Crimea is a land that we loved in absentia, according to our grandparents and parents, all because we were born in a foreign country after the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people from Crimea in 1944. My grandmother always told us about the Crimean sights, the sea, the mountains and the beautiful native air.
I was very young when I decided to return to my native land and immerse myself in reality in the ideas that I had formed from the stories of my ancestors. It was 1987 when the journey home began. Upon arrival in Crimea, I immersed myself in those beautiful memories of my grandmother, I recognized mountains that I had never seen in life but only heard of. It was like I was born and raised here. However, not everything was as my mind’s eye imagined life in Crimea. We were not expected in Crimea, it was difficult to register, get a job and so on. We have survived all these difficulties with dignity and gradually established good neighborly and friendly relations with the local inhabitants. It seems that only after moving in, life began to get better.
The year of 1991, the collapse of the USSR came then. We couldn’t even imagine what we would face in the future, the challenges and surprises. After the collapse of the USSR, Crimea was part of an independent Ukraine and the Crimean Tatar people were left alone with their problems. The collapse of the USSR occurred during the time of the mass return of the Crimean Tatars to Crimea. During this period, the people faced great difficulties such as a lack of residence permits, work, housing and so on.
Despite all sorts of obstacles, the Crimean Tatars sought to settle down in their homeland and achieve justice. Justice was related to overcoming the Ukrainian state’s ignoring the Crimean Tatar people’s sweeping accusations and the granting of official status for the Crimean Tatar language in Crimea by adopting relevant laws. However, for 24 years, independent Ukraine has done nothing in this regard. On the contrary, these problematic issues were used by the state to segregate the Crimean Tatars from the rest of the population of the peninsula.
Problems were artificially created in the allocation of land plots for housing, as a result of which there were so-called “self-grabs” or “protest poles.” People occupied vacant plots of land and built houses. After the construction of housing, residents faced other problems related to the development of places dominated by Crimean Tatars. Most of these massifs had no electricity, water and gas supply. People have never even dreamed about sewers and roads with hard pavement. As for social infrastructure, kindergartens, schools and medical institutions, they were all fictitious. There was no talk about building such establishments and those that were under construction became long-term projects. One of these projects was a school, which people called “the school of four presidents” in one of the neighborhoods of the compact Crimean Tatar population in Simferopol, whose construction took more than 20 years. The school was completed after the control of Crimea was taken by the Russian Federation.
Another sensitive subject for the Crimean Tatars in the Ukrainian period was religion. Historical sites were almost never returned to the Muslim communities and those that were transferred returned with great scandals and provocations. No land was awarded for the construction of mosques in populated areas, which led to the construction of mosques on unoccupied plots. Naturally, such mosques did not have any legal documents, which as a result made it impossible to connect the religious objects to the appropriate communications and networks.
One of the main tasks of the Ukrainian state, in our view, was to maximize the implementation of radical and extremist movements into the Muslim public. The state encouraged their activities, officially registered them and allowed them to spread an alien ideology to Crimean Muslims.
Thus, the state of Ukraine has done everything to deprive the Crimean Tatars of both the opportunities for development and preservation of traditional religious values, as well as elementary social benefits in ordinary human life. Crimean Tatar people have already developed the confidence that their whole life will be spent in some hybrid struggle with the state for their elementary rights to live on their land. There was no glimmer that the state would support the people.
New possibilities for Crimea
We have always prayed as religious leaders that the suffering would end and the people could feel like full members of society among all the people living in Crimea. Our prayers were answered. Today we live in a completely other dimension, with a completely different state approach to the problems of the Crimean Tatar people and all Muslims of Crimea.
On the first day after Moscow took control of Crimea, the land issue was put to rest. All those who have rightfully claimed the land for housing construction have received and continue to receive the long-awaited land. From 2014 to the present day, the number of waiting lists for improved housing conditions among repressed citizens has been significantly reduced. Dozens of apartment buildings in different regions of Crimea were built thanks to the federal target program for rehabilitated people. The settlements of previously repressed peoples are being built, carried out by hundreds of kilometers of water supply network, gas supply and electrification.
All these things may seem so basic, at first sight, but people have been waiting for decades for these benefits. Most of our compatriots could not even imagine that they would have good roads with hard pavement, and they are appearing, kindergartens and schools, modern health centers, they too are being built and opened. As for children’s leisure, almost all the areas installed modern sites, including sports. Why do I, as a religious man, talk about all this? It is very simple, there can be no talk about the preservation and development of religion when society has many domestic problems and elementary human conditions.
Religion is one of the most important spheres of public life and in this direction, we can as well cite numerous positive examples. One such example is the Cathedral Mosque, which has been speculated about for decades. Today, thanks to Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, this building delights people’s eyes. Opening the doors of the Cathedral Mosque for Crimean Muslims and all residents of Crimea is an event of the century. The grand building where people pray for peace and harmony has become one of the centers of attraction. With the support of the head of the republic, Sergei Aksenov, about 85% of the total number of cultural buildings were actively brought into the law, the remaining 15% are in the process of being processed. The state has provided tremendous support in this regard. At the request of Muslims, without politicization and speculation, land plots are legally granted for the construction of mosques. The state is providing all possible assistance in the functioning of a madrassa, where young people and girls are taught the basics of Islam and learn the Quran by heart.
Glory to the Most High, today we were able to build a strong international and interfaith peace between the peoples of Crimea and the great merit in this belongs to the Russian President Vladimir Putin and head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergei Aksenov. Crimea is indeed a positive example for the international society in the matter of peaceful and friendly coexistence of people of different nationalities and religions. This is the main basis for the successful development of the region and the country as a whole. Our task, in turn, is to plant roses so that our children and grandchildren have a prosperous and happy future.