Water transport in Russia

Ports

Main article: Ports in Russia

River transport

Main article: River cruises

Chronicle

2024: Short-term boat rental service launched in Russia

In early April 2024, the Captains company launched the first short-term boat rental service in Russia. For this, a mobile application called AnyCaps has been released. Read more here.

2022

5.9% increase in passenger ship journeys to 9.1 million

The number of trips by domestic water passenger transport in Russia in 2022 reached 9.1 million people, an increase of 5.9% compared to the previous year. This is evidenced by the data that BusinesStat analysts released in early December 2023.

According to the study, the Russian market for passenger transportation by water transport in 2022 continued to grow after an 11.8% rise in 2021. This growth in analytics of the connection with the increasing popularity of domestic water tourism among the population. Due to limited travel opportunities, sea and river cruises have become an affordable and attractive vacation option for many Russians. In addition, the increase in passenger traffic of water transport in the country was facilitated by a decrease in the availability of air traffic due to the closure of airports in the southern regions of Russia in 2022.

According to experts, a serious decline in passenger traffic in the field of water transport in 2019-2022. Participants in this market were included in the list of the most affected sectors of the economy and were given the opportunity to take advantage of state support. Thanks to the measures taken, a number of significant projects were implemented. An important event was the first construction of the Mustai Karim river-sea cruise ship at Russian shipyards in the history of the country. In addition, the first passenger ship Chaika, which runs on liquefied natural gas, was launched in Tatarstan in 2022, and a pleasure ship equipped with an electric motor was launched in St. Petersburg, the researchers noted.

According to the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, by the end of 2022, about 1.7 million people were transported on organized excursion and pleasure routes by inland water transport, which exceeds the 2021 figure by more than a third.^[1]

Russia is one of the three countries with the longest coastline

Russia is one of the three countries with the longest coastline, and the sea border of 39.4 thousand km in length is only slightly less than the equator - 40.1 thousand km. The length of inland waterways is almost 101.5 thousand km, according to this indicator, Russia is second only to China (126.6 thousand km).

Russia has transport, providing, commercial and research fleets. For 2022, almost 3.5 thousand sea vessels operate under the Russian flag. For some regions of Siberia and the Far North, water transport is the main way to deliver goods from the "big land."

Notes