Mejlis leader Mustafa Dzhemilev said Tatars are angered by what they see as attempts by local authorities to obstruct the distribution of land to Tatars. They've created their own government, an illegal body which they call the Mejlis." They don't obey the laws of Ukraine or Crimea.
Not just well, but they want their nation to be above all the others. "Now they have returned here and they don't behave lawfully," Stepanov said. Stepanov echoes the accusations and angry stories that can be heard from ethnic Russians all over the peninsula - that the Tatars will eventually demand their own independent state and will attract Islamic fundamentalism to Crimea. "They wiped out whole families, entire streets of Orthodox Christian people, handed them over to the Germans. "The Crimean Tatars who came from Uzbekistan, they were deported there because during the war they betrayed a lot of Slavs and went over to the German side," Stepanov said. The Cossack leader in the Feodosia region that includes the beach area, Ataman Boris Stepanov, does not disguise his dislike for the Crimean Tatars, repeating Stalin's justification for their original expulsion. The Cossacks are outraged that the authorities in the peninsula's capital, Simferopol, seem to have agreed to Tatar demands this time. Using binoculars, each side warily watches the other.Īround 260,000 Crimean Tatars, survivors of and descendents of those deported by Stalin in his 1944 ethnic cleansing of the peninsula, have returned since Ukrainian independence in 1991.īut the local Russian-ethnic authorities have made it difficult for them to get land on the southern Crimean shores where many traditionally lived. Men loyal to the largest Crimean Tatar group, the Mejlis, have also set up a camp near the beach a half-kilometer from the Cossacks. The Cossacks have vowed to prevent this - by force, if necessary. Authorities say the land will be transferred to Tatars, who want to build a cultural center and resort area there. The potential battleground in this war: this kilometer of pretty beach and numerous hectares behind it. They claim as their opponent the Crimean Tatars, whom they accuse of wanting to grab land or seeking to build an independent Tatar state on the peninsula. These men proudly call themselves Cossacks and believe it is their mission to defend Russian Orthodoxy. It is surrounded by smaller tents for sleeping. The men's uniforms are partly modern, but reminiscent of military style from before the Bolshevik Revolution.Īfter the service, they listen to their officers or grab a bowl of barley kasha from the large tent where they have just prayed, and which also serves as a field kitchen and gathering point.
They listen to a service by a Russian Orthodox priest, Father Vladimir Melnyk, who has come to bless them. There, uniformed men gather at a camp of so-called Russian Cossacks to declare they are ready to fight to keep the local land from being handed over to Crimean Tatars. Simferopol, Ukraine 27 August 2004 (RFE/RL) - At a beautiful sandy bay near southern Crimea's grape-growing Koktebel region, vacationers splash in the Black Sea or bake in the sunshine.īut the atmosphere on a nearby cliff top is more solemn.
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