Hurghada, El Gouna and Soma Bay, Three Faces of Egypt's Red Sea

Novinite is publishing brief sketches on Hurghada, Soma Bay and El Gouna - three places a group of journalists, including two members of Novinite team, visited at the invitation of Egypt's Ministry of Tourism in mid-June.

Far from being travel accounts or full descriptions of places, these reflect mostly scattered impressions which are somewhere complemented with photos (but even where the photos don't fit in, they look just fine). 

Hurghada, an Egyptian city that is nowadays the hearth of Red Sea tourist life and administration, bubbled over the course of two decades from a tiny fishing village into a major tourist center receiving hundreds of thousands of guests every year - and for the adjacent areas the number is about 4 million. Multi-language shop signs and vendors greet all the guests and passers-by (we are rather Type 2). International visitors mingle with locals as we enter the Coptic Orthodox Church on our way to the downtown. Some of us join the last row of faithful at the late-night service - everybody can do this - and all of a sudden notice that we, all men, are standing on the women's side, right of the aisle; the men are on the left.

Later on while we are traveling in our bus, a Red Sea almanach shows some of the articles and advertorials are translated into German along with the English version, others are only in German; and a vast number come in Russian. The influx of tens of thousands of residents who have so far come from that country prompts a local to say that "Russians are like Egyptians here" - and also that their language has turned out quite easy to learn for the local population. An incredible colony of Russians who have shops, hotels and restaurants, but also dance schools, has been (and is still...