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How to get to Sochi: why we removed these instructionsAIIllustrative image: AI-generated
Editorial Position
Updated:9 min1,737 words

How to get to Sochi: why we removed these instructions

The guides that used to be at this address have been removed. There were three of them: how to get to Sochi, how to rent a car there, and how to reach one of the city's parks. Together they attracted more internal links than any other piece in our Russia section.

We answer the reader's original question directly, but not in the form they expected. There has been no direct air service between the European Union and Russia since February 28, 2022, airports in southern Russia were out of operation for years, and since January 1, 2026, persons from the EU are prohibited from providing services directly related to tourism activities in Russia and from advertising such services. That is why this text does not and will not contain routes, connections, border crossings, or ways to rent a car.

💡 At a glance:

  • why we removed three guides about getting to Sochi and renting a car
  • what happened to air service and to airports in southern Russia
  • which EU regulation makes publishing such guides impossible for us
  • which destinations with direct and predictable routes remain in our materials
  • Last updated: 09/2026

Why we deleted these guides

A transport guide is the most practical genre in travel writing, and at the same time the most fragile. While the connection works, such a text is useful. When the connection ceases to exist, the text turns into a promise the publisher cannot keep, and into a hint about how to circumvent rules that apply to an EU reader.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, and the decisions that changed the region's transport landscape were made in the first days after that date. We did not add a disclaimer paragraph to the old guides. A piece whose entire value lies in a step-by-step description of a route cannot be saved by a disclaimer: either the steps work, or the text should not exist.

There is also a financial side, and it should be stated precisely. The share of oil and gas revenues in Russia's budget has fallen to roughly 22 percent, while the share of non-oil-and-gas revenues, which include taxes from the services and transport sectors, has grown to roughly 78 percent (OSW Centre for Eastern Studies, 09.12.2025). A ticket, a car rental, and fuel are exactly the part of a visitor's spending that falls into this category.

The skies have been closed since February 28, 2022

On February 28, 2022, the EU Council adopted Regulation 2022/334, which prohibited Russian air carriers from landing in, taking off from, or overflying the territory of the European Union; the ban applies to aircraft registered in Russia or controlled by Russian persons and companies, including through code-sharing agreements (EUR-Lex, Regulation 2022/334). On the same day, Russia announced mirror restrictions on the use of its airspace for aircraft from 36 countries, including EU member states, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Leiden Law Blog, overview of aviation sanctions).

This is not "it became harder to fly" and not "prices went up." This is the absence of direct service as a fact, now in its fifth year. Everything published in the "how to get there" genre after February 2022 described workaround routes through third countries, and we will not describe those in any form.

Airports in southern Russia

A separate part of the picture concerns the region itself. Since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, 11 airports in southern and central Russia have suspended operations, among them Krasnodar, Anapa, Rostov-on-Don, Gelendzhik, and the airports of Crimea; the closure was initially presented as temporary, then repeatedly extended (The Moscow Times, 26.04.2024). Partial reopenings began only in 2024 and 2025: Elista in May 2024, Gelendzhik in summer 2025, Krasnodar on September 11, 2025 with a limited schedule (The Moscow Times, 11.09.2025).

The region, meanwhile, remains under regular drone attacks: in May 2026, 13 airports in southern Russia were closed simultaneously (NV, 05.2026). Sochi Airport is part of the same southern restriction zone referred to in these reports. We deliberately make no claims about its current schedule: we have no verifiable source that would allow us to speak about the situation as of today, and guessing in a text on this topic is unacceptable.

A journey that cannot be confirmed in advance is not a tourism question. It is a question of risk, and we will not decide it for the reader.

What this means for you as an EU reader

Item

Status 09/2026

Source

Flights by Russian airlines to the EU

Banned since 28.02.2022 by Regulation 2022/334

EUR-Lex

Flights by EU-country aircraft over Russia

Restricted by Russia's mirror decision for 36 countries since 28.02.2022

Leiden Law Blog

Airports in southern Russia

11 closed since 2022, partial reopenings since 2024, in May 2026 13 closed at the same time

The Moscow Times, NV

Services related to tourism in Russia

Banned by Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033; transition period expired 01.01.2026

EUR-Lex

What exactly the ban covers

Travel agency and tour operator services, guide services, advertising of these services, as well as online booking and ticket sales platforms

Skadden, 11.2025, Fieldfisher

German Foreign Office advisory

"Vor Reisen in die Russische Föderation wird gewarnt"

Auswärtiges Amt

Payment cards

Visa and Mastercard suspended operations on 10.03.2022; EU-issued cards do not work in Russia, including for car rental

The Moscow Times, 06.03.2022

Car rental deserves a separate mention, because the second deleted text was specifically about that. A rental service arranged on the spot is paid for on the spot, and the card people in Germany normally use has not worked there since March 2022. After that come questions of insurance and liability, for which the publisher has no answer that would be safe for the reader. That is why the lists of rental companies and "what to choose" tips were removed entirely.

Where to go instead

The need that brought readers to these texts was for a predictable route to a warm sea. The live sections of the site answer that need: Turkey, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Greece, Cyprus, and for those who want a short trip from Germany, Italy and Croatia. All of these destinations have direct flights, working cards, and consular support.

Our overall position on Russia is outlined in the hub for this section. Thematic neighbors of this text: our position on summer vacations in Sochi and on Sochi hotels by the sea.

Where we stand

We believe the question of "how to get there" has stopped being a travel question, and an honest answer to it is not a route but an explanation. In our assessment, instructions for traveling to a country that is waging a war, with air traffic suspended and an official warning from the German Foreign Office, turn from a reference into a tip, and we do not want to be the ones providing it. We have also decided not to describe the "current state of flights," because any such reference instantly becomes a practical guide.

We write about a state and its policies, not about people based on their passport. There are people in Russia who came out against the war and received prison sentences for it. Our decision not to publish travel guides to Russia is about money, sanctions, and reader safety, not nationality.

Publication date: September 3, 2026. Last updated: September 3, 2026.

⁉️🤔 Frequently asked questions

Do you just not want to write these guides, or is it actually prohibited?

Both, and the second matters more. Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033 of 23.10.2025 prohibits providing services directly related to tourism activities in Russia, and the clarifications include travel agency services, tour operator services, guide services, and advertising of such services. The transition period ended on January 1, 2026.

Can you at least say whether planes are currently flying to Sochi?

No, and that is a deliberate choice. We do not have a verifiable source for the current schedule of a specific airport, and publishing a guess in a text that people read as a reference before a trip is not acceptable. We only include what is confirmed: the scale and timeline of airport closures in southern Russia.

Why was the text about the road to the city park also deleted?

Because it belonged to the same category. It described how to reach a destination inside Russia, which is practical travel information that we no longer publish about any destination in the country.

Can I pay for a car rental with an EU-issued card?

We do not cover payment options and do not offer workarounds. The only thing we state is that Visa and Mastercard cards issued outside Russia have not worked there since March 10, 2022. This was reported by The Moscow Times.

Where do links from the old addresses of these guides lead?

To this page. That way, a reader arriving from search or from an internal link in another article of ours gets an explanation instead of an error page.

In short

Three guides about getting to Sochi and renting a car have been removed in full. EU rules prohibit providing services related to tourism in Russia and advertising them. Destinations with direct access to the sea are listed above.

How you can help

We do not collect money and receive nothing from the links below. These are official websites of organizations working with the consequences of the war:

Sources

Link check date: 03.09.2026.

tourism.com.de Editorial Team
tourism.com.de Editorial TeamTravel editorial team: research, fact-checking, updates→ All publications

A small editorial team writing guides for independent travel. We travel ourselves, but we haven’t been everywhere, so we check prices, opening hours and how to get there against official sources.