat, and they will eat.
Koblevo is a unique place where once there was a long spacious beach, a shallow gentle sea and pine trees. Now it is a pipeline for pumping money out of unpretentious Ukrainians, Moldovans, Russians and Belarusians. This resort has no future. The owners of recreation centers and hotels rely only on short-term income. It is not for nothing that more and more recreation centers are put up for sale either by the owners themselves or by mortgage banks. You cannot count on long-term profits without investing in investment and construction plans, without investing in roads and communications, without investing in landscaping and cleaning. Koblevo lives the old fashioned way, not knowing about the laws of economics, marketing and the tourism market. This resort lives according to the laws of the oriental bazaar.
And yet, I hope that a medieval stone elephant accidentally found, erected on a pedestal - the only real attraction of Koblevo, will someday bring him happiness.
