NIBULON started regular passenger trips in spring, but more than 20,000 persons have enjoyed trips by legendary “rockets”.
In particular, we have transported more than 10,000 passengers due to regular passenger trips, more than 8,000 of them to the Kinburn Spit. The Kinburn Spit has always been considered a hard-to-reach tourist route. Many people have visited this unique natural reserve this summer for the first time. It was impossible earlier (few would like to start their vacation by getting there with the help of not reliable watercrafts that stop at a distance of a few tens of meters from the shore, and then you are waist-deep in icy water). It is much better to get there comfortably by a high-speed hydrofoil. As in childhood. To a specially equipped berth. 
“I want to thank NIBULON for the fact that now Mykolaiv citizens can swim in clean sea water on the bank of Kinburn”, told Vitalii, who visited the Kinburn Spit with his family on Tuesday for the first time. “We have always dreamt to come there, but the way to get to the Spit has always been uncomfortable. Rest should be good in terms of comfort and quality, so we are grateful to NIBULON for this opportunity”. 
20,000 persons include charitable trips for children along the Dnipro River, trips for ATO participants, public activists, volunteers, human rights activists, and others. NIBULON performs these trips to attract attention to the problems of river industry and popularize passenger transportation in Kyiv, Kaniv, Kremenchuk, Cherkasy, and other cities of Ukraine.
NIBULON renewed the fashion for water transportation. Water transport again becomes popular and favorite mode of transport among passengers.
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In fact, a new history of river transportation in Ukraine was started a year ago, but no one noticed this.
The beginning of 2016. General Director of NIBULON declared of his intentions to revive passenger navigation along Ukrainian rivers. Someone was sceptical about his plans, but most people concerned about economic problems and war ignored this news. Despite this, NIBULON did not abandon its plans…
Time passes. NIBULON’s specialists began to study and analyze the possibility of organizing regular passenger transportation by water in Ukraine. In autumn, passenger hydrofoils NIBULON-Express of Voskhod type under the Ukrainian flag (“rockets”) were added to NIBULON’s fleet. The hydrofoils were built to the order of the Netherlands. The date to start regular passenger transportation has been already known – spring 2017.
Meanwhile, while everyone waited for the official start of regular trips, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy had decided to make a great gift to Mykolaiv residents who were discussing the possible appearance of legendary hydrofoils on the Ukrainian rivers: two days of free trips on board of new passenger vessels along the Southern Buh River.   On November 19-20, 2016, NIBULON arranged a real holiday for its hometown: tasty food, entertainment program with professional entertainers, keepsakes, opportunity to visit other vessels of the company’s cargo fleet, namely Kremenchutskyi tug that was built at NIBULON shipbuilding and repair yard last year and a non-self-propelled vessel. More than 2,000 persons came to enjoy trips by legendary hydrofoils. The vessels had been leaving the berth of the river station at half-hour intervals since 10:00 a.m. They performed more than 20 trips in 2 days.
On the eve, NIBULON Express vessel performed its first trip with Head of Mykolaiv Regional State Administration Oleksii Savchenko, Mykolaiv mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych, Head of Mykolaiv Regional Council Viktoriia Moskalenko, Cherkasy mayor Anatolii Bondarenko, Voznesensk mayor Vitalii Lukov, and Nova Odesa mayor Oleksandr Poliakov on board.
May 2017. NIBULON started passenger transportation by water. It was one of the most long-awaited events of the spring. Residents of Voznesensk town were the first passengers of a new mode of transport to Mykolaiv. On May 13, NIBULON started regular passenger transportation by the route Voznesensk – Kovalivka – Nova Odesa – Mykolaiv with the participation of the town mayor Vitalii Lukov who had done everything to organize passenger transportation along the Southern Buh River to Mykolaiv.  On June 6, Head of Mykolaiv Regioal Administration Oleksii Savchenko and Oleksiy Vadaturskyy presented tickets for a trip to Voznesensk to children whose parents are protecting Ukraine in the ATO zone.  
The start of regular passenger transportation by river in Kherson was not less solemn. The Head of Kherson Regional State Administration Andrii Hordieiev and Head of Kherson City Council Volodymyr Mykolaienko hospitably welcomed the passengers. They personally dealt with the problem of organizing passenger transportation and proper berth.
On June 13, the first hydrofoil reached the Kinburn Spit. Thus, two regions – Mykolaiv region and Kherson region – announced the beginning of regular passenger trips of hydrofoils to the unique strip of land between the sea and the estuary.
Frankly speaking, this process has been delayed because of time-consuming agreements with state authorities, as well as the need to provide proper berth, dominance of illegal carriers, as safety of passengers has always been important for us. We are grateful to those who contributed to the implementation of this project, who treated this NIBULON´s social initiative to revive passenger transportation by water with understanding and responsibility.
By the way, despite repeated appeals of Head of Mykolaiv Regional State Administration and NIBULON’s General Director to SE Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority, our passenger vessel can’t enter the port station in Ochakiv town because of lack of certified and properly equipped berths (!). This happens in a European country in the twenty-first century.
Having started reviving passenger transportation, our company had assumed additional financial burden. Despite the fact that this project is a manifestation of NIBULON’s social responsibility, which does not contain profit, NIBULON’s specialists built and installed a special floating berth for passenger hydrofoils mooring worth UAH 5 million to arrange proper berth at the Kinburn Spit. This structure has all the necessary approvals and makes it possible not to disturb the ecosystem and preserve the biodiversity of the Biloberezhzhia Sviatoslava National Park, as well as allows creating comfortable conditions for passengers.
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The high-speed passenger vessels, that are ordinary things in Europe, have become a real miracle for Ukrainians and the most long-awaited event of the spring.
These are emotions, and what’s in reality? 20,000 passengers are equal to 400 busses that were removed from the roads of national significance. Or 2,000 fixed-run taxis. Our company plans to transport 25,000 passengers in 2017.  
We are doing very important things for the entire Ukraine. Passenger transportation is a new industry for NIBULON; it is not our main activity but rather a social project, and together we are learning and doing them better. We try to take into account the overwhelming majority of your comments, implementing changes to the timetable of the current routes, traffic schedules, ticket booking system, and service. We want to be better and call on our passengers to do so. After all, comfort and positive emotions from trips depend on each passenger. Water transport is not a place for drinking alcoholic beverages, drunk disputes, loud conversations. Please respect each other!
The single attempts to discredit our initiative and NIBULON as a whole by spreading negative rumors do not scare us. We will not get out of the way of development of water transport in Ukraine and the introduction of legal and civilized passenger transportation to the magical nooks of our country!
To this end, our company is carrying out a full-scale reconstruction of NIBULON shipbuilding and repair yard to place two production lines in its territory – for the passenger and specialized fleet, as well as for merchant ships. The company intends to produce its own new passenger hydrofoils and small passenger vessels to develop water transport between the localities on the Dnipro River, as well as between the major Ukrainian cities on the Black Sea coast. And we will do it!
What do we need from you? Friendly attitude to the idea of NIBULON to revive water passenger transportation in the difficult period of the Ukrainian economic development.
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And finally. Families come to perform passenger trips by NIBULON Express vessels – several generations of Ukrainians: those who still remember when water passenger transportation was regular, and those for whom it was a dream from childhood that finally came true today thanks to NIBULON. We have received a lot of positive feedback, wishes, and suggestions in this short period of time.
Reviews of heads of regions and cities/towns of Ukraine:
“I am grateful to NIBULON and especially to Hero of Ukraine Oleksiy Vadaturskyy. This is a real patriot and a person with a capital l. He found both investments and a solution in his heart. And that’s why today we are opening this unique interregional tourist route. We provide access to the Mykolaiv and Kherson Maldives – to the Kinburn Spit”.
“Kherson region is being revived, river transportation is being revived, and I am grateful to NIBULON, which fixed the fare at the level of road transport because of its social initiative. This is purely NIBULON’s social initiative in order to draw attention of all Ukraine to the problem of the lack of river transportation”,
Head of Kherson Regional State Administration Andrii Hordieiev
“We organized one more route. The first trip started by NIBULON was to Voznesensk, today we see another vessel that will transfer people to the Kinburn Spit, which is the natural and historical heritage of Mykolaiv region. I want to note that the renewal of inland water transport should be a priority in the development of our region. I also hope that people’s deputies will support the draft laws that will allow developing the river fleet and building it; this is an extremely important issue today”.
“I would like to thank NIBULON because, firstly, the renewal of passenger transportation by rivers is a real event, an improvement for people and, secondly, it is a company that always supports the needs of citizens”.
“NIBULON is an outstanding example of the fact that the state should have its own fleet. I hope that using this example the state will find opportunities, overcome the obstacles, and begin to restore shipbuilding in Ukraine. I am grateful to NIBULON for traditions revival. I am confident that soon the vessels built by NIBULON will become a basis of Ukrainian navigation”.
Head of Mykolaiv Regional State Administration Oleksii Savchenko
“I am very grateful to NIBULON for the fact that the company has set revival of river as its goal¨.
Mykolaiv mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych
“I thank NIBULON, I thank those people, Voznesensk residents, who responded to our appeal, to appeal of the executive community to help with the berth construction and restoration. This is very difficult job and it is not cheap. We still need to prepare documents to approve everything we have created. But there is the beginning, there is hope, and we deserve to turn that hope into a good thing and fix it in our town forever”. 
“… This is the return of the lost. For many people, this is positive experience we unfortunately lack, and we, as local authorities, as a responsible business, should support”.
Voznesensk mayor Vitalii Lukov
 This is only a small part of the huge number of articles in the media about the revival of river passenger transportation by NIBULON:
Prestupnosti.Net, November 16, 2016
Ukrainian News, November 17, 2016
KHERSON.city, November 27, 2016
Porty Ukrainy (Ports of Ukraine), November 29, 2016
Kakhovskie Novosti, May 1, 2017
NikVesti, May 11, 2017
Korabelov.INFO, May 11, 2017
Novosti N, May 11, 2017
FAKTY.ICTV, May 12, 2017
Fakty y kommentarii, May 12, 2017
0512.com.ua, May 12, 2017
Voznesensk online, May 12, 2017
SVIDOK INFO, May 13, 2017
Kherson Online, May 14, 2017
National Industrial Portal, May 16, 2017
Nikolaevskie novosti, No. 59 of May, 17, 2017
Yuzhnaya Pravda, No. 54 of May 18, 2017
Vecherniy Nikolaev, No. 55 of May 20, 2017
Vecherniy Nikolaev, No. 67 of June 20, 2017
Inshe.tv, June 12, 2017
Shipovnik.ua, June 13, 2017
NikLife, June 13, 2017
Khersonski fakty, June 13, 2017
Moy Gorod (My City), June 14, 2017
Visti Prydniprovia, June 19, 2017
Visnyk Kremenchuka, June 19, 2017
Ridne Prybuzhzhia, No. 25 of June 22, 2017
Tavriyskie Vesti, July 1, 2017
Economichna Pravda, July 3, 2017
BusinessCenzor, July 3, 2017
Nikolaevskie Novosti, No. 80 of July 5, 2017
Ridne Prybuzhzhia, No. 27 of July 6, 2017
Dnepr Chas, July 7, 2017
We would remind you that you can call (050) 394 74 83 (from 08:00 a.m. till 08:00 p.m. without days off) or send e-mail request to passflot@nibulon.com.ua in order to get detailed information on time, place, opportunity to book a ticket, and the fare.
You can find all the information about passenger transportation on the company’s official website www.nibulon.com in section Passenger Transportation.
NIBULON also asks everyone to express their opinion on the trips organization or on any other issues. Every opinion is important for us. Please help us to make passenger transportation more accessible and convenient for you. We ask you to leave your suggestions and feedback on NIBULON’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nibulonltd