You can only wear swimsuits on the beach; men outside the beach should not wear too bright or provocative things
Lack of a culture of welcoming guests, disrespect from locals — these are the most common complaints about Abkhazia from Russian vacationers. The host side makes the opposite accusations: lack of culture of visiting, disrespect for locals. To understand the problem, we compared the complaints of guests and hosts on specific points.
It is noteworthy that the complaining tourists call themselves “unspoiled”, otherwise they would not go to the relatively budget Abkhazia, and “much better.” And the receiving party considers itself very hospitable, for which “the desire of the guest is the law.” Dissatisfied Russian vacationers report their complaints to Runet, without recommending this or that Abkhaz resort, which Abkhazians learn about from there, but do not post their counter arguments on the Internet.
“It’s not customary for us to make complaints,” explains Bagrat, the owner of a cafe from Pitsunda. – If you don’t like something, say it to your face. And this is like a knife in the back.
Abkhazians are not as “digitized” as Russians, so it’s really not customary for them to trust their thoughts to the World Wide Web every day. How to express your dissatisfaction to guests. How do they act and accumulate irritation?
“Recently, your tourist spread the word all over the Internet that the music was too loud for him from the beach cafe, and the fact that it was Russian music annoyed him, and that the locals were burning garbage on the beach,” Bagrat lists. — And I’ll tell you this. If I came to your resort, and there was my native music, I would thank you! I would be pleased, I would understand that they included it for my sake. And what's loud is good. This means that they are not ashamed of my music, and in general, when there is a holiday, the music should be loud. And a guest in the house is a holiday.
— Why throw it there? – Bagrat retorts. – Do you think we don’t have trash cans?! Come and see, there are plenty of them! But your vacationers’ cigarette butts are buried in the sand or pebbles, and bags and disposable food trays, napkins, stubs, plastic and glass bottles are also thrown there. Therefore, what can be burned is burned, but not on the beach, of course, but on a special site. It is very expensive to transport far through our mountains, and we don’t have a special place.
The problem is also confirmed in Gagra: they recently carried out a very expensive operation to remove garbage from the gorge. Tourists admiring the views from the observation deck also threw down cigarette butts, empty packs, ice cream and water cups, and so on. There was enough waste from tourists at the bottom of the gorge to fill a whole dump truck, but the most difficult thing was to lift the garbage to the road level: ropes, baskets and professional climbers were required.
It also turned out that the disgruntled Russian did not even see the beach trash being burned, but only smelled something in the morning that something was being burned near the beach. He was outraged by the “poor service: tourists are taken for rides on bananas right along the coastline, and the spray flies on sunbathers.
“ Vacationers themselves ask to ride them along the shore,” Danat, a “banana man” from Sukhumi, shrugs. . – They ride mostly with children, so they are afraid to go to the open sea, even though they are wearing life jackets. In addition, in recent days there has been a warning that a storm could begin at any moment. The tourists themselves tried to persuade them to give them a quick ride before it started happening. Slowly along the beach.
Those Russian tourists who love Turkey, but this time only came to Abkhazia, have their main complaint about the cleaning of the rooms and the promptness of service in the cafe.
The accused have their own reasons for this: they are not in a hurry with their meals at all accepted, you need to sit and enjoy the moment. And the maids are even embarrassed to tell you at home what they observe in the rooms.
“Of course, not everyone, but many in the morning, when they go to the beach, their rooms are in such a state that I don’t even know what they do there at night,” shares Asha, who serves as a floor attendant in a well-known hotel since Soviet times. Pitsunda health resort. – Not a day goes by without something sticky being spilled on the floor, the tables are all covered in something greasy, it’s even scary to go to the toilet…
Asha adds that guests on vacation “drink too much, and then They’re sick in their rooms.” To which the guests report that the reason is not the abuse of wine, but the poor quality of Abkhazian food, which is not normal even in the markets. And let’s not even talk about cafes, restaurants and shops.
“Tourists don’t like the fact that we are not rich,” says 79-year-old Lamara from the village of Tsandripsh. – That many buildings have not been restored, that we are not trained in European service. Yes, we are a poor country, we need time, effort and money to recover after the war, but guests know that they are not going to the Cote d'Azur!
Russian tourists have a good attitude towards Abkhazian ruins and “abandoned places”; they love excursions to all sorts of ruins of Soviet sanatoriums and dachas. But they have complaints about guides and tourist bus drivers. The former pester tourists during the trip, while the latter drive as if they are participating in a race for survival. And sometimes, without interruption from the races, they also pester excursionists. An 18-year-old tourist traveling with her mother was outraged that a guide aged 40+ began inviting her on a date during an excursion, and when she rejected the advances with the wording that he was too old for her, as if nothing had happened, he switched to her mother.
To this, the host responds that they do not pester all the guests, but only those who want it themselves. And when asked how Abkhaz men understand this, they show a memo that has been distributed since the beginning of the season in the form of signs in tourist accommodation and places where guests congregate. It has 5 points that concern not only women, but also men: you can wear swimsuits only on the beach, when leaving the beach — be sure to get dressed, this also applies to children; sunbathing without a swimsuit is not recommended even on wild beaches; men off the beach should not wear too bright, provocative clothes, do not wear tight shorts or bare-chested; both men and women should remove or hide piercings and tattoos, and men should take out earrings from their ears, this can cause aggression; ladies should not wear short tops, things with a deep neckline, miniskirts, shorts, translucent clothes — Abkhaz men perceive such clothes as an invitation to get acquainted. And if a girl in a cleavage up to her navel refuses to get acquainted with them, they will be sincerely perplexed and angry.
The only thing that the host side did not have counterarguments for was the problems with public transport, the recklessness of local drivers and poor medicine. You can wait for a minibus all day and still not get one, and excursion buses on Abkhazian serpentines often crash because the driver is a «dzhigit, for whom it is a shame to brake». And if you are traveling with children or chronic diseases, rely only on your own first aid kit and knowledge; you will look for a sensible medical center in Abkhazia for about as long as you wait for a minibus.