Crimea

Crimea is a peninsula in the Black Sea with a steppe landscape in the north, center, and east and a mountainous Mediterranean-type landscape in the south; and a meme tied to a peculiar idea of territorial revanchism held by a significant share of the residents of the Russian Federation, fueled by central television.

The Essence of the Phenomenon

Like most regions of the world, Crimea has a complicated ethno-territorial history. From the standpoint of the European Mediterranean, to which the southern coast of Crimea belongs climatically, the peninsula is a periphery. The sea is far less saline than the Mediterranean, winters are colder, the swimming season is shorter, and there are not many monuments of antiquity. But from the standpoint of northern Eurasia, with its cold, sharp climate, its lack of significant natural landmarks in the European part, and its lack of ancient architecture, Crimea forms a peculiar oasis of a warm, seaside way of life, tucked away among monotonous plains with sharp temperature swings.

Krymnash (Crimea Is Ours)

In the very first years of its existence as a separate state, the authorities of the Russian Federation frequently made a habit of extracting preferences from potential American partners in negotiations, explaining the need for these by citing a large number of revanchists among the population and the military, whose pacification supposedly required resources. The introduction of troops without insignia into Crimea, and the hasty organization of a poll-referendum — first on Crimea's independence, then on joining the Russian Federation — immediately after the close of the "uplifting" Sochi Olympics, and using the monopoly over the information agenda held by registered media, gave the authorities the chance to recreate these sentiments. But reselling those who held them to the West — for instance, by securing an agreement to divide spheres of influence with Europe — has not worked out.

A Brief History of the Settlement of Crimea

The specifics of the peninsula's settlement in historically known periods were tied to opportunities for organizing husbandry. The northern and central parts formed a year-round, highly productive pasture for horses, which made these areas a key region of the western part of the Wild Field. The capital of the Scythians stood here, and the migration routes of the continent's mass of nomadic peoples passed through here. The Mongols, too, made active use of the region on their campaigns, moving their armies here for the winter and quickly restoring their combat readiness. Meanwhile, the southern, rocky part of the peninsula (which, properly speaking, was the only part called Taurida in antiquity) held little interest for commanders.

There, low-productivity fishing and livestock-raising dominated, and each valley was for the most part governed on its own. The population there was also mixed, but drawn from peoples with experience of Mediterranean-style husbandry — the Tauri, the Greeks, and later the Italians. These two worlds existed side by side. Crimea became more or less unified with the formation of the Crimean Khanate, the successor state to the realm of the Chinggisids, and thus a rival to Moscow for legitimacy on a par with Kazan. Kefe (present-day Feodosia) answered directly to Istanbul and was a huge, civilized city, far surpassing both Moscow and St. Petersburg in basic urban parameters right up until its conquest by Catherine's Russian Empire.

Curiously, the main complaints that Russian historians often level at the Crimean state prior to the conquest hold little water. The slave trade existed in the region even before the Tatars. The Russian state itself was, in essence, a slaveholding one — it bought and sold its own subjects. Meanwhile, many of the achievements in the region that Russian authorities credit themselves with were in fact accomplished back under the rule of Bakhchysarai. For instance, the line of fortresses in the Caucasus, whose creation is credited to Suvorov, was in fact built, in the Kuban river basin, under khanate rule. The Bakhchysarai regime is quite vividly characterized by facts such as the transformation of the old khan's capital into a city of Crimean Jews, and the willfulness of the Nogai Horde, formally considered part of the khanate but effectively independent — one of the khans was killed by the Nogais simply to demonstrate their independence. Unlike the Moscow authorities, the Bakhchysarai authorities could not "bend anyone to their will" or concentrate whatever resources happened to exist on "their" territories.

After the khanate's "subjugation," Crimea, as one Russian writer noted, did not evolve for the better — a flourishing region with a distinctive architecture turned into a backwater province with all the characteristic traits, including mismanagement. This is not really a matter of Russia as such, but of the fact that the authorities, themselves adapting to the specific north-Eurasian situation, were forced to trade regional independence for conformity of thought, and to trade people motivated toward painstaking labor and attached to their own land for people ready to hand over to the center whatever resources were on hand, in exchange for a sudden career dependent on the monarch's successes.

The situation more or less evened out economically, which fostered inter-ethnic peace under the new conditions.

This balance was not upset by the especially fierce wave of Red Terror that swept the peninsula after the end of the Civil War, since it was clearly not ethnically motivated.

New problems arose as a result of World War II, which showed that an isolated, revanchist, nationalist German empire came close to proving stronger than the Soviet, internationalist version of the Russian empire, despite the resource support of its overseas allies.

Deportation — a characteristic and brutal trick, familiar even to such veteran practitioners of continental imperialism as the ancient Assyrians — was applied to "unreliable" peoples (in practice, those whose national self-consciousness did not fit into the centralist, absolutist constructs of Moscow's power), among whom one of the principal groups was the Crimean Tatars. It amounted to a kind of "total dekulakization," to put it in terms familiar to the Russian population — everyone was stripped of their property, and many of the weak and sick died along the way, among them, naturally, a great many children.

In place of the Tatars, residents of other regions of the RSFSR began to be resettled into Crimea, mainly from Rostov Oblast. Many of them bore characteristically "Ukrainian" surnames but had a Russian self-identity. Evidently, the authorities were hoping for the quickest possible adaptation. But in practice, the economy, after the expulsion of the Tatars, was a failure. The RSFSR's economy, concentrated on building nuclear weapons, lost control over the civilian sphere and fell into the deepest crisis. It was right around this time that Crimea was "reassigned" to the economy of the Ukrainian SSR, which itself was in a difficult position after the war. Nevertheless, even before the bridges over the Dnieper had been rebuilt, the North Crimean Canal had already been built, which made it possible to raise agricultural productivity and substantially increase the peninsula's population.

It is worth noting that at no point in its history did the Ukrainian authorities deliberately resettle people with a Ukrainian self-identity into Crimea.

Later on, other projects were carried out as well, among them a south-coast highway that was decent even by European standards, in places literally cut through the cliffs. All of this was paid for out of the Ukrainian SSR's economy, but was presented as a showcase of Soviet power in general.

It is no surprise that after the collapse of the USSR, many Crimeans, with their characteristic worldview, literally "did not know where to fit in." They perceived the Ukrainian national movement as a kind of provincial masquerade, but their picture of Russia was also illusory — drawn "from the television."

This is what made it possible, in a certain situation, to play the card of a "Eurasian anti-Kosovo."

It is worth noting that both Crimea and the Crimean Tatars belong more to the north-Eurasian community than to the European one — unlike, say, the people of Lviv, or, with some stretch, the people of Kyiv. But the open question is really this: is Moscow's interpretation of this very "Eurasianism" a version that reflects the interests of the people who actually live here? It is clear that, having concentrated power, resources, and information in the usual way, one can go on playing the corresponding role for a long time, with a loyal audience of one's own. But if that role diverges from the actual state of interests, technologies, and relationships, it is headed for yet another failure.

The Story of the Restoration of the Pioneer House in Yalta

The Nizhny Novgorod Oblast will cover 100% of the costs for the design work on the restoration of the Pioneer House building in Yalta, taken on by Nizhny Novgorod Region.

All the design work is being paid for entirely by Nizhny Novgorod Oblast — we are not spending any budget funds. This is a large, substantial undertaking, and I was even afraid to ask what the total was Andrei Rostenko, head of the Yalta city administration

The Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast saw the "highlight of the city" precisely in this cultural center — it really is that beautiful Valery Kamaldinov, member of the Public Chamber of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast

Meanwhile, in Nizhny Novgorod

The Chkalov Children's Creativity Palace is a cultural monument of federal significance, owned by Nizhny Novgorod. Under the law, repair and restoration work on monuments must be carried out by the owners of those facilities. The only way to help the Creativity Palace is to include it on the list of facilities to be reconstructed for the 2018 World Cup. Such recommendations have already been given to the Nizhny Novgorod city administration Press service of the Government of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast