St. Petersburg as Baltic Cruise Shipping Center

(Source: Visit Petersburg)

On January 24, 2018 St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko and Anton Alikhanov, the Governor of the Kaliningrad region visited the Passenger port of St. Petersburg "Marine Façade," where they were acquainted with Port infrastructure and met with its top management. Issues of passenger and cargo traffic between Passenger Port St. Petersburg and "Pioneer" Port in the Kaliningrad region.

Talk was about the creating cruise shipping center in our city, which is going to unify a complex of the Passenger port of St. Petersburg "Marine Façade" and the “Marine Station”. Earlier, St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin with an initiative to turn St. Petersburg into the port where cruise routes start and end. The idea was supported by the President. St. Petersburg together with Kaliningrad Region should create their own shipping company, subsidiary of Passenger Port. It is a need for project realization. However, city budget expenditure will be minimized. Negotiations with a number of private companies on investments in this prospective project are underway. In less than 10 years project could be paid off.

First half of 2019 is a preliminary launch date of the new shipping company. In 2020, it is planned to open a link to the "Pioneer" Port in the Kaliningrad region, which will become one of the new cruise line points. At this moment, there is a process of port infrastructure modernization. On behalf of the President a new passenger terminal will be built.

All conditions for development of cruise tourism already exist in St. Petersburg. Passenger port of St. Petersburg is the only one specialized port in Russian North-West. It is capable of accepting more than 2 million passengers a year and up to 7 ships and 18 thousand passengers per day. Since its opening in 2008, cruise passenger traffic to St. Petersburg has grown more than twice.