Today, Ukraine’s naval headquarters in Sevastopol was taken. A military truck broke open the gates and women rushed in, screaming hysterically about the greatness of Russia, followed by Russian soldiers. The Ukrainian officers were disarmed, beaten and forced to their knees. One of them was ordered to burn the Ukrainian flag. He refused and was given a good hiding for his pains. The story about a member of a self-defence group being killed turned out to be untrue, but Russian television – which had broken the news about this ‘murder’ yesterday – did not retract it. The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs did, but only domestically. Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed. Ministers Vitaliy Yarema and Ihor Tenyukh took an aeroplane to Crimea, but Aksyonov stated that they would not be allowed to enter.
In Kiev yesterday, the Svoboda Party distinguished itself. Led by the deputy Ihor Myroshnychenko, a group of men stormed the office of the president of NTKU, Ukrainian national television, physically assaulting him and forcing him to write a resignation letter. Russian television channels immediately leapt on this as an example of the acts committed by Kiev’s fascist government.
Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of Pravy Sektor, has filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor against Vladimir Putin, accusing him of a common law crime. Now the Public Prosecutor must register Yarosh’s complaint and issue a summons to the Russian president on charges of aggressive acts towards Ukraine, the murder of Ukrainian soldiers, and violation of the Ukrainian state’s integrity. The day before yesterday, Chubarov asked Parliament to recognise the Crimean Tatars’ right to self-determination. It turns out that Ukraine has still not signed up for the UN’s declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. So not only must they now sign this declaration, but also recognise the Tatars’ right to decide their own future.
I doubt anything will change now, but at least this provides some moral support for those among the Tatars who wish to remain Ukrainian citizens. They too suffered their first victim recently. On 14 March, Rechat Akhmetov, a 38-year-old father of three – including a little girl aged two and a half – was found murdered, his body showing signs of torture. He had taken an active part in rallies demanding that Crimea remain Ukrainian and had been seen for the last time near the military commissariat where he had enrolled as a volunteer in the Ukrainian army.
In the Russian press and in blogs, insults are again being slung at Tatars, who are told to clear off out of Russian Crimea. Almost everywhere, they are described as a treacherous people. All this while most Russians and Ukrainians who go on their summer holidays in Crimea and prefer to stay off the beaten track tend to rent rooms or apartments from Tatars, and to eat in cafes and restaurants run by them. We ourselves, each time we spend our holidays there – whether in Krasovitsky’s dacha near Yevpatoriya or in Simeiz – always eat lunch and dinner at Tatar restaurants, as they are better in every way: cleaner and less expensive.
Last April, the writer Yurko Vynnychuk13 and I stayed a week in Livadiya, in a Soviet-style retreat, to work on a novel together – a novel set in Turkey, Crimea, Kiev and Lviv. It was because of the presence of Crimea in this book that the authorities – in the person of Grigoriy Ioffe, deputy speaker of Crimea’s Parliament – allowed us to stay there for free. When the parliamentary chauffeur, in a white Volga, took Yurko and me to the station in Simferopol, I asked him to find somewhere on the way that sold Tatar samsas, because I wanted Yurko to try some. Usually there are trailers parked along the roadsides, with traditional cylindrical stoves on top, and the Tatars stand close by to sell their hot, delicious pasties, stuffed with minced mutton.
Having not seen a single samsa vendor between Sevastopol and Simferopol, the chauffeur took us out on the Simferopol ring road. We bought five samsas and two bottles of ayran, and we immediately feasted on these delicacies, standing close to the trailer. Then we went off to the station, feeling happy.
Will Yurko and I write that novel one day? I don’t know. But if we do write it, Crimea will be occupied by Russia, so the book’s heroes can expect their adventures to be more dangerous.
For the moment, it is better not to think about those trips. From now on, those Crimean winter holidays will be consigned irretrievably to our family’s past.