Some of my travels in Crimea this August, where everyone I spoke with supported the 2014 referendum to join Russia, or as they said: return to Russia. Beautiful peninsula, visit if you can!
My article on traveling around Crimea, and what the people I was meeting had to say on life pre & post referendum was published at Mint Press News.
Crimeans gather with Russian national and Crimea flags in Sevastopol, Crimea, March 14, 2018. Alexander Zemlianichenko | AP
Eva Bartlett traveled to Crimea to see firsthand out how Crimeans have fared since 2014 when their country reunited with Russia, and what the referendum was really like.
October 9, 2019, Mint Press News
SIMFEROPOL, CRIMEA — In early August I traveled to Russia for the first time, partly out of interest in seeing some of the vast country with a tourist’s eyes, partly to do some journalism in the region. It also transpired that while in Moscow I was able to interview Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman of the Foreign Ministry.
In Simferopol, Crimea, in August, I met with Yuri Gempel, a Member of Parliament, and the Chairman of the Standard Commission on Inter-Ethnic Relations of the Parliament of Crimea.
Excerpt from our conversation:
“Crimea, under Ukraine, was robbed,” Gempel says. “Everything was taken by the government and representatives of the ruling elite of Ukraine. For the 23 years Crimea was a part of Ukraine, they robbed Crimea. Not a single kindergarten was built in Crimea during those years. Kindergartens built during Soviet times stopped functioning.
Ukraine has filed a problematic complaint through the European Court of Human Rights against Russia, alleging violations of the human rights of both individual citizens, and violations against the Crimean Tatar minority on the whole. But how they’ve gone about it, may require the commission to determine – whether overtly or de facto – whether Russia’s control over Crimea is illegal. This raises serious questions about the admissibility of the claims themselves, and create a procedural headache for the ECHR.
In early August India deployed 38,000 troops in Indian-administered Kashmir to join the half-million already there.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova weighs in on Syria, Crimea, the Moscow protests and more.
September 12, 2019, MintPress News
I have a lot to update on from various areas of Russia over the past few weeks, but have been working hard on a special project that takes priority over all my other work and over even simple updates (and which unfortunately two days ago I had to re-start from the beginning when my project and backup project inexplicably failed).
Yesterday was one of the few exceptions to me taking time from that project to post an update, because it’s just too lovely to not post while still buzzing from the happiness of the encounters I had in Crimea today, again.
Submitted by George Callaghan…
No reasonable person would dispute Crimea solely and rightfully belongs to Russia. The Crimean Peninsula has formed an integral part of the Russian national territory for centuries. Crimea is Russian by ties of history, geography, economics, cultural, language, blood and sympathy. Now the Kerch Strait Bridge connects Crimea to the major portion of the Russian Federation.
