Ecology & Geography

Crimea has all european climate zones. There are more than 2.400 plant species in Crimea, out of which 200 are only in Crimea. Crimea has 22 reservoirs, 1000 ponds, 300 wells and 300 sources.

GEOECOLOG

Fuel leaks and other polluting effects of Russian ships plague some sectors of Crimea's waters.

Crimeas coasts are 1.000 km long. Distance from north to south is 205 km long, from west to east 305 km.

Crimeas geography divides the island into three parts - tropic Southwest mountainous Southern and steppe mid and Northern Crimea

Tatar and Offical names : Akmecet (Cernomorskiy) Akmescit (Simferopol) Akseyh (Razdolniy) Akyar (Sevastopol) Cankoy (Dzankoy) Curci (Pervoye May) Eski Kirim (Stariy Krym) Gezlev (Yevpatoriya) Icki (Sovietskiy) Islamterek (Kirov) Kapsihor (Morskaya) Karasubazar (Belogorsk) Kefe (Feodosiya) Kiziltas (Krasnokamensk) Mescit (Chernomorskoye) Seyitler (Nizhnegorskiy) Yediykuyu (Leninskiy)

A General Assembly of Crimean Tatar residents of the village of Gavr (Plotinnoye) took place on April 08, 2000. The Assembly adopted an important decision: within a month a local referendum (general assembly of all inhabitants of the village) to be held to decide to restore the Crimean Tatar name of this village. Note: the decision of this referendum should then be formally approved by the government bodies of Crimea. There are precedents of such referendums: the village of Tanino (in translation it means "Belonging to Tanya" (Tanya is a Russian female name) of Pervomaysky district was renamed into Saribash, as it was called before the deportation in 1944.

Tourism

Der noch in den 80er Jahre populäre Billigtourismus für Ausländer, vor allem aus Deutschland, ist fast völlig zum Erliegen gekommen.
During the May holidays in 2014 there were no tourist in Crimea. The train ride is too long (18 hrs) and not as safe and comfortable.

BRAMA Travel to and in Ukraine

Rest in Crimea

Tour Crimea

Krim: Radtour auf der Halbinsel am Schwarzen Meer

In dem grossen Waldgebiet zwischen Bachtschissarai und Jalta befindet sich das im tatarischen Stil erbaute bescheidene Jagd- und Sommerschloss von Fürst F. F. Jussupow (krimtatarischen Ursprungs), der im Jahre 1916 in seinem riesigen Petersburger Palast den Günstling der Zarenfamilie Rasputin, ermordet hat. Das Schloss liegt in einer schönen bewaldeten Mulde am Ende des Belbektales in der Mitte des grossen, bis 1945 nur von Tataren bewohnten Dorfes Kokossi, heute Sokolinow. Auch befindet sich im Dorf eine der wenigen Moscheen, die die Vertreibung der Tataren durch Stalin und die Zerstörung der Gotteshäuser überlebt hat. Ein stattlicher Steinbau, aussen mit Steinornamenten verziert, neben dem ein ebenfalls steinernes, reich verziertes Minarett steht. In das Dorf sind in den letzten Jahren viele tatarische Familien aus ihren Verbannungsorten in Mittelasien zurückgekehrt. Dr. Ehrenfried Schütte, München

Crimea Business, Economy, Finance & Infrastructure

There are no business opportunities left in Crimea after the annexation. Crimea is now closed for legitimate business. Investment is banned, cooperation suspended.

Tourism collapsed, unemployment is rising. Prices and taxes are rising and became unaffordable for ordinary citizen. Credit cards are no longer accepted.

While Ukraine enjoys free trade with Europe, Russia has lost trade preferences with America. Important goods can no longer be imported from Europe. Ordinary citizen have to pay higher prices and have lost access to these goods.

Agriculture

A general assembly of Crimean Tatar residents of the village of Teberti (Turgenevka) was held on 09.04.2000 with two questions on the agenda: the situation with land privatisation and upcoming protest actions. There are 863 Crimean Tatar inhabitants of working age in this village, but only 113 of them have the right to get the land plot according to the present legislation. Meanwhile, there are 327 applications submitted by Crimean Tatars to local authorities several months ago. None of them have received any answer, either positive or negative. The assembly decided to hold a picket on April 12nd in front of the County Soviet to protest its attitude towards Crimean Tatar demands.

In contrast, in Bakhchisaray region (where two of the five top executives, Ilmi Umerov and Rustem Chiygoz, in the District State Administration are Crimean Tatars) the regular monthly Mejlis Assembly on April 3rd has decided to reduce the political pressure on the District Administration, since the latter has agreed, after strong lobbying by Mr. Umerov and repeated meeting between local Mejlis and Mr. Tsiganskiy, head of Administration, to work for voluntary redistribution of land by Russian-speaking population to ensure equal and proportional participation of Crimean Tatar community in the land privatization and ownership. According to the preliminary draft decision, Crimean Tatars in Bakhchisaray region should receive as much per capita land as Russian-speakers living on the same territory. 05.04.00

The matter is that nearly 70% of our nation lives in the rural zone. Why haven't they become the members of CAE (Collective Agriculture Enterprise) It's another issue. They were not accepted in some cases, others were looking for job in some other places. The Crimean Tatars did no t settle down in villages just because they wished so. Even engineers did not have enough money to buy an apartment in a city. As a result, if 30% of the Crimean Tatars in Middle Asia lived in the rural zone and 70% lived in the urban zone, then it's vice versa in the Crimea. Now, in accordance with the law, the land is divided among the members of CAE. And we are given the land from the reserve fund. This land is mostly unsuitable for agriculture. Speaking of social explosion, it is yet worth thinking whose dissatisfaction is grounded deeper. It is the business of political figures who have forgotten about the returning nation and have adopted an imperfect law. The peace in the Crimea should no t be based on the violation of the Crimean Tatars' rights. Mustafa Kirimoglu in Komsomolskaya Pravda, 17.03.2000

We divide land: someone gets a plot, and someone, By Leylya Alyadinova, Golos Krima, #12 (331), p.2 Crimea, 17 March 2000 - On 8 May 1995 the President's of Ukraine Decree was adopted. It was "About the order of land division, given to the collective property of agriculture enterprises." So, the whole land had been divided among village dwellers by the end of 1999. However, about 40% of the Crimean Tatars had been living in the Crimea by that time. On 24 May 1999 the head of Ministry Council of the Crimea, Sergey Kunitsin, adopted the Resolution #182. The article 3 of that resolution states "Republic Committee of land reserves has to solve the problem of giving land to the Crimean Tatars living in the rural zone. These land plots have to be of an average plot size of a CAE member." Everything seems to be clear. But in reality, it was much more complicated. The land (about 90%) has already been distributed. Besides, an average plot in different regions was different and varied from 1 hectare up to 18. An example of CAE Urozhaynoye in Simferopol district will show how the Resolution #182 was implemented and how it effected Crimean Tatars. On February 24 they held a meeting, which clearly showed how unfairly the land division was implemented. The population of Urozhaynoye village is 2500. 538 of them have been given land. 700 dwellers of the village are the Crimean Tatars and only 60 of them have got land plots. The Crimea Tatars were forcefully exiled from native lands and worked in kolkhozes of the huge country for 50 years. Having come back to the native land, they have no rights to get land plots just because they are not CAE members. Unsurprisingly, they demand their plots, their land that their fathers and grandfathers have worked up. They demand that the problem of re-division should be reconsidered. But local administration says "No!" and gives no positive ways out. There are some reserve lands left after the land division. But this land is not of the best quality and mostly unsuitable for agriculture.

Cabinet to make land shares available to Crimean Tartars Ukrainian News KYIV, June 6 - The government will distribute shares of land reserves in agricultural lands to ensure Crimea's Tartars are landowners, the Agro-Industrial Complex's (AIC) Vice-Premier Mykhailo Hladiy said at a meeting with regional mass media on June 5. Hladliy explicitly noted that the steps taken to provide land to Crimeas Tartar population would not involved shares that have been previously allotted. According to Deputy Agricultural Policy Minister, Roman Schmidt, Tartars receiving land shares is only a problem in a few districts of Crimea, namely Bakhcheserai, Sevastopol and Alupka. 'We can solve this problem using land reserves,' said Schmidt. This should avoid the possible problems that would arise should land shares that are currently owned simply be re-allotted. The problem of securing Tartars with agricultural land stems from the fact that when agricultural lands were allotted in 1994, the majority of Crimea's Tartar residents did not have Ukrainian citizenship and were not members of collective agricultural enterprises. Thus, they were not eligible to receive certificates for a land parcel. The average land parcel in Crimea is 5.1 hectares in comparison to a nationwide average of 4.3 hectares. According to the Agricultural Policy Ministry's data, 6.2 million Ukrainian citizens currently own certificates for land parcels. KPNews.com 2000

Crimean Tatars Demand Ancestral Lands by Lily Hyde Land distribution is a thorny issue throughout Ukraine, but nowhere more so than in Crimea. Thousands of Crimean Tatars who have returned after decades of Communist-enforced exile are demanding rights to their ancestral land, but Ukrainian laws on land distribution have so far failed to grapple with a potential source of civic unrest. Lily Hyde reports for RFE/RL. Simferopol, Ukraine; 27 April 2000 (RFE/RL) -- In the Crimean villages of Chervonoe red tulips fill the gardens, and peach orchards are blooming. Locals boast that the land here, north of Simferopol, is the best in the peninsula. But Ukraine's latest attempts at land reform are threatening to set the inhabitants of these peaceful villages at loggerheads over the earth they are so proud of. A series of presidential decrees last year, aimed at finally breaking up the collective farm system, allowed land from the farms to be distributed among all former collective members. But the land distribution did not include most of the Crimean Tatars who returned to Crimea at the beginning of the 1990s after years of exile imposed by Stalin. Fewer than one-fifth (16,000) of the 270,000 Tatars were granted membership in the collective farms upon their return, so they were not eligible for land when the farms broke up. Now the rest are demanding that they too be given land plots. Tevfik Shevki is one of the 342 Crimean Tatar adults in Chervonoe who want to receive land. These Tatars are demanding a moratorium on land distribution until a new law is passed that recognizes their claims. "We see that here the starting opportunity for every citizen who lives in Crimea is equal and has to be equal. If we want stability, if we want a guarantee that all will always be alright in Crimea, it means no people living here should be offended. That's our demand, and I think it has to be so in the future." The government's solution is to grant reserved land from the collective farms to deported peoples such as the Tatars, as well as to workers from the social sphere like teachers and police. But the Tatars have many objections to using this land. Mustafa Djemilev, head of the Tatar political organization the Medjlis, explains. "First of all, the reserve land isn't enough to solve this problem, and second, it differs in quality from the land used by the KSP [collective farms]. Third, it's placed a long way from places where people live, so it's hard to work on. And finally, reserve and spare land should stay as spare and reserve, because around 200,000 more Tatars are getting ready to return to their homeland. What should we tell them when they return, that there's nothing for them?" In some regions, the shortage of spare land is particularly acute. Around Simferopol, for example, an average plot of reserve land is less than one hectare. All over Crimea, the average size of plots allotted to collective farm members varies from around five hectares to around 30. Local authorities have had mixed reactions to the Tatar demands. Volodymyr Zakoretsky, head of the Simferopol region administration, says the outcry is just political agitation from the Tatar group Medjlis. The Simferopol council has only received about 100 applications for reserve land, and he says that indicates that ordinary Tatars are not really interested in land. Zakoretsky is opposed to changing the law, saying redistribution would only offend the Russians and Ukrainians who have already received land. "We've already agreed with these people, many have concluded an agreement. In what way should I explain and why should I now explain to them that we have to collect it again and give it to another? Other regions are more sympathetic to Tatar claims to their ancestral land. In Bakhchisarai region, which also has an acute shortage of reserve land, the administration has already worked out a system of re-allocation that would take around 30 percent from existing land plots for redistribution among Tatars. Volodymyr Tsihansky of the Bakhchisarai regional administration said Russian and Ukrainians would agree to this proposal if it were carried out soon. "We've collected people together to talk about it and they aren't against it. Because it's an abstract proposal, we've just given them a theoretical document and in reality the land hasn't been distributed yet. No one has invested his own money or seeds yet, they haven't got them and it's all just a future prospect. Today there's no personal interest in this land and no material investment, no material expenditure for people, so in principle people don't object." Tsihansky has identified a larger problem facing land reform not just in Crimea but all over Ukraine. The argument over who gets what land remains theoretical while individuals have no resources to put into farming. In Bakhchisarai region, all the collective farms have remained intact even after the land distribution, because no one can afford to farm outside the old structure. And until that problem is solved, neither Tatars nor anyone else will be able to reform land use in Ukraine. 27-04-00