Cruiser to leave Odessa after 6-day delay that caused scandal 

ODESSA, Jun 11, 2001 
The scandal involving the cruiser Assedo detained in Ukraine has been resolved. 

The ship, the strange name of which means Odessa if read backwards, will leave the port at about midnight on Monday and head for Barcelona, port officials told Itar-Tass. 

The cruise has been reduced and instead of four European countries -- Greece, Italy, France and Spain -- it will include only the latter. About 50 Russian tourists left Ukraine having lost all hope. 

The Assedo with 600 passengers on board, almost half of whom are Russians, stayed in Odessa for almost a week. Each had paid 2,000 to 3,500 U.S. dollars for the trip. Because of the delay, which remained unexplained by officials from the tourist firm Metropolis-Tur that had arranged the cruise, the people had to live in a hostel without conveniences and pay for food. The Russian tourists turned to the Russian consulate general in Odessa for help. 

The ship was previously called Shota Rustaveli and belonged to the Ukrainian Black Sea shipping line. It was "hidden" from the shipping line's foreign creditors at the shipyard in Ilyachovsk. It changed hands several times and now it is owned by a firm called Marchvin registered in an off-shore zone. The ship was repainted and cruise organisers launched a large-scale advertising campaign in CIS states in order to attract tourists. Six hundred people took the bait. 

Assedo Captain Valery Dobranov explained the reasons for the delay just shortly before leaving Odessa: bad weather and a large number of days off in Ukraine which made it impossible to finish maintenance on time. Now it will continue at sea. 


By Galina Nekrasova