Vodohod kicks off this year's cruise season on April 29

Vodohod, Russia's largest cruise company, will open the 2016 cruise season with the sailing of the four deck "Semyon Budyonny" on the weekend cruise Samara - Kazan – Samara, the industry resource "Russian Navigation" (IAA PortNews, http://rus-shipping.ru/ru/) reported.

For the 2016 season the company offers new scenic itineraries and new stopovers in Vesyegonsk, Sarapul, Koprino, Medvezhegonske and Tetyushi.

Cruise operators expect in 2016 a surge in demand for tourist travels in Russia. Companies opened reservations on this cruise season sailings in July 2015. Currently, reservations on the summer cruises exceed last year's figures by about a third.

Moscow headquartered Vodohod (2004, part of VBTH, a shipping division of UCL Holding) with offices in St. Petersuburg, Samara, Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod is Russia's largest cruise company. The river cruise operator's fleet (jointly with Volga Flot Tour) includes more than 50 passenger ships that carry an average of 200,000 passengers in a cruise season (May-Oct.). Vodohod offers several river cruises along the Volga, Don, Kama, the Moscow and Volga Don canals, the Volga-Baltic waterway, on North-Western rivers, Ladoga and Onega lakes. In 2015 Vodohod transported 460,000 tourists, 95,000 of them by cruise vessels and over 360,000 people by small leisure high speed boats.