Restoring the tourist potential of Ochakiv: prospects and opportunities

Ochakov beach, archival photo, author Volodymyr Siliakov

After the withdrawal of Ochakiv Oblast from the combat zone, it is possible to demine the beaches and partially restore Ochakiv as a resort town within six months.

This opinion was voiced by the deputy chief of Mykolaiv RMA, Mykola Marinov, who, before the start of the full-scale war, took care of tourism issues in a comment to NikVesti.

During the survey of local residents, as part of the development of the program for the restoration and development of the Ochakiv community, most of the answers were related to the restoration of tourism.

Mykola Marinov is sure that restoring Ochakiv's tourist potential is a matter of more than one decade.

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«This is a very difficult topic, I think it is too early to talk about it. I don't want to be too optimistic and set people up for work, it's a lot of money. This includes beach and sea demining, installation of barricades. I don't know how many more years or decades it will be carried out,» he noted.

According to him, it is possible to discuss the possibility of restoring the community's tourist and resort potential only after the withdrawal of Russian troops, at least to the administrative border of Crimea.

«Demining the beaches is quick, it can be done in one season, demining the water area can be point-wise and cordoned off. I believe that, roughly speaking, this format of recovery will go the season. That is, we take a separate section of the beach, demine it, we also demine the water area near the beach and install a barrier,» Mykola Marinov noted.

Ochakova beach, photo by Alona Kokhanchuk

But this will not solve the global problem of the future of tourism for the Ochakiv community.

Deputy Mayor Oleksii Vaskov adds that the Ochakiv authorities still have no idea how much the coast of the estuary, on which the city is located, is polluted by mines.

«As for the demining of the territories, we have not been involved yet, as we have no idea how littered our shores are,» he said.

Read more about the prospects and possibilities of restoration of Ochakiv Oblast in the article «Ochakiv: what a front-line city lives and dreams of» in the article by NikVesti.

It should be noted that 92% of residents of the Ochakiv community in the Mykolaiv region believe in the restoration of the community after leaving the war zone. They see it as «blooming», «successful» and «touristic».