A glob summer How a massive oil spill in the Black Sea derailed southern Russiaʼs tourism industry

In December 2024, thousands of tons of mazut — a heavy, low-grade oil product thatʼs mainly used in power plants — leaked from wrecked tankers and washed up on the coast of Anapa, a popular tourist destination near the Sea of Azov. The spill created immediate financial problems for the cityʼs hotel owners and neighboring resort towns. Tourists who paid in advance for summer vacations demanded refunds, and new bookings ceased altogether. All winter and spring, locals and volunteers from across the country joined cleanup efforts, racing to prepare the beaches in time for the start of Russiaʼs vacation season. However, state officials ultimately banned beach activities and swimming in the sea. In early June, correspondents from the independent journalists” cooperative Bereg visited the Black Sea coast for a firsthand look at one of the strangest summer seasons in Anapaʼs history. Meduza translated Beregʼs report into English.

Anapaʼs “house of cards” tourism industry

Two hotel owners in Anapa, Oksana and Maxim, said they entered December 2024 with nothing but optimism. (All sources who spoke to Bereg are identified by pseudonyms.) By mid-December, a fifth of their rooms had already been booked for the next vacation season. The coming year promised to be a good one.

On December 17, Oksana was out of town when she got a call from an employee warning that a terrible stench was spreading from the beach. A work crew had arrived at the shore, and everything was stained black. Two days earlier, a storm in the Kerch Strait had wrecked a pair of Russian tankers. The fuel oil they had been carrying was now washing up on the Black Sea coast. By the end of the month, tourists began canceling their reservations, forcing hotel owners like Oksana and Maxim to refund most of the advance payments.

Before the yearʼs end, the Emergency Situations Ministry declared a state of emergency in the region. At the time, the news did not alarm Oksana and Maxim. This wasnʼt Anapaʼs first disaster; a similar spill in 2007 led to no restrictions on tourists. Officials assured the public that the beaches would be “up to code” by the start of summer. “We figured everything would be cleaned up in six months, so we reassured our staff and began preparing for the season,” Maxim recalls.

All winter, hotel staff and volunteers cleaned the mazut from the beaches. By spring, only patches were still visible on the sand, but tourists werenʼt taking their chances. New bookings had ceased. Oksana and Maxim were forced to take out a loan to continue paying their staff, having already invested last seasonʼs revenue in renovations. Advertising purchased on the search engine Yandex had no effect. Oksana and Maxim say there was simply “too much negative press” about Anapa online and in the news media.

Meanwhile, guests who hadnʼt yet canceled their trips began pressuring the hotel for partial refunds, citing health hazards. “Either give us a discount, or weʼre canceling our booking,” Oksana quoted from a customer message. “They kept trying to scare us with talk of cancer risks for their child, claiming that allergists had forbidden them from making the trip. But with a discount, they were willing to come,” she said with a smirk. “So, the oil was supposedly dangerous — unless they received a discount.”

In the end, Oksana and Maxim had to lower their prices. In the summer of 2025, the average rate for their rooms was down 20 percent from last year. However, the discounted prices did not lead to a rebound in reservations. In early June, their hotel is usually booked solid; this year, roughly 90 percent of the rooms were vacant. To make matters worse, the lower rates attracted guests who were more likely to steal from the hotel. “Iʼve even heard stories about hair dryers being torn out with the wires,” said Oksana. “That kind of clientele can just destroy your rooms.”

However, shutting down the hotel completely would be even worse for business, Oksana explained: “Closing would be more expensive for us than working [without guests], because you have to return peopleʼs money, and you donʼt have it. Itʼs easier to find money for food and minimal staff and still host people.” To “find money,” hotel owners invest their own savings, borrow from friends, or take out personal loans, since banks now refuse to lend to tourism businesses in Anapa.

To maintain their income, some hotel owners have resorted to vying for government contracts to host official delegations, conference participants, and school competitions. However, Oksana and Maxim say this is a risky move. “For starters, they pay kopecks, and secondly, they can cancel their Anapa tours at any moment,” Oksana explained. “Last year, we lost out on one of these contracts and were upset, but now we think: thank God we didnʼt manage to [submit a bid]. At least we donʼt owe them money.”

This summer, Oksana and Maxim have had to cut back on everything, including workers. Hotels that typically accommodate guests only in the summer donʼt maintain a full staff of housekeepers, childrenʼs entertainers, and waiters throughout the year, but instead hire them for the three summer months. Only the booking department and technical services, like security guards, operate continuously. In 2025, Oksana and Maxim hired hardly any seasonal workers. The company decided that during the summer, office staff would relocate to the hotel and serve guests themselves at the reception desk and in the restaurant.

Stocking up on food, construction materials, and supplies like shampoos and disposable slippers has also become impossible. “The other day, a supplier called me and said theyʼre liquidating their household chemicals. Discounts of 70 percent. For me, as a regular client, Iʼd get an additional five percent off,” Oksana recalls. “Weʼll need this toilet paper anyway, but no matter what wonderful discount he gives me, I simply donʼt have the money to pay. And so it goes across Anapa — the whole business ecosystem is collapsing like a house of cards.”

In the spring, Krasnodar Krai officials announced a plan to support Anapa businesses by automatically extending hotels” liquor licenses, deferring 2025 tax payments, and abolishing a recently introduced tourism tax. Oksana said she is grateful for the relief, but she believes the measures donʼt go far enough and argues that a deferral of tax payments for 2024 would help hotel owners more substantially. “We paid tax on the advance payments we received in December 2024,” Oksana explained. “The tax service doesnʼt care that we returned all that money [to clients] in January.” These tax overpayments will be returned to hotel owners only after a recalculation in 2026.

Another desperately needed lifeline for Anapaʼs hotel owners would be preferential loans to help cover current expenses. Sources who spoke to Bereg said the mayorʼs office held a series of private meetings with members of the industry. At one of these meetings in May, the authorities reportedly promised to make loans at 2–3 percent available to affected businesses in amounts equal to the advance payments the hotels had to return when reservations were canceled. However, itʼs unclear when this relief might arrive. Maxim recalls that it took officials “about five months” to approve the procedure for extending alcohol licenses.

Even with preferential loans, however, Oksana and Maxim say their hotel would operate at a loss. Their only chance of breaking even is progress on the regionʼs “main thing”: reopening Anapaʼs beaches for sunbathers and swimmers. For now, federal health officials say the coastline remains unsuitable for recreation. The water and sand are still too polluted to meet safety standards.

The volume of petroleum products currently in the water and sand is unknown, as the authorities have not disclosed this information. In fact, neither federal nor regional regulators in Russia have established acceptable levels for petroleum products on beaches.

During the meetings between the mayorʼs office and hotel owners, officials reportedly specified that beaches would remain unsafe until there was less than five milligrams of petroleum products per kilogram of sand. A source in the Krasnodar government told Bereg that federal health workers are working with the same safety standard. When asked who set this benchmark, Beregʼs source pointed upwards, indicating that the decision to reopen Anapaʼs beaches ultimately rests with federal officials.

“Five milligrams in soil is negligibly small, and itʼs not backed by any research,” the same source complained. “Especially since we donʼt know how much there was [before the accident]. We never studied this.”

According to Igor Shkradyuk, an industrial ecology specialist and coordinator of the Wildlife Conservation Centerʼs industrial greening program, manually cleaning sand to contain no more than five milligrams of fuel oil per kilogram is practically impossible. Moreover, the equipment at the Laboratory Analysis and Technical Measurements Center, which operates under the federal governmentʼs environmental oversight agency (Rospotrebnadzor), canʼt even accurately measure such tiny amounts of fuel oil in sand. Their hardware can reliably detect concentrations only down to 20 milligrams per kilogram, four times greater than the supposed standard. “Under these conditions, itʼs very difficult to verify that you have these five milligrams, and [environmental officials] can say “no” to basically any method of cleaning the sand,” the scientist explained.

Volunteers have managed to reduce petroleum contamination at some beaches to 20–50 milligrams per kilogram by sifting sand through screens multiple times, Shkradyuk said. He described this concentration of oil as “relatively safe” for humans, though he stressed that assessing sand safety isnʼt as simple as measuring the presence of mazut — the specific composition of that oil matters just as much.

Shkradyuk and his colleagues studied samples of oil-contaminated sand from beaches along Anapaʼs coastline and found that concentrations of one of mazutʼs most dangerous components, benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), vary by a factor of a thousand between different samples. The maximum permissible concentration of BaP in sand is 20 micrograms per kilogram. While it is possible to clean sand to below this threshold, it is not possible to eliminate all health risks.

Little is known about benzo[a]pyreneʼs short-term effects on humans, but exposure in the long term increases the risk of developing cancer and can cross the placenta. On beaches, the substance can enter a personʼs body through the skin. BaP is also present in exhaust gases and smoke from forest fires, as well as in charred meats and fish living in polluted water bodies. 

Oksana told Bereg that Rospotrebnadzor officials took sand samples from her hotelʼs beachfront on three occasions, but she never learned the results. In spring, she and Maxim ordered an independent analysis, hiring a lab to study samples from several sections of the beach that the waves donʼt reach. As a control sample, they also included samples from a clean childrenʼs sandbox, hundreds of yards from the shoreline. Laboratory experts found 83 milligrams of petroleum products per kilogram in the beach sand and 70 in the sample from the hotel sandbox. (Bereg reviewed a copy of the report.)

The lab results both delighted and infuriated the hotel owners. Oksana and Maxim now had what they believed to be proof that hotel staff and volunteers had almost completely cleaned the oil from their beachʼs dry sand, but they also learned that nearby farmlands were being allowed to operate under far more lenient policies. The evidence highlighted that the volume of petroleum products on their beach in Anapa was well below the regulatory limits set for fertile soil in the neighboring region. “In the Stavropol soil, where they grow the tomatoes and potatoes that we eat, 1,000 milligrams per kilogram is fine. But for sand in Anapa, which no one eats and in which nothing is grown, the standard is lower. What is that about?” Oksana asks with bewilderment.

“Why the hell would anyone with money stay here?”

“Swimming and lying on the beach are officially prohibited, and I wouldnʼt advise it, either,” the manager of a small boutique hotel in Vityazevo tells Bereg, recalling that a dead dolphin recently washed ashore. “You can only walk along the shore and look.”

Vityazevo is a small resort town north of Anapa, about 20 minutes away by car. The boutique hotel manager said his establishment was only one-third occupied, and many guests were booked for just a few days. Some were staying only a single night — probably traveling for business, not pleasure. The lobby and restaurant were empty. A tarp covered the heated pool, and guests who hoped to swim had to notify the reception desk in advance.

Tatyana, a hotel guest, drove to Anapa with her three daughters to celebrate the start of their summer break. First, the family stayed at a five-star, all-inclusive resort. They didnʼt go to the beach at all. “We were at an awesome hotel: alcohol, food, pools, all the ice cream you want — why drag yourself to the sea?” Tatyana reasons. “The main thing [about vacationing on a coast] is the air. You know, for your immune system.”

Before heading home, Tatyana got an invitation from friends in Anapa to meet up at a local water park. After a day of champagne, she elected to stay in town for another night instead of risking it on the roads. The resort no longer had any vacancies, however, and the family had to find other accommodations.

According to Oksana and Maxim, the oil spill has been less damaging for large establishments like the resort where Tatyana first stayed with her daughters. Bigger hotels have far more extensive facilities (for example, spa complexes) that allow them to operate year-round. This schedule and these amenities offer more opportunities to negotiate with guests about postponing vacations rather than issuing refunds.

Many large chains also have hotels in towns unaffected by the oil spill, allowing owners to offer discounts of up to 60 percent in Anapa and Vityazevo, while offsetting their losses with income from other locations. Still, vacancies remain at some of the areaʼs top chain hotels, even on holiday weekends. For example, Bereg journalists found an Anapa hotel with several hundred rooms that closed access to one of its three outdoor pools. Around the two open pools, many of the lounge chairs were empty.

The beaches are largely deserted, too. Currently, there is no populated area of Krasnodar Krai affected by the oil spill that can claim truly pristine, mazut-free sands, but that hasnʼt stopped some hotel owners from promising a “completely cleaned” coastline.

The businesses making these claims typically ignore the surf zone, a strip several yards wide. Mazut is easy to find in this wet sand, sometimes appearing in black spots every 5–10 yards, sometimes every 5 inches. Almost everywhere, petroleum products have mixed with sand and come to resemble heavily crystallized honey in consistency. In areas covered with shells, there are occasionally liquid black blobs.

The dry sand on some beaches really does look clean. Hotels with more resources use heavy equipment to plow and sift the sand on a daily basis, while smaller establishments clean their beaches with electric vibrating sifters that resemble large metal boxes on stands. Some hotels even rely on hand shovels, sieves, and implements that the locals call “easels,” which are basically frames on legs with metal mesh stretched across them instead of canvas. 

On beaches in Anapa and Vityazevo, cleanup work has primarily fallen to hotel owners, although state emergency workers occasionally join in. Sources told Bereg that Emergency Situations Ministry officials arrive in white hazmat suits to shovel sand into bags, which they load into an excavator bucket. Where they take the sand, nobody knows.

Volunteers are currently working only on beaches in the Temryuk district, near Blagoveshchenskaya and the towns of Veselovka and Volna. Unlike emergency workers, volunteers donʼt just shovel sand into bags, but sift it first, some using makeshift “easels” and others using kitchen strainers.

Even after being processed in ovens at special sites to burn off the petroleum products, the collected sand remains unsuitable for beaches due to high levels of soot and carbon residue. Ecologist Igor Shkradyuk said that scientists proposed a dozen cleaning methods to Anapa officials that are more cost-effective than ovens (for example, washing the sand with special chemicals or absorbent materials), but the city hasnʼt widely adopted any alternative.

In Anapa and Vityazevo, stretches of seemingly pristine shore give way to visibly polluted beaches, where dark lumps of oil are scattered across the sand, mingling with trash. When rubbed between the fingers, the clumps break down into black particles, leaving behind a dirty, yellow, oily residue on the skin and the scent of fresh asphalt. Oil particles, ground by tires and shoes, mix with the sand and become invisible. But even on beaches where oil stains are clearly visible, tourists unfurl their towels and stretch out on the polluted sand.

Bereg spoke to a couple staying at a resort in Anapa with their two daughters. When they went for walks along the beachfront, the family donned disposable medical shoe covers. “They told us at the hotel that we have to wear these, or weʼll get our shoes all dirty and track it back inside,” the mother explained. Dark stains mar the cobblestone roads and wooden boardwalks leading from the beach into town.

The familiar trappings of Anapaʼs seaside leisure are notably absent this summer. Nearly all the stalls selling sun hats, flip-flops, and pool floaties are closed, and seasonal cafes and bars arenʼt operating either. Even the sunshade canopies, usually ubiquitous on beaches in Anapa and Vityazevo, have all but vanished. Hotel owners dismantled the amenities they offered at the shore to clear a path for municipal crews and their heavy machinery. In the spring, excavators and tractors marked with the words “Emergency Situations” and “Anapa Resorts” began cleanup work, moving northwest from the cityʼs central beach toward Bugazskaya Kosa. By the start of the summer season, however, the equipment had managed to cover only half the coastline.

In 2025, when local officials prohibited hotels from placing lounge chairs on their beachfronts, five-star resort managers began piling them at beach entrances, allowing guests to take them onto the sand themselves, which was still allowed. But the chairs are not in high demand. Bereg journalists visited a local beach at noon on June 1 and found no more than a dozen chairs scattered across the sand. Most tourists stay on their feet, strolling along the shore with children in tow, almost always barefoot.

At the shore, Bereg observed a man and a woman from one of Vityazevoʼs most upscale coastal hotels. At one point, the woman turned to her companion and showed him a dirty yellow stain on her index finger. Other vacationers saw the exchange and asked if the woman had been exposed to mazut. The inquiring passersby were apparently still learning the obvious signs of petroleum product contamination. (Many tourists still mistake the oil blotches for stones or shell fragments.) “Yep, I saw a black spot on the sand, rubbed it, and it turned out to be mazut,” the woman explained, before trying in vain to wash her hand clean in the seawater. She soon gave up and continued her walk, still carrying her shoes under one arm.

Just a mile toward downtown Anapa, diving operations are underway. Mobile diving stations dot the coastline — large vehicles like freight trucks, their cargo holds outfitted with decompression chambers. Beregʼs correspondents spotted a wetsuit, some socks, and a pair of menʼs underwear drying on a clothesline stretched between two diving stations. Beyond this makeshift camp, some 50 yards from the shore, the divers were busy at work. Many divers carry small shovels and manually collect chunks of mazut from the seabed that have hardened in the frigid water. Bags stained with dark brown streaks are piled on the sand, and the air is thick with the smell of asphalt.

A man and his teenage son walked barefoot past diving equipment on the beach, their jeans rolled up and clean sneakers in hand. Bereg journalists watched as a diver called out and tossed a ping-pong ball-sized glob of mazut at their feet, urging the two men to put on their shoes. The father looked hesitantly at his shoes, checked the bottom of his feet, and decided to continue barefoot. “They say you can never get “em clean again afterward,” he said. After walking some miles along the surf zone, the manʼs heels had turned dark brown — his sonʼs too. Other beachgoers suffered a similar fate, with oil residue staining their shoe soles permanently yellow.

“Dear residents and guests of the Anapa resort! In connection with emergency cleanup work using special equipment, beach access is temporarily limited. Swimming is prohibited!” blares a looped recording from an Emergency Situations Ministry car patrolling the coast. Behind the wheel, a dark-haired man looks bored as he ignores the handful of tourists splashing in the waves.

Two older women in white hotel robes looked around nervously, wondering if the patrol car driver had spotted them getting out of the water just minutes earlier.

Theyʼd come to Anapa with a 14-year-old grandson but had no plans to bring him to the beach. “We have a warm pool at our hotel, and heʼs good there,” the women told Bereg, saying that this summerʼs trip was far better than last yearʼs. Their resort had expanded its all-inclusive package, adding cognac to the drink menu and another two hours to the barʼs closing time, keeping the booze flowing until 11:00 p.m. Excluding travel expenses, the two-week vacation set the women back 130,000 rubles ($1,675) — just half of what it cost in 2024. The grandson was allowed to join their room for free.

Natalya, a woman in her 60s from Russiaʼs Kuznetsk Basin, said that she has vacationed in Anapa every summer for years, but she doesnʼt expect to return in 2026. The trip has become too expensive and complicated, and “the water here is nothing special,” she explained. “I like the pebbles at High Shore Beach better and always go swimming there, but today I couldnʼt even make it two hours — the air was just terrible.”

“While I was there, my friends from Krasnodar called me. They were on their way to Anapa, too,” Natalya continues. “I told them you couldnʼt breathe, so they turned around and headed to Sochi. Smart move: Why the hell would anyone with money want to stay here?” An hour later, Beregʼs correspondent reached the pebble beach that Natalya had mentioned and found only the scent of ordinary paint. The handrails of the staircase connecting the beach to the city had just gotten a fresh coat.

“This hole isnʼt in the budget, but in the heart”

For the past five years, Ekaterina and Sergey have divided their time between Moscow and a second home in the small town of Blagoveshchenskaya, 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Anapa. There, the couple runs an “artisanal guest space” without televisions in the rooms or a bar on the premises. The garden features a fire bowl zone with scenic views of the largest estuary in southern Russia. Children under 12 are not welcome.

Ekaterina tells Bereg that she hasnʼt been to the beach in several months. In the winter and spring, after the oil spill, the couple would go out and clean the sand themselves, offering free accommodations to volunteers who pitched in to help. Ekaterina said they got the beach looking clean by mid-spring, but now sheʼs afraid to check if more mazut has washed ashore.

Ekaterinaʼs villa has only four rooms, and all of them were empty when Bereg visited. This summer, only a handful of guests have booked stays, and none will arrive until August or early September. In past summers, vacancies were virtually unheard of. 

Sergey takes the downturn in stride. With swimming prohibited, thereʼs little reason to expect business as usual, he explained. “Essentially, this 40-kilometer [25-mile] stretch of sandy beach from Anapa to Veselovka is the only 40 kilometers of sandy beaches on the Black Sea for many millions of Russians. Thatʼs the main draw,” Sergey added, ignoring the coastlines in places like Tuapse and occupied Crimea.

Ekaterina says that even regular guests, who usually donʼt go swimming, have canceled their trips to Krasnodar Krai this year. “At first they wrote: “Guys, we donʼt need the damn sea, weʼll come!” But now itʼs suddenly: “No, weʼll probably skip this year,”” she laments, blaming the change of heart on “the constant stream of doom and gloom.” 

Ekaterina and Sergey say itʼs not only photos of oil-contaminated beaches that have kept tourists away, but warnings from some experts that the air itself might be polluted. Rospotrebnadzor has issued statements confirming that the regionʼs drinking water, food, and air quality all meet regulatory standards, but officials have nevertheless canceled events scheduled to take place in Anapa, such as the Ironstar triathlon competition and a summer wine festival. With all these major cancellations making headlines, tourists often overlook the other available leisure activities in the area, Ekaterina explained.

Most of the visitors seeking an “artisanal guest space” are “gourmet tourists who value aesthetics,” Ekaterina said. The couple uses their car to shuttle guests to nearby wineries. Their bespoke villa is situated between Taman, home to the Château Taman, Golubitskaya Estate, and Fanagoria vineyards, and Anapa and Novorossiysk, with the towns of Abrau-Dyurso and Gai-Kodzor nearby. “Folks who show up for the first time are blown away: “No way, this stuff exists in the Krasnodar region?”” Ekaterina explained. “Where else in this country do we have so many awesome wineries? How do people miss this? Seriously, forget the sea!”

Most government assistance measures donʼt apply to Ekaterina and Sergeyʼs business: tax breaks are only available to Kuban locals, while the couple works under their status as individual entrepreneurs registered in Moscow. “It feels like theyʼve forgotten about us. They remember the dolphins, the birds, the tourists, and the kids,” Ekaterina said. “Weʼre designers, weʼve got other projects, and weʼll make it through. But the rejection stings… This hole isnʼt in the budget, but in the heart.”

Despite these difficulties, Ekaterina said she has no intention of lowering prices at her villa. She told Bereg that clients flooded her inbox with requests for discounts after news spread that the beaches would be closed due to the oil spill, but she refuses to cave to guests who donʼt grasp that her business is in crisis. 

“What am I supposed to do — starve myself?” Ekaterina asks. “Should I go to the banks and be like, “Hey guys, cut me some slack on my loan payments”? Or tell my kids, “Sorry, no new underwear for you”? Look, guys, Iʼve got the same bills to pay as before, I live in the same country as you, and Iʼm not cutting prices. Iʼd rather get one customer than 10 in the same timeframe if it means keeping the right people. We had our own special crowd, and we want to hang onto them.”

From Ekaterina and Sergeyʼs villa in Blagoveshchenskaya, the road to the nearest beach on the Black Sea coast runs along a poppy field. When Beregʼs correspondent visited, there were a dozen people taking pictures in the flowers. Some used ordinary phone cameras, while others posed for hired photographers. Their cars, parked on the shoulder, had license plates from Krasnodar Krai, Rostov, and Bryansk. Sergey said that these places used to draw tourists, as well. The Kuban region, he explained, has many hidden gems like lotus valleys and lavender fields.

When Bereg surveyed the beach, the wind was strong and people were virtually absent. “Perfect conditions for kiters,” Sergey said, guessing that at least 100 kitesurfers would typically be out on their boards in such conditions. Today, there were just three kites in the sky. The problem isnʼt just the oil spill: in the spring, the authorities closed access to the spot where kitesurfers used to enter the water. (Fans of this sport are particularly fond of launching points along the Bugaz Spit — the narrow strip of land that originates at Blagoveshchenskaya and divides the Black Sea from the Kiziltash Lagoon.)

The Black Sea coast near Ekaterina and Sergeyʼs villa looks even more deserted than Anapaʼs beaches. In the surf zone, there are black globs the size of walnuts every few yards, and bits of mazut are visible in places on the dry sand. But these beaches are still cleaner than the ones in Anapa. Just a few weeks ago, the mazut spots werenʼt visible at all, said Sergey. “When they cleaned the sand with big equipment, they broke it all up and leveled it out, and the oil got buried under a layer of sand,” he explained. “When we had storms and really strong winds, the top layer of sand just got blown off, and these little chunks were left behind.”

The sand here has never been exactly pristine, Sergey confesses. “The old-timers tell you that whenever you go to the beach and toss down a light-colored towel, youʼre guaranteed to get mazut stains on it, since Taman port is like 40 kilometers [25 miles] away and Novorossiysk port is about 70 kilometers [44 miles] from here.” He said the beach conditions in June 2025 are “quite acceptable for vacationing,” but he notes that he speaks only for himself. Guests need to weigh the risks for themselves. However, he blames bloggers for posting the photos of oil-stained beaches that wrecked the summer season. 

Asked if he wished people had hidden the oil spill, Sergey said no, that would be wrong as well. “But I think some of these bloggers are just grifters. They showed up and stirred up some drama just to pump their follower counts,” he added. When reminded that the images shared online are real photographs, Sergey clarified: “They shouldʼve been honest, saying, “I walked a mile and found a couple of oil stains.” Thereʼs no need to freak out about every little stain.”

Independent ecologists lack sufficient information to assess the overall safety of the coastline affected by the spill, according to Igor Shkradyuk. Ecologists are also reluctant to declare the shore clean because the sea constantly washes up new deposits of mazut. “Today, one location is clean while another is contaminated, and tomorrow, the situation reverses,” Shkradyuk explained. “As long as oil remains on the seabed and the tankers are uncontained, any clean shore may become contaminated on any given day.”

The authorities say they canʼt raise the tankers until 2026, but theyʼve already started installing cofferdams to contain the leaking fuel oil. If the leaks can be stopped soon, Igor Shkradyuk thinks the whole coast could be considered relatively safe for vacationing by next summer. (This is the time needed for sunlight and microorganisms to work their decomposition magic on the petroleum product particles staining the sand.) But itʼs still unclear when the disaster cleanup can be declared complete.

Even if the authorities donʼt lift the state of emergency or drop the beach ban this year, Ekaterina and Sergey arenʼt planning to shut down their business. “People need us, especially the locals,” Ekaterina maintains. “I want us to have beautiful places in the Krasnodar region. I want people to appreciate beauty. We will get through this.”

Despite the obvious issues, locals hope that tourists will still come, especially toward the end of the season, when the authorities inevitably reopen the beaches after realizing that theyʼve been overcautious. And once satisfied vacationers start posting on social media, their happy content will convince others that things on the coast arenʼt so bad.

In Anapa and nearby resort towns, members of the tourism industry have grown fond of comparing the 2025 summer to the economic hardships of the coronavirus pandemic. Vacationers stayed away when COVID-19 first spread, but businesses rebounded better than expected when travel restrictions were finally lifted. The analogy might seem convincing, but thereʼs one important difference: five years ago, planes were still flying to Anapa. Since the start of Russiaʼs full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Anapaʼs airport has been closed. By train, the journey from Moscow takes roughly 22 hours.