Erdogan Refused To Let A Russian Airliner With 600 Passengers Into Istanbul
- 20.11.2025, 16:23
The confrontation between Turkey and Russia is gaining momentum.
More than 600 Russian tourists have been stranded on a cruise ship off the coast of Turkey, RIA Novosti reported. The ship Astoria Grande is not given permission to enter the port of Istanbul after the recent refusal of the Krasnodar region authorities to accept the Turkish ferry Seabridge in Sochi.
According to Mash, residents of the Krasnodar region, Moscow and Leningrad regions are on board the liner. Astoria Grande is Russia's first international cruise liner, making voyages to Turkey, Egypt, Georgia and other countries. The ship is designed for 1,328 passengers. It arrived at Galataport at night and was supposed to start disembarking at 10 a.m., but did not receive permission from Turkish authorities. The liner is forced to anchor.
An earlier similar situation occurred with the Seabridge ferry, which was supposed to be the first cargo-passenger ferry between Trabzon and Sochi in 14 years. Arriving in Sochi on November 8, it was forced to stand in the Black Sea water area for more than two days, waiting for the port's decision, but never received permission to moor. The ferry with 20 passengers was forced to return to Turkey. The governor of Krasnodar region Veniamin Kondratiev explained the refusal by the unpreparedness of the port and city infrastructure of Sochi to receive such vessels. The FSB border department, FSO and Sochi customs said that launching a ferry service between Russia and Turkey under current conditions is technically impossible.
The press service of the Krasnodar region administration said that Seabridge had not received permission in accordance with the requirements of Decree No. 502 on the procedure for foreign vessels entering Russian ports. At the same time, according to the director of SVS Shipping Sergey Turkmenyan, all port services and control authorities have previously approved the voyage, and the line "Sochi - Trabzon - Sochi" is officially registered by the Russian Ministry of Transport and has the status of regular until the end of 2027.