Coming up next: Sergey Shargunov's program Twelve, in which we recall the events of 2014 when Crimea reconciled with Russia.
Greetings. I'm Sergey Shargunov, the host of Twelve. Twelve minutes about the matters that concern me. We don't have much time so I'll be frank.
Just think about it, it's been five years.
Today, our entire program is dedicated to the events that I've seen with my own eyes. Crimea wasn't about loyalty versus oppositionism or conformism versus critical thinking. It was something different. It was about honesty, sincerity, and independence. Many friends and buddies from the protest "creative" environment turned away from me back then. I know forward-minded intellectuals who secretly agree with me but are too scared of openly going against the popular agenda. I didn't understand it back then and I still don't understand why one needs to lie and hide their feelings and thoughts.
Crimea is about our people, about our people who were abandoned but still believed, about fate and historic justice, about the dream that I had as a teenager, the dream the Crimeans always had. Nobody thought it would come true. As much as there has been suffering, pain, and disappointment, it still seems unbelievable.
Remember that day? It was the day of critical choices: who do you support? A live broadcast from the Simferopol Square two crowds swirling like a giant whirlpool. Flags against flags, shouts against shouts, brass knuckles against fists. Two Russian people died in that clash but some preferred to ignore it.
Here I am in Crimea in February 2014. Everybody had the same dream that Russia would take them. I browse through my Instagram (запрещена в РФ) photos of those days. Windy dawn, smoking bonfires, logs, and rifles. Frowning cossacks wearing red and black papakhas. Two flags, St. Andrew's and the red one representing the notorious historic dialectics. Because it was taking place in Perekop. A morning in Simferopol. Men armed with silver shields surrounding the SBU building dressed in muted colors with their faces tense and their eyes gleaming due to the lack of sleep.
And then, there was Sevastopol the city where, according to Leo Tolstoy, blood flows faster through the veins. Nakhimov Square filled with people that kept arriving there with their families. A couple of hours ago there was shooting in the sea. The crowd begins shouting a simple slogan interrupting and resuming again a one-word slogan.
"Russia! Russia!"
Various groups of people kept shouting the word as if it was altering the air composition, sky, sea, or weather.
But when did it all begin? It blew up on the day of the Maidan triumph when busses of the Berkut officers hastily arrived in Crimea. They were covered in bruises and smelled like smoke wearing bandages and sooty equipment. The miserable procession was walking across their home square as if teleported from the Kiev fires through a people's corridor. For the first time in their lives, women were giving them flowers. Following their ladies, men began to cry silently. Perhaps it was that minute when they felt the true depth of betrayal.
On the next day, February 23, the Verkhovna Rada demonstratively canceled the language law. In the evening, thousands of Sevastopol residents took the streets. They were tearing down Ukrainian flags and raising the Russian ones. A sweaty official standing on the porch of the Grafskaya Wharf threatened the crowd with jail and quickly fled the scene. Tough guys broke up into tens, lit bonfires, and began patrolling. The Berkuts were everywhere. Clean and upright, they had wrath and desperation in their eyes. It's not about the fact that Russia interfered later and prevented the war. It's about the fact that the protesters didn't know if Russia would interfere but kept repeating the word as a password. They expected to be alone, as always, when Ukraine comes to suppress them. They were preparing to fight Ukraine even though the forces were far from even.
However, it all began much earlier than that. Many ethnicities peacefully coexist in Crimea which is great. God grant that Russians, Tatar, Ukrainians, and Greeks lived in peace. The fact that the population is primarily Russian is not due to the post-war deportation of the Tatar. Check the universally available statistics for 1917, for instance. Russians already were the core of the population back then. In addition, Crimea is Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bunin, Fet, Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova, Voloshin, Shmelyov, Mayakovsky, Mandelstam, and another great poet, a living legend, Alexander Kushner, who wrote this elegant poem without fearing of anyone's curses.
Alexander Kushner, poet: "Of course, Crimea is Russian with waves crashing against rocks, with its blue vastness, and a small mountain laying like a bear under the steep slopes. Of course, Crimea is Russian with a rhymed line, with a sail rising from the waves, and smoke coming from a steamboat".
I'd like to use this occasion to wish the veteran-author Yuri Bondarev happy 95th birthday, wishing him health and happiness. The main element of the insightful, accurate, and colorful prose of Bondarev is the reinterpretation of the Battle of Thermopylae based on his war experience. To survive no matter the cost, to sacrifice one's life even if the cause seems desperate. By the way, Bondarev was an unfaltering and courageous advocate of Crimea's reconciliation with Russia back when discussing this matter was basically prohibited. No, everything began much earlier than five years ago. Those who praise the freedom granted by the Perestroyka seem to forget that the first referendum in the USSR was held in Crimea on
January 20, 1991, the Crimean Parliament It was a vote to transform the Crimean Oblast into the Crimean Republic as part of the USSR and member of the Union treaty. More than 81% of the Crimean citizens took part in the referendum. Almost 94% of them voted positively.
On May 5, 1992, the Crimean Parliament adopted the Act of State Independence of the Republic that was supposed to come into power after being verified at the referendum that was scheduled for August 2. But Kiev interfered and prevented the vote.
However, on January 30, 1994, Crimea elected its president, Yuri Meshkov. The pro-Russian politician quickly became popular. The majority of voters supported his party with a meaningful name "Russia".
"Crimea is becoming independent".
On March 17, 1995, a decision of the Verkhovna Rada and the President of Ukraine canceled the Constitution of the Crimean Republic and abolished the position of the president. The Crimean Constitution Referendum scheduled for June 25 that implied independence was canceled once again. History is a mystical thing: 19 years before Crimea reconciled with Russia there was a coup on the peninsula. Spetsnaz units were deployed. Each floor of the Supreme Council building where the presidential residence was located was captured by machine gunners. That was the true annexation. In the end, Meshkov was banned from Crimea by the Ukrainian authorities.
"I'm addressing all Russian people. Citizens of Russia, don't abandon us. We've never abandoned you and never will".
On February 22, 2006, the Supreme Council of Crimea scheduled the Republican Referendum on the Status of the Russian Language for March 26. The Ukrainian central election committee forbade regional committees in Crimea to hold a vote on this matter. Please, note that all that madness didn't touch the gentle souls of the self-proclaimed Russian and Western humanists. Nobody demanded fair elections in Crimea bringing up democracy and civil rights. There are people whose world view froze under three layers of polish. That world view doesn't include Russians and Russian sympathizers. If they consider the Maidan a good thing and travel to Kiev, it means they're simple thugs for hire and can be shot, beaten up, and put on their knees the way Crimeans were in Belaya Tserkov.
"No to Ukraine!
Yes to the Russian unity!"
The riots in Sevastopol and Simferopol are the lies of the Moscow propaganda a revolt of a bunch of outcasts. But suddenly, our people succeeded.
"Sevastopol!] [Sevastopol!"
Those who keep screaming "annexation" should know that all Western public polls confirm that Crimeans remain committed to the choice they made five years ago. It's their freedom.
I was thinking of who could I discuss those events with. In the end, I decided to talk to the residents of Sevastopol. The residents of the city that has many issues, prices, bureaucracy, and so on talk about their sentiments five years later. Do they still support Russia?
- We always considered ourselves part of Russia which was confirmed at the referendum.
- Sure.
- Definitely. It can't be otherwise.
- There's never been another option for me. It was either come back home or embrace Nazism.
- I would definitely vote the same. The decision wasn't made five years ago but back in 1991 when we took part in the referendum and voted for joining Russia.
- We're Russians and have always been. We'll always be Russians.
- If we had to vote again, I'd be the first one to cast my vote at 6 AM. Sure, absolutely.
- If we hadn't reconciled with Russia, I wouldn't have met my husband. We're glad, thank God for that. We're happy.
- Yes.
- Yes, yes, yes.
- After 24 years of being a Ukrainian region, we're lagging behind. That's why there's a lot of work to do. We're not afraid of difficulties.
Five years flew by like a dream. A dream with a nightmare of Donbas. A dream with a magical bridge connecting the peninsula and the mainland. The entire Crimea is a dream. Forts, grave mounds, caves, palaces, and monasteries. A dream filled with pines, oaks, and palm trees shimmer, splashing, and the cries of gulls over the golden egg of the sunset sea. Crimea with a sand-colored Balaclava Fort the strict midnight chain of the ship fires in Sevastopol. The Koktebel gate-rock that was once painted by Pushkin, the festive pinkish Alexander Nevsky Church, and the Livadia Palace, white as a wedding dress guarded by the stone chimeras.
Is it worth coming here? Yes, it can be hard for both locals and migrants. But the main struggle has passed. It stayed back in 2014. We must visit it as often as possible be here, swim in the sea, make selfies, eat melons, and ride the famous trolleybus, claiming this land and this sea for our country.
Years have passed, but every time I visit Crimea, I feel excited and recall the year of 2014, when nobody was sure about the future. Russia has been and will be our future.
It was Twelve. Our twelve minutes are over. See you later.
