For a week now, the southern coast of Crimea has been without electricity. In the midst of the tourist season, Alupka and Gurzuf, Partenit and Alushta, Miskhor and Yalta are unusually empty and… unusually smelly. The only way to charge phones, keep food fresh, or do laundry is to buy a generator. Many Crimeans have done just that. So instead of the famous “blend of sea and pine-scented air” — which travel agents continue to use to lure vacationers to Crimea — visitors to the resorts are forced to breathe in fumes of gasoline and diesel fuel. And the prices for these fuels are upsetting people even more than the stench. Crimeans have already done the math: the 15,000 rubles that the occupying authorities are supposed to pay to anyone who went without electricity for at least two days is enough to cover just 48 hours of generator use — and that’s without factoring in the cost of the generator itself. And no one can say how much longer people will have to endure these “temporary inconveniences.”

“I haven’t received those 15,000 yet, but I’ve already spent them. Look: I have a five-kilowatt gasoline generator. It ‘guzzles’ one and a half liters per hour even at minimum load — that’s 300 rubles. And that’s without a water heater, without a washing machine, and most importantly, without air conditioning. But that’s only while the weather holds out; they’re forecasting +35 next week,” says Mykola from Gaspra, sharing his calculations.

Generators themselves have also become significantly more expensive in Crimea. The same model in Simferopol costs one and a half to two times more than “across the bridge” — as the peninsula’s residents refer to Russia. Although residents curse the resellers, they understand that, given the current logistics, the markup isn’t actually that high. Food prices began to rise as early as June due to shipping costs. Now, prices are also driven by the cost of storage: refrigerators in stores and restaurants require industrial generators, which consume an order of magnitude more gasoline than residential ones. However, some supermarket chains have decided to “seize the opportunity” and have raised prices on non-perishable goods as well. 

“I understand it all: meat, sour cream, sausages — these all require refrigeration, so they can’t be cheap right now. But why did the same oil cost 170 rubles a month ago at the same store, and now it’s 250? It’s Crimean oil; it wasn’t shipped here from Siberia. And it’s from last year — because this year’s sunflower crop hasn’t even been harvested yet. So maybe it got more expensive because the shop owner really needs the money? And we know this shop owner,” says Svetlana, a resident of Yalta, indignantly.

The Crimean woman does not mention any names or brands, but judging by the location of our conversation, she is referring to the “Yabluko” supermarket chain, which is linked to Gauleiter Aksyonov. Meanwhile, the occupiers have prepared yet another price hike for the peninsula’s residents. Starting October 1, utility services, electricity, and water supply in Crimea will become even more expensive by another 14 percent. And this is already the second rate increase since the beginning of the year.