Early last spring, pro-Russian crowds in Ukrainian Crimea gathered and demanded that the authorities hold a popular referendum on whether the peninsula should join the Russian Federation. The irony is that, back in Russia, neither such gatherings nor a referendum would be allowed. When the vote actually did take place on March 16, the headline that best captured the moment was from the
Onion: “Crimean Voters Excited To Exercise Democracy For Last Time.”
The farcical referendum was held at gunpoint. Armed men clad in familiar but unmarked uniforms presided. There was no bloodshed, but free it was not. As the results were announced, many of Crimea’s 2.5 million citizens were in tears: some of joy, as they draped themselves in Russian flags and joined in a rendition of the once-Soviet-now-Russian anthem, others of humiliation at being handed over like serfs to a new master -- Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Before the vote, Crimean social media had been a battleground between those defending and decrying Russia. But once annexation was a fait accompli, the adversaries retreated to their respective barracks in a huge wave of Facebook “unfriendings” (the verb in Russian is
odfriendlit). Then, those Crimeans who were most opposed to the occupation -- Ukrainians, Tatars, and even some Russians -- left. They went to Kiev or abroad. Others, especially the intelligentsia, chose “internal emigration.” That is, they abandoned their formerly comfortable state-sponsored positions to take odd jobs just to survive.
These Crimeans are joining a Russian nation that, by all accounts, was happy about the annexation; according to one
public opinion poll, only eight percent of those questioned in Russia were against the annexation of Crimea. But, as is usual in Russia, the polls don’t reveal the whole truth. In
Snob, a respected Russian online magazine, war reporter Arkadiy Babchenko
published a satirical piece that is very openly critical of the state of human rights in Russia entitled “Welcome, Crimea.” Babchenko listed for the new citizens all the things that are forbidden in their new homeland, including the “unsanctioned gatherings of five or more persons,” “resistance to unlawful arrest,” “self-determination of nations,” “the TV channel Dozhd,” “promotion of homosexuality,” or “concerts of Madonna.” The counter on the
Snob website suggests that the article had over half a million visitors and it seems to have gone viral on Facebook, too.
In other words, Crimeans have been snatched from an open, although unruly and rotten, system into a closed state that has imperial ambitions and oppresses its own citizens -- no wonder they are more disillusioned with their new country by the day.
RUSSIAN SNAFUS
A series of paradoxes, problems, and outright persecution, has turned life in a formerly popular vacation spot by the sea into a Kafkaesque nightmare. Since Crimea is geographically attached to Ukraine and separated from Russia by a sea, the region is still largely dependent on Ukraine for almost all basic supplies, including water, produce, meat, and electricity. (The lone exception is petrol, which is brought directly from Russia by tankers to the port of Feodosiya.) Already, disputes over unpaid pump bills have led Ukraine to tamp down on the flow of water from the Dnieper River to Crimea. With no irrigation, Crimea’s rice-growing season has been lost. Kiev has also restricted its electricity supply to Crimea, partly because it is having energy problems of its own after Russia cut back gas supplies to Ukraine. Further, as of this month, Ukraine
demands “export documents,” for any goods traveling between Ukraine and Crimea. That, of course, has made trade much more tedious.
Difficulties mean increase in prices, necessary to offset bribes and lost time. Back in June, when the currency in Crimea was changed from Ukrainian hryvnia to Russian ruble, the price of food jumped by about 50 percent. Today, cheese and fish are twice as expensive as they used to be. Beer and vodka are three times as expensive, a potentially explosive fact in any part of the former Soviet Union. For some people, the price hike was compensated by an increase in retirement pensions; physicians, teachers, and military personnel are getting higher salaries, too. But the purchasing power of most Crimeans has fallen substantially.
It is doubtful that Russia will be able to solve Crimea’s consumer problems. Importing anything to the peninsula from Russia is a geographical challenge. The lone ferry joining Crimea to its new motherland, which runs from an obscure corner of the Russian Caucasus to Kerch, has limited capacity. It accepts passenger cars and buses, but not big trucks. Big trucks can try to come through the port of Feodosiya, but the waiting line sometimes takes two weeks to clear -- unacceptable for any fresh food items. Shipping things out is equally complicated, and it is the notorious “samooborona” (literally “self-defense,” a state-sponsored army of thugs) that decides who gets on the ferry. Recently, when a truck with canned fish was not let on a ship, the factory director from Sevastopol argued that his products were eagerly awaited in Moscow, where such goods coming from the West have been restricted. Samooborona told him that the cans could wait.
Ukraine and Russia have done their best to make life miserable for the Crimeans in other ways as well. Car owners, for example, are required to change their license plates from Ukrainian to Russian. The cars will remain on the Ukrainian car registry, though, and should they venture into Ukraine, they may be seized as stolen. Ukraine has also refused to hand over the
cadaster, or its real estate registry. So, Russian homebuyers who want to take advantage of the departure of anti-annexationists to get a nice home on a lovely Crimean beach for cheap must trust that, somewhere down the line, they will sort out the paperwork for their new property. Meanwhile, most transactions are done in
cash anyway, because the 80 banks that used to operate in Ukrainian Crimea have left. The ten or so new ones are small; all of the big outfits are staying away from the peninsula, lest they fall under Western sanctions.
Russia hasn’t made things any easier. When it annexed Crimea, all residents automatically became Russian citizens (unless they chose to opt out, as 3,500
managed to do despite the difficulties at overcrowded offices). Yet Russian authorities were unprepared to issue these new compatriots their passports. As a result, Crimeans were given
passports with an ID code from other parts of the Russian Federation, even though their residence was listed as Crimea. These hybrid passports look fishy and their bearers have already been denied bank credit and visas.
Journalists reporting on these issues put themselves in danger. The
Center for Investigative Journalism lost its equipment when its offices, which it was renting from Black Sea Television (known as Chernomorka), were raided. A few plucky reporters remain on the peninsula trying to work. But when they are not in physical danger -- several have been
beaten and harassed -- their sites
suffer from digital attacks. It isn’t surprising, then, that many journalists left the peninsula when they could.
But paradoxes, problems, and even persecution will not be triggers for Crimean Springs. They create individual problems that will be solved individually. Like the gray and tedious life in the former USSR, everyday bureaucratic struggles will become so overwhelming that any energy needed to revolt will be spent jumping through the hoops that the new Russian authorities put there partly out of incompetence, partly on purpose.
