Ivan Bunin

Construction and former routes

The Ivan Bunin was built in Boizenburg in 1985 to Project 302, part of a series of four-deck river cruise ships. The vessel was initially named Aleksey Vatchenko. Under that name, it sailed on the Dnieper between Kyiv and Odesa, also visiting Crimea; at the time, its itineraries also included the Black Sea. From July 2001, the ship operated on the route between Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

In May 2007, it began operating under the name Ivan Bunin. From 2007 to 2019, the ship was used for trips with international guests. In 2020, it was initially out of service because of the pandemic and the collapse in inbound tourism. An attempt to offer trips for the Russian domestic market began in autumn 2020 and was discontinued in February 2021 due to low demand. In early 2022, the ship had been moored at the river terminal in Rostov-on-Don for two seasons.

Routes announced for 2022

A timetable published in January 2022 announced trips from late April to mid-October. Routes from Rostov-on-Don to Astrakhan and Volgograd were planned. Stops listed included Starochерkasskaya and Romanovskaya on the Don and the village of Nikolskoye on the Volga.

Fourteen-day repositioning cruises between Rostov-on-Don and Moscow in both directions were planned for May and September. The planned stops included Volgograd, Saratov, Samara, Ulyanovsk, Kazan, Cheboksary, Nizhny Novgorod, Plyos, Kostroma, Yaroslavl and Uglich. The announced route linked the lower Don with cities along the Volga and river stretches farther north, as part of the planned river cruises in Russia and the CIS.

The summer schedule also included fourteen-day trips between Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Stops listed included Uglich, Goritsy, Kizhi, Mandrogi, Konevets, Shlisselburg, Valaam, Svirстрой, Petrozavodsk, Kusino and Myshkin. Shorter, three-day weekend trips from Moscow to Tver and Dubna were planned for August and September. The seasonal schedule linked the Don, the Volga and the waterways between Moscow and Saint Petersburg.