Closed Cities

[JayH]

Jay,
   The link you provided is over two years old, and since that time Sevastopol has most definitely NOT become a closed city, nor has Balaklava, a week ago a contingent of Italian entrepreneurs were visiting Balaklava, and tripadvisor.com has reviews of Balaklava by foreigners that were made just a month ago!

Link was included to show it was a concept considered-  at that time( 2014)
Nowhere did I say -or suggest the city was currently closed.

The idea of closing to entire city was mooted by the morons after the invasion as they sort to ingratiate themselves with the Russian hierachy.

I  did NOT say or suggest Balaklava is closed--I did say the submarine base is closed to tourists. Any source you can quote that contradicts  anything I said  is welcome.
btw-- for someone that has questioned the sources I quoted in links-have a look at your source of link in your post.

[calmissile]

Jay,
   The link you provided is over two years old, and since that time Sevastopol has most definitely NOT become a closed city, nor has Balaklava, a week ago a contingent of Italian entrepreneurs were visiting Balaklava, and tripadvisor.com has reviews of Balaklava by foreigners that were made just a month ago!

Krimster,

When we were wanting to visit Balaklava and the Secret Soviet Submarine Base we found many references on the internet to tours of the sub base.  I am not able to find any now.

My wife has an apartment in Yalta that we seem not to be able to sell.  In fact, to transfer and re-register the apartment she learned that she has to physically go to the office of registration in order to make the re-registration.  We are both worried about our safety of physically going to Crimea.

To make matters worse, the apartment manager is having a great difficulty in transferring the rent monies to Ukraine to her mother that needs it for monthly taxes and expenses.  At the last report, there was a change of banks in Crimea whereby all transactions were to Russian banks and no transfers to Ukraine were allowed.

Due to my Aerospace career, I am not about to set my feet on any land controlled by Russia.  I am  also worried about my wife traveling to Crimea to try to recover her investment in her apartment in Yalta.  This is one f*cked up satellite of Russia.

What is really crazy is that some of her girlfriends tell her of extreme high prices of groceries and empty store shelves, but yet they are still supporting Russia.  This is the craziest thing I have experienced in my life!  I guess it shows how a large population can be influenced by propaganda!

It reminds me of the leaflet I got when I visited Balaklava.  Just a few years ago the propaganda in the leaflet indicated that the USA was going to attack Russia with nuclear weapons.

It seems to me that propaganda from whatever source is so powerful over people that ether have no source of independent news, or are too stupid to have any critical thinking skills.

I think the same thing is happening in the USA concerning the 2016 elections with the corrupt mainstream media. 

[krimster2]

JayH,
   TripAdvissor.com has recent posts of tourists visiting the submarine base in Balaklava:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g8737814-d1771462-Reviews-Naval_Museum_Complex_Balaklava-Balaklava.html

CalMissile, I suspect the scarcity of trip reports to Balaklava relates to the greatly reduced number of Western tourists over the past 3 years.
BTW, what did you do in Aerospace?  A LONG time ago I was a subcontractor to Lockheed at Burbank, designing ruggedized Fire Control Systems hardware.  That was my only mil job, I did much better in the civilian marketplace and had MUCH less hassle (polygraph, committee mgt., mil-spec documentation on EVERYTHING, etc.)

[JayH]

   My source  on the base being closed was working as a tourist  guide in Sevastopol-- and did conducted tours of the submarine base.To get accreditation she had to study a lot of the history .She is fluent in English,German,Ukrainian & Russian.Not saying that she was incorrect-it may be that it was closed for her in a professional sense - i dont't know. Despite being substantially of Russian lineage she fled to Kyiv  after a few months of the Russian occupation.
     Of course -- not sure I trust the trip advisors testimonials 100% either.!~!!

For those not familiar with the submarine base and it's place in history-here is a good write up and excellent photos-
http://www.thebohemianblog.com/2014/05/crimea-soviet-sub-base-balaklava-naval-museum-ukraine.html

I would hope no one is tempted to visit while the Russian occupation continues.