Putin had doubled Crimeans’ pensions and state employees’ salaries, but most workers nevertheless took a hit. First, small businesses were now taxed (registering all rentals had become mandatory), and although Russia was hardly a paragon of law-abidance and its taxation rate is among the lowest in the world, this was a loss for entrepreneurs spoiled by Kiev’s lenience. Second, despite the patriotic fever in mainland Russia, in the summer of 2014 Crimea got barely half of its typical tourist flow: it was a conflict zone, its transportation link to the mainland had been severed, and so had its water and energy supplies. Three million tourists visited, versus 5.9 million in 2013. These numbers failed to improve during the 2015 season.[4]
There are only a handful of established businesses on the peninsula. Crimea’s tourism sector had failed to develop into an industry, first because of the overcentralized management from Kiev and Moscow, then because of the chaos of the transition period with its gangster privatization and consequent random takeovers. Environmental degradation had undermined the fisheries; the famed Black Sea oysters became all but extinct, eaten by a stowaway Pacific mollusk that had arrived on ship bottoms in the 1950s, the Sea of Azov sturgeon overfished by poachers. Crimean agriculture still harvests the follies of central planning. Growing rice in Crimean steppes inherently prone to droughts proved ultimately unsustainable. A noxious profitable plant tobacco, when grown on Crimean plantations, is just noxious: apparently, its quality has not improved one tiny bit since the 1850s, when Leo Tolstoy complained about its disgusting taste in his Sevastopol diary.[5]
One of the few reputable enterprises is Massandra Winery, founded in 1894, some say at the behest of Tsar Nicholas II. The “reunification” made Massandra workers so happy that they painted a forklift with the colors of the Russian flag, but it did little for the winery’s sales. Massandra wines are about as popular on world markets as Scottish haggis. They belong to the category of fortified wines—sherry, port, madeira, drinks whose heyday is long past and whose very limited connoisseur market is largely owned by Portugal and Spain. Energized by what they saw as new opportunities, the Massandra winemakers announced that their product was special because it was fortified with beetroot ethanol, not grape brandy like in Europe. But instead of getting showered with orders from London and New York, their sales in Russia plummeted: Russian epicures were horrified to discover that all those decades they had been drinking glorified moonshine. Within a year, Crimean wine sales were off by 61 percent.[6]
Crimean agriculture plummeted as well. Irrigation, credit, and exports became difficult, if not impossible to secure. The leader of the Crimea Farmers Association dryly commented: “On a scale of one to five, we are at negative three.”[7]
Moscow recklessly sanctioned the reapportioning of property on the peninsula. According to a recent New York Times correspondent’s estimate, more than $1 billion in “real estate and other assets have been stripped from their former owners,” including “banks, hotels, shipyards, farms, gas stations.” The victims of confiscation maintain that the Crimean government received “carte blanche” from Moscow to fund its budget by whatever means available. Calling the confiscations “nationalization,” the authorities focused on property belonging to Ukrainians—both oligarchs and small businesses—but Russian-owned enterprises were not necessarily spared. “Nationalization” of that kind heralds a long period of seizure of the spoils of annexation, with economic growth the least of anyone’s worries.[8]
Violating E.U. sanctions, on September 17, 2014, the Greek cruise liner Ocean Majesty, chartered by a German tourist agency, dropped anchor at Yalta. As the first European ship to visit the peninsula since the annexation, it caused a media splash. Only 330 of the 436 tourists on board dared to go ashore. But the visit did not augur a return to normalcy: in December 2014, the European Union imposed a ban on E.U. cruise ships visiting Crimean ports.[9]
The new set of sanctions was aimed not at Russia but at Crimea. European businesses were prohibited from investing in or trading with the peninsula. Energy and telecommunications deals were specifically prohibited. In a coordinated move, a day later the White House also introduced sanctions against the peninsula. President Obama said the goal was “to provide clarity to U.S. corporations doing business in the region and reaffirm that the United States will not accept Russia’s occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea.” The U.S. Treasury Department placed new restrictions on Crimean companies and individuals supporting the separatist cause. Among the latter were members of the Night Wolves motorcycle group, who had been prominent during the takeover. Predictably, that had the Sevastopol bikers howling with joy about the free publicity and mockingly challenging the U.S. government to punish them more.[10]
The local and regional elections in Crimea and Sevastopol in September 2014 could not be dismissed as a sham. The results were real, and they demonstrated continuing support for Moscow and Putin. The turnout was 53.6 percent, which was very high: city elections held in Moscow the same day saw turnout of just 20.2 percent. Twelve parties had participated in the campaign, but only two won any seats. Out of 75 new members of the Crimean State Council, 70 represented Putin’s United Russia party, and 5 were from the right-wing party known as LDPR. Again, the Crimea proved far more conservative than the capital, where United Russia won only 28 seats out of 45 and the LDPR 1.[11]
The majority of Crimean Tatars boycotted the vote.
Kirim
So far, Crimea has been spared the horrors of the civil war—by good luck rather than good management. Meanwhile, the socioeconomic plunge Crimea is taking promises social unrest. And then there is the Tatar “problem.”
Because Tatars returned to Crimea in the 1990s as squatters, they are now required to “renegotiate” lease and property rights with the Russian government—a road to immense abuse and predictable injustice. The founders of the Crimean Tatar national movement plainly refuse to participate in the Russian state in any manner. In retaliation, Russian authorities have banned their leader, Mustafa Dzhemilev, from Crimea. They have also threatened to end the “dual power” on the peninsula if the Tatars’ legislative bodies, the Qurultai and Mejlis, refuse to recognize the annexation. Meanwhile, Moscow promoted a loyalist Tatar movement, Kirim, led by Remzi Ilyasov, a former vice-chairman of Mejlis. With Crimean Tatars, Putin was attempting what Americans had been trying to achieve in Afghanistan and Iraq for over a decade: foster a friendly force.
Exiled to Kiev, Dzhemilev responded to Moscow’s threats by saying that if they were carried out, he would take Tatar power structures underground. Until then, he pointed out, the struggle of the Tatars had been executed by peaceful means; now all options were on the table.[12]
4
“Kurorty Kryma otrabotali v teni”; “Krymskie kanikuly: turisticheskii sezon-2015,” Forbes.ru, August 14, 2015, www.forbes.ru/sobytiya-photogallery/obshchestvo/296297-krymskie-kanikuly-turisticheskii-sezon-2015 (retrieved August 21, 2015).
5
Moskvich,
6
Neil MacFarquhar, “Crimean Vineyards of Last Czar Withstand Time and Tumult,”
7
Neil MacFarquhar, “Aid Elusive, Crimea Farms Face Hurdles,”
8
Neil MacFarquhar, “Seizing Assets in Crimea, from Shipyard to Film Studio,”
9
“Priplyli: Yalta prelstila ne vsekh nemetskikh turistov,” Town of Yalta site, September 23, 2014, www.0654.com.ua/article/625700 (retrieved September 29, 2014).
10
Laurence Norman and Frances Robinson, “EU Toughens Sanctions on Crimea-Based Companies,”
11
“Izbirkomy Kryma i Sevastopolya utverdili ofitsialnye rezultaty vyborov,” Russkaya sluzhba novostei, September 16, 2014, www.rusnovosti.ru/news/341297 (retrieved September 16, 2014); “Yavka na vyborakh v Mosgordumu sostavila okolo 20%,”
12
“Dzhemilev zayavlyaet, chto Medzhlis mozhet uiti v podpolye v Krymu,” Finance.ua, May 9, 2014, http://news.finance.ua/ru/news/-/325148/dzhemilev-zayavlyaet-chto-medzhlis-mozhet-ujti-v-podpole-v-krymu (retrieved August 21, 2015).