The ferry line was established in 1954, on the site of the former
Kerch railway bridge. From 1993 to 2004 railroad transportation was suspended due to replacement of aged train-ferries. Since the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was administered by
Russia and
Ukraine through the joint venture “Crimea-Kuban Crossing”. In 1998, this company was reorganized into a Ukrainian state-owned enterprise, "Kerch Strait ferry line". On 17 March 2014, during the
Russian annexation of Crimea, the company was nationalised by the
Republic of Crimea, and had been since administered by Russia only. The use of the ferry rose sharply after the annexation, and in June 2015, the ferry operator considered a daily passenger count of 11,000 normal. The 2018 opening of the road section of the new
Crimean Bridge, crossing the strait about 10 km further south, greatly reduced demand for the ferry. In November 2019, it was announced that passenger and freight ferries had ceased operation, as the service was not breaking even. While occasional ferries were still used for rail freight transportation, the opening of the rail bridge across the strait overtook that last remaining traffic, and at the end of September 2020 the ferry operator AnRussTrans ceased operating the rail ferry line, with the last sailing taking place on 28 September 2020. AnRussTrans had also kept the
Nikolay Aksenenko passenger ferry on stand-by until then. On 8 October 2022, following the
Crimean Bridge explosion, Russia restarted operation of the ferry line using the
Kerch-2 ferry. ==Gallery==