CRIMEAN TATARS : An Empirical Study by Ursula Mollet

The Crimean Tatars - people between all fronts

On the Crimea peninsular in the Black Sea live about 300' 000 Crimean Tatars. They are considered as natives of the strategically important Crimea, who are sunnit Muslim and speak their own language which is related to the Turkish.

Their number counts not even one percent of the Ukrainian population, nevertheless, increasing during the last years. During World War II, Stalin deported them to Central Asia,

After the Stalin's regime was overthrown, they returned back to Crimea. However, their returns to their old native country is rather disappointing as they see themselves once more delivered to latent racism, discrimination and bitter poverty.

Oksana and Natascha are sisters, around forty years old. In the Muslim meeting center Arraid (Crimean Branch of the Federation of Social Organisations Arraid) in Simferopol on the Crimean peninsula in the southern Ukraine, waiting for the payment of the monthly support which is granted by the NGO to them.

Both women are single mothers, widows. Together with her children and the grandparents they live in the same household. They cannot work, for health reasons. Even if they could work, they would barely have a chance of a paid-up job, assures one of them. “The jobs are given to Russian people. If we are lucky, we get at most an inferior work”, says Oksana. The only fixed income of the 6-headed family is the monthly pension of the grandparents of Hrivna 60.- or around US 10.--. Nobody can live on that, not even with the most modest claims, although the main food (vegetable, fruit, milk products, bread) and the public traffic is cheap.

“At the beginning, when we came back to the Crimea we had to live in a compartment of an old railroad car. There was no electricity, no water. But we were not offered something else, we had to agree. Besides, we were still lucky, for many others it went even worse. Then, about 9 years ago, we have started building a house”, tells Natascha. “But we had to give it up, we had no money. Without support of Arraid we could not survive. Thanks of their help, my daughter can visit now the college”.

Most of the Tatars living today on the Crimea came back from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia, where they were deported under Stalin in May 1944. Many thousands of them died, even a greater number lost their belongings and properties.

The Crimea was established in 1921 as the autonomous socialist republic. Nevertheless already few years later began a big resettlement action which cost the life of a big part of the Muslim population of the Crimea, the Tatars.

As the red army recaptured the Crimea in 1944, Stalin reproached the Tatars to collaborate with Hitler's troops. Therefore, he initiated within the shortest time the Genocide and deported hundreds of thousands, principally old people, women and children to Central Asia, while the men had to go at the same moment for the Russian troops to fight.

Bitter return

The return movement already started in the end of the 50-s, however, the Tatars living in the exile had no rights. They organized themselves; they held demonstrations and sent envoys to Moscow to obtain their autonomy and the return permission. All attempts remained fruitless. Only since the independence of the Ukraine in 1990 to which the Crimea was attached since 1954, the Tatars were allowed to settle again in their old native country. “After the return, many lived in real inhuman circumstances”, tells Moumina, a studied economist who works in the Arraid meeting center as a voluntary social worker, because she finds no paid-up work. “All around the towns, miserable accommodations became installed. The children become ill, there is a lack of everything”.

The anyway insane economic and social infrastructure on the Crimea (the average monthly income lies around $ 400.--) gets strongly loaded by the returners. The victims of this situation are once more the Tatars themselves. About 80% of them are jobless, in spite of good education. These circumstances often lead to tensions between the pro-Russian majority and the pro-Ukrainian Muslim minority.

Limited rights

The Crimean Tatars organize themselves in traditional council meetings, the Mejlis and the main organization, the Kurultai. In 1991, on own Crimea parliament, the Crimean Tatar National Assembly became established, nevertheless not officially approved.

The Tatars obtained an adequate representation under their leader Bagrow. Of face of the stronger growing political presence, the Ukrainian parliament canceled the Crimea constitution in 1995 without any reason.

The Tatars nowadays still get under pressure of the Russian majority, in particular those which exert themselves for their rights. One of the leading forces of the Crimean Tatars during the 90-s was Omerov. He worked between 1995 and 2001 as an adviser in UN Integrations-and development program of the Crimea. He and his wife became murdered in their home in Simferopol in the night from 18/19th September this year. At the moment prosecution counselors examine whether the murder was politically motivated.

The Tatars want give up their fights for their rights. As a minority, they want to regain the Ukrainian citizenship, the return of the expropriated land, the acknowledgment of her language, and a political representation in the Parliament. But often they have to put up with a passive posture of the responsible authorities, temporal abduction, and disinterest. At the end of October 2004 to forthcoming Ukrainian presidential elections, the strained relations between the pro-Russian majority and the Tatars receive additional explosive effect.


Not only were confiscated according to Kiev post from the 30th September 2004 propaganda material of the pro-western presidential candidate, Yulianna Vilkos (Kiev post, 30.9.2004) says that about one quarter of the Ukrainians believe that terror attacks like in Beslan could be possible in the Ukraine. Further, about 50% of the Ukrainians should believe, the acts of terrorism would stand in connection with the Ukrainian presence in Iraq (the Ukraine puts the fourth-biggest contingent to soldier) and the advocation of the Russian Chechnya policy by the Ukrainian government.

Of open and latent racism

How such open or latent racism affects their daily life, two Arraid women Olga and Moumina had to get to know it bitterly. Four friends, two women with Hijab (headscarf), two without, are peacefully on a walk. Like hundreds others they stroll along the beach of Alushta at the Black Sea. To have a souvenir photo of her excursion, they ask a woman sitting on a bank to take a picture of them. The Muslima who asked politely the sitting woman, carries a plastic bag with her. Instead of taking a picture, the other woman screamed at her to put the plastic bag in a sure distance, for one never knew whether it contains a bomb or not. Depressed, humiliated and sad the women turn away, have no more desire on the sandwiches and the fruit juice in the plastic bag.

Fight against poverty and against the Islamophobia

To the financial misery of the Crimean Tatars also come such daily humiliations. One of the major goals of the Federation of Social Organizations Arraid is therefore the fight against the omnipresent Islamophobia.

Everybody who is interested in their educational program is invited to follow free courses in Arabic language, Islam and computer skills. Also non-Muslims profit from the offers, in particular from the numerous drinking water projects which supplies whole municipalities and towns with water and through the generously invested support programs for orphans and poor families as well as medical care.

In order to guarantee the financial help really to the right families, Arraid staff convinced themselves by visiting the miserable accommodations and living conditions Crimean Tatars had to cope with. Together with the local authorities they made a list of the poorest. The well functioning networks to other social organizations and good relationships with important personalities permit Arraid to find private sponsors for the needy people. Arraid has already in charge about 400 orphans and as well as their attendants on the Crimea and organizes annual excursions and summer camps for them.

“Our organization performs a great deal of help; this is our duty as Muslims. The most recent achievment is at the moment still under construction” says Moumina proudly and points on a new buildingcomplex on the Arraid area. The new women's center, built on the initiative of Muslim women, can be taken in charge in the beginning of 2005. Several classrooms, a day nursery and a kinder garden, a kitchen, as well as a fitness center and a community hall will be at their disposal. The Tatars can also maintain their own tatarian language (which is not officially taught in schools) and their traditional culture.

Oksana and Natascha have become, like many others, attentive to the offers of Arraid by advertisements in free newspapers. The services of Arraid have also spread around fast under the poor population. “Whoever knocks our door, they will be heard. We do not make any difference, whether needy people are Christians or Muslims. The only criterion is that they are depending on support”. Moumina says this with conviction.

The openness and cheerfulness in the Arraid center is striking and stands in contrast to the otherwise rather dreary Kiever daily live, where there is little joked (and where there is not much to laugh at) and where everything is hidden behind facades. The question may be allowed whether both cultures, the Muslim minority and Ukrainian majority, will really mix up one day. Here the stereotypes and clichés are exactly as wide spread towards the others as elsewhere in the world, if the often heard disinterested statement like “oh, a Muslim organization ... “ can be transferred to a general-valid opinion.

Ursula Mollet, Osteuropa-Institut, Universitaet Fribourg (Switzerland) Kiev, 7 Oktober 2004.