What Does the Trabzon–Sochi Ferry Mean for the Caucasus? By Jade Cemre Erciyes
This article was first published in Jineps Newspaper in Turkish and translated by AbkhazWorld.
In today’s world, speed in transportation is prized above all. You board a plane and reach your destination within a few hours. Yet there was a time when flights were prohibitively expensive, and sea and land routes played an essential role in travel.
For Circassians, journeys across the Black Sea are almost always associated with stories and trauma. In Bagrat Shinkuba’s novel The Last of the Departed, in the story behind the lament “Shish Nane” a woman sings to her dying infant about the homeland they have left behind, hoping no one will notice the child has passed away. But when Turkish fishermen, sensing death, tear the child from her arms and throw him into the sea, the mother leaps after him. Her story has long since become the shared story of all families marked by the Caucasian Exile.
The fact that today scholars describe the Kafkas Sürgünü as genocide is rooted largely in the countless stories of those who died along the Black Sea coasts and in its waters. During a plague outbreak, the Shapsugh region was denied access to medicine; crops were burned, livestock driven away, and the peoples of the Caucasus were left with no option but to abandon their homeland in order to survive. Many Circassians were forced onto overcrowded Ottoman-bound fishing vessels, boats that took on excessive numbers because each additional migrant meant profit for the crews. Most never made it across the Black Sea to Anatolia. Those who fell ill were cast into the sea; others vanished when ships sank, giving rise to the bitter phrase, “For us, the Black Sea has always been truly black.” For this reason, many across both the Caucasus and Anatolia refrain from eating fish caught in the Black Sea. And whenever the Black Sea is mentioned, eyes fill with tears, prayers are whispered for the countless Caucasian lives for whom that sea became a grave.
Perilous Voyages into the Black Sea’s Dark Waters
Even those who travelled to Anatolia by land came to view the Black Sea as the darkest symbol of exile and genocide. But with the fall of the Iron Curtain in the 1990s, the distant, half-mythical Caucasus, known only through ancestral stories, suddenly became a reachable reality, thanks to ships once again crossing the Black Sea.
Boarding the ferry in Trabzon and reaching every corner of the Caucasus via Sochi became possible. Yet this opened a new chapter of travel-related anxiety for Circassians: a journey coloured by tears and fear, shaped by the traumatic memories of the past; the uncertainty that awaited upon arrival; Russian border officers whose stern behaviour felt as though they had stepped straight out of Soviet-era films; and the humiliation of possibly being treated like Russian petty traders engaged in suitcase commerce. The excitement of approaching the distant homeland mingled with all of these concerns.
The ferries became places where Circassians from the homeland and Turkey, who had never met before, found themselves connecting, bonding, and discovering kinship. Suddenly, among strangers, familial ties emerged, partnerships formed, and a shared sense of Circassianness offered both solace and solidarity.
Many stories were born from these sea journeys. When a group of performers from Abkhazia travelled to Turkey for a dance tour, those who held Turkish citizenship discovered only after arrival that the 1994 embargo on Abkhazia had begun, and that they would not be allowed to return. Another group of Abkhazian citizens learned while still on the ship that they would not be permitted to disembark at all. The ongoing embargo on the Republic of Abkhazia added new layers of trauma to maritime travel for all Caucasian peoples. Children born or raised in the homeland, or spouses with no other citizenship, often endured deep fear during Russian inspections aboard cargo ships leaving Abkhazia and again upon entry into Turkey, tossed emotionally by the turmoil of the Black Sea’s waves.
In 1996, tragedy struck once more: the Avrasya ferry, set to depart for Sochi, was hijacked by militants demanding an end to the war in Chechnya. The ordeal ended bloodily and became another painful memory engraved in the collective consciousness of the Caucasian peoples.
Today, the first families who moved back to the homeland fondly recount the days when they waited on benches for the ferry to depart—using humour to highlight how trivial the complaints of newer returnees sound when they grumble about delays at airports.
With the easing and eventual lifting of Russia’s embargo on Abkhazia, the Sochi–Trabzon ferry continued in later years to make life easier for those travelling both to Abkhazia and the wider North Caucasus. It offered an affordable means of transporting goods under economic strain, and for families travelling with vehicles, it became the most practical route. For the diaspora, it brought the homeland closer; for those in the homeland, it made relatives and friends across the sea feel within reach. The ferry stood as a meaningful platform within the ongoing economic, political, and cultural relationship between Turkey and Russia.
My Adventures on the Trabzon–Sochi Route
In 2007, during the year I first settled in Abkhazia, and for several years afterwards, whenever I chose to travel from Trabzon to Sochi, or from Sochi to Istanbul via Trabzon, I set off fully expecting an adventure shaped by all the stories I had heard.
On my first trip, when I learned we would be boarding late, I joined a tour of the Sumela Monastery and enjoyed a small historical excursion. Boarding the ferry later that afternoon, I assumed we would reach Sochi by morning. But a few hours later, we were told that due to a storm, the ferry could not depart, and we remained stranded aboard for four days. Only then did I learn that once you clear customs, you cannot disembark, and I watched how this experience slowly wore everyone down.
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On another journey, as I was disembarking, I failed to realise that a Russian border officer was asking for a bribe (even if I had understood, I would not have paid—and indeed never did in later years). Because of this, I was denied exit from the port. While I stood anxiously waiting to understand what was happening, a stranger approached, asked what was wrong, and helped me out. Later I discovered he was Koble Muammer Canıdemir, who had settled in the Shapsugh region during the 1990s. As with so many of the tales I had been told, I realised I had lived through an encounter worthy of a novel.
Although I eventually stopped travelling by sea due to cheaper and more frequent Istanbul–Sochi flights, the Sochi–Trabzon ferries, running about three times a week at the time, remained the principal mode of transnational mobility for lorry drivers, Russian suitcase traders, the Caucasian diaspora, and visitors from the Caucasus. When an elder in Abkhazia suffered heart complications and doctors forbade him from flying, we communicated with the Russian port for days during a stormy autumn to find the safest possible time to send him by ferry to Trabzon. When I later learned he had undergone surgery in Ankara the day after he disembarked, I wondered, What would we have done without the ferry?
Suspension of Services and Restart After 14 Years: Hope
In 2011, news arrived that the Sochi port would be closed for renovation in preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics. As a result, Trabzon–Sochi ferry services would be suspended for a while. Though the renovation was expected to take two years, rumours circulated that maritime transport across the region might never resume. Freight lorries shifted to the Novorossiysk route or travelled overland via Georgia; suitcase traders continued by air. For the Caucasian diaspora, the homeland had once again slipped further away. Planes were more frightening, more expensive, and departed only from Istanbul, making the journey feel even more distant.
As years went by, each summer brought renewed talk that the ferry service would restart, but each time something prevented it. One year “port conditions” were deemed unsuitable; another year the vessels and operating company were not approved; last year there was an insurance issue. I know the details because I was among the dozens of Circassians who, upon seeing any news about the ferry, would immediately call to ask, “Is it really happening this time?” When announcements appeared this year, many of us expected yet another disappointment—but last weekend, at long last, the first voyage was made. Once again, hope brought the diaspora and the Caucasus a little closer.
The Journey Fails: Ferry Sent Back
Yet the inaugural trip ended in disappointment. After being kept waiting for two and a half days off the coast of Sochi, the ferry was denied entry on the grounds that “the governor had not been informed that passengers would be on board.” The vessel was forced to return to Trabzon. There were 38 passengers on board—18 Russian citizens and 20 others. The company reportedly promised to cover losses and travel expenses, and provided free meals during the additional days spent at sea. But it is hardly convincing that a ferry supposedly granted all necessary permissions was turned back merely due to a “communication error.”
From the four days I once spent stranded at sea, I know that a ship cannot depart without approval from the destination port. It would also be a major risk for the operating company to leave port without all required permissions from both sides. Furthermore, ferry passengers, like airline passengers—are routinely reported in advance to the receiving country, and if there is an issue with any individual’s travel status, boarding can be denied.
Recent reports claim heightened security concerns and state that divers inspected the ferry’s hull. They also indicate that authorities requested permission to evacuate at least the Russian citizens on board, but this too was refused.
So why might Russia reject a service that could open new channels for economic activity with Turkey—one of the few countries not applying sanctions, and strengthen social, cultural, and political ties between the two through increased movement of people? Is Russia opposed to Turkish companies operating the service, even though both Russian and Turkish firms used to run ferries along this route? If that were the case, Russia could simply grant the licence to its preferred operator.
Perhaps the overland route via Georgia and northeastern Caucasus, or freight transport between Samsun and Novorossiysk, currently offers benefits to Georgia, Russia, and the wider Black Sea region that are not immediately visible to us. A 2019 article, for example, lists Samsun as an important commercial port for short-sea shipping within the Eurasian transport network, while making no mention of Trabzon, suggesting the route has lost economic significance.
Novorossiysk’s rise as a key commercial hub also aligns with Sochi’s evolution into a more tourism-oriented city. Since the 2014 Winter Olympics, the Black Sea coast has been promoted as a destination for both summer and winter tourism. Visa-free entry for Russians travelling to Turkey, combined with inexpensive travel options from Sochi, might reduce Sochi’s tourism appeal. Yet given Turkey’s ongoing economic crisis and rising prices, even this may no longer pose a significant threat. On the contrary, with the reinstatement of visa services in Trabzon, there could even be a modest flow of Turkish tourists towards Russia. Still, Russia is likely weighing the ethical and political security risks of such mobility amid the current conflict, and may wish to avoid additional complications.
Whatever the real reasons, still unspoken, waiting for the ferry service to resume has once again become little more than a dream. Yet for Circassians, this cancellation does not represent a rupture that pushes the Caucasus further away. Despite the traumas of the past, the Caucasian diaspora never severed its connection to the homeland, and the peoples of the homeland, now deeply committed to maintaining ties with the diaspora, will continue travelling whenever possible by air or land, if not by sea.
For those unable to travel, photographs and videos shared online, virtual tours, and the growing visibility of everyday life in the Caucasus now reflect the region to us far more vividly than the two- or three-minute homeland panoramas that once brought entire halls to tears when they were shown. The day Russia and Turkey allow the peoples of the Caucasus to live their languages and cultures freely and to access the Caucasus with ease, seeing this not only as a fundamental right for Circassians but as an asset to their own regional influence, those breathtaking Caucasian landscapes will be experienced by many more people indeed.