A group of writers planned to go on a cruise along the Volga River. The organizers collected money from the participants and handed it over to a tourist company. After that, the company disappeared, and its employees stopped answering calls.
Writers were left without a cruise. The organizing company sailed away with the money.
Participants of the annual regional writers’ festival turned to Business FM. This year, they were left without an event: they paid 1.2 million rubles to LLC “River Cruises”, but it stopped responding, did not provide a ship, and has no intention of refunding any money. Furthermore, it turned out that the company, continuing to sell domestic tours, has been a defendant in hundreds of lawsuits for millions of rubles for not providing services in exchange for payments received.
As explained by Business FM, the poet, prose writer, and critic Andrei Shcherbak-Zhukov, the festival was supposed to take place from April 26 to 28. On board the chartered ship “Bashkortostan”, 85 writers were supposed to gather and set off from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan with an enlightening mission, organizing lectures and master classes along the way. In Kazan, they were scheduled to perform at the Vasiliy Aksenov museum. However, when the passengers arrived at the pier in Nizhny, there was no ship. And the trip organizer, LLC “River Cruises,” also known as “Volga Line,” stopped responding, says Shcherbak-Zhukov.
Andrei Shcherbak-Zhukov poet, prose writer, and critic —
According to the SPARK database, the CEO and founder of LLC “River Cruises” with a statutory capital of 10 thousand rubles, Olga Steksova, is also the head and founder of four other tour companies in Moscow (including “Volga Line,” “Volga Tour,” and “Volga Tour-M”) and one in Bashkortostan. All companies engage in subletting ships, and they are all defendants in numerous lawsuits for failure to provide paid services. Even Rospotrebnadzor has sued them multiple times, defending deceived tourists.
As reported by the portal “Tourdom,” “Volga Line” is listed in the tour operator registry as LLC “River Cruises.” The insurance coverage is 500 thousand rubles. Taking into account that Steksova’s companies have a total of 350 legal proceedings, and the total debt is around 16 million rubles, each plaintiff will be able to receive only about 1400 rubles from the tour operator at best.
For years, there have been numerous complaints online about the tour products offered by Steksova’s companies. The first scheme: tourists prepay for a cruise, then the trip is canceled, money is not refunded, and the company stops responding. The second scheme: they reschedule the cruise for different dates with an additional payment, then it reverts to the first scheme. “Izvestia” wrote about the latest mass cancellations in mid-May.
Writers managed to organize annual cruise festivals three times since 2018 with “Volga Tour.” The fourth cruise festival collapsed. The festival organizer, poet Irina Kulagina, says they have contracts and payment confirmations in hand.
Irina Kulagina festival organizer, poet
Business FM radio station spoke with one of the managers of “River Cruises.” When asked why the company is not refunding the money, the employee stated that she knows nothing about such cases, the company has not been operating since mid-May, and the team of ten people has also been unpaid for the last two months.
Neither ordinary citizens nor bailiffs can locate the management of the tour company. According to the SPARK database for enforcement proceedings notes: “Returned. Unable to determine the location of the debtor or their assets.”
This entire story may interest the Ministry of Economic Development, which oversees the domestic tourist market. In addition to the arbitration story with the festival, a criminal element may be added. Georgy Mokhov, vice-president of the Russian Union of Travel Industry and founder of the legal agency “Persona Grata,” continues.
Georgy Mokhov vice-president of the Russian Union of Travel Industry, founder of the legal agency “Persona Grata”
The writers have already turned to the police and the court.