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“Crimea has always attracted friends of alternative lifestyles because of its great nature, and because of its powerful places. Four years ago we organized a ‘Rainbow Gathering’ up in the mountains.” The idea comes from the U.S., and since then there have been a number of offshoots. A couple of thousand visitors met in Crimea in a peaceful nature camp to spend their days with meditation, music, and marijuana.

Maybe it’s a symbol of changing times that this week, a few miles away, the “Bike Show” of Putin’s favorite motorbike gang, the Night Wolves, is taking place. Do svidanya, hippie dreamers; privyet, patriots in leather jackets. Since the crisis of 2014, during which a number of bikers roared through the Crimean Peninsula showing support for the separatists, they hold annual events in an abandoned industrial site near Sevastopol. The pompous shows, which are broadcast live on Russian TV and supported by funds from the Ministry of Culture in Moscow, seem like a mixture of a Rammstein concert, a Mad Max–inspired motorbike circus, and Triumph of the Will. The narrator is über–Night Wolf Alexander Zaldostanov, aka The Surgeon, a giant with despotic tendencies who loves stressing that he considers Stalin to be an idol and the West to be Satan. During the show, in the guttural tones of a baddie seldom found outside of kids’ movies, he describes the battle between good (Russia) and evil (all kinds of “fascists”) while heavy war machines roll across the stage. For the creators of this spectacle, there is no question that Crimea belongs to Russia and not Ukraine.

SHOOTING STARS

SASHA, A COUCHSURFER from Sevastopol, is also totally okay with the annexation. He implied this in his first email, writing in addition: “I’m looking forward to meeting a guest from the West again, I haven’t had one for three years now.” He suggests driving together to the observatory in Nauchnyj. On this August night a veritable downpour of shooting stars is expected.

We pack some muffins, chocolate bars, and Sasha’s girlfriend, Anya, in his 1994 black BMW station wagon and drive north. Sasha is twenty-eight; as an engineer he invented a vacuum switch, as a hobby guitarist he composes heavy metal songs, and in his online profile he introduces himself as “rather conservative with old-fashioned views.”

“Ukraine has always been divided, since 1991,” he says. “In every election you could see a clear difference between east and west, between the Russian and the Ukrainian parts.” What he always disapproved of was the hero-worshipping of Nazi collaborators in Ukraine. “Every year they celebrate the foundation of the Galician Division—they were volunteers affiliated to the SS. I think it’s wrong; my grandpa was in the Red Army.” He goes on to speak about fears of prohibiting the Russian language and the chaotic acts of the Ukrainian leaders. “When the ‘polite soldiers’ started to pop up in Sevastopol my only thought was—at last they are coming to support us.”

Many Russians don’t understand why the acquisition of Crimea caused such an international outcry. After all, there was a referendum, with the majority voting for attachment to Russia. In Western media reports there really were some details that were given short shrift; for instance, the fears surrounding the dismissal of the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. When the Maiden protesters were celebrating their success, many were worried that this was just the beginning of an extremely anti-Russian backlash, particularly as the future role of the far-right nationalist party the Right Sector—who were involved in the protests—was unclear. There also was a lot of skepticism about an association agreement with the EU, which excluded a close economic partnership with Russia.

That was the situation when the “little green men” suddenly started appearing in Crimea. The Russian propaganda machinery stoked existing prejudices with its typical exaggeration and the referendum was arranged in a rush to capture the mood of the moment.

But it’s also clear that the results of the referendum were embellished, as shown by the investigations of Moscow’s Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. The voter turnout and the secessionists’ lead were both lower than originally claimed. And the deployment of Russian soldiers on Ukrainian territory was against international law, regardless of how polite they were and even if no bullet was fired in Crimea.

We reach the grounds of the observatory, a park between research stations capped with white domes housing huge telescopes. Sasha walks straight past them and directly toward a clearing, where dozens of other onlookers have already gathered. It’s a clear night and here, some two thousand feet above sea level, the visibility is particularly good.

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H

A letter that in Cyrillic is pronounced as an N; our familiar H sound doesn’t exist at all. As a substitute Г, the equivalent of our G, is mostly used for foreign words, thus giving us names like Dashiell Gammet, Gunter S. Thompson, German Gesse, and Adolf Gitler as well as cities like Galifax, Gonolulu, and Gouston. Sometimes, however, the Arabic H becomes a Cyrillic X (pronounced “ch”), as in David Chasselchoff or Chulk Chogan.

We spread a blanket and lie next to one another on our backs. Sasha has a night sky app and looks for Perseus; the greatest spectacle is expected in the environs of this constellation. Very soon Anya sees the first shooting star; a short while later Sasha and I also see one. Every now and then you can hear oohs and aahs as other people see a spot of light moving across the sky.

“What’s your wish?” I ask them both.

“I’m actually quite satisfied with my life,” says Sasha. “I like being an engineer; even as a kid I used to build incredible things with Lego. Okay, a guitar maker would also be a pretty cool job.”

“I would love to earn more money,” says Anya, who works for the city administration. “We have become poorer since belonging to Russia because the ruble is so low.” She begins humming the melody of ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me.”

At three-minute intervals, shooting stars streak across the firmament like tiny, incandescent satellites. We eat crumbly chocolate muffins, staring up at the heavens. “My grandma was always talking about Yuri Gagarin,” says Anya. “How the whole country partied when he became the first man in space. Will we ever experience such a moment of pride?”

Sasha asks himself the same question. His generation is missing any higher ideals, he says. “What does Europe stand for?” he wants to know.

For an absurd administrative apparatus that no one understands and lots of bureaucracy, I think. “For peace,” I say, which is also true. In the movie version of our conversation there would be a cut to a particularly bright shooting star. Return question. “What does Russia stand for?”

“If I only knew,” says Sasha. “Our grandparents had the war. Our parents had Communism. They both had ideals, something that gave their lives meaning. But what have we got?”