You're reading: It’s tough to be a Ukrainian patriot in occupied Crimea

SEVASTOPOL, Crimea – In Russian-occupied Crimea, wearing Ukrainian vyshyvanka – traditional embroidered shirts – qualifies as a risky choice of attire. Recognizing Petro Poroshenko, not Vladimir Putin, as president could cost a person his or her job.

And the Kremlin’s illegal takeover of the peninsula in March has prompted countless other Ukrainian patriots in Crimea to abandon everything and move to Ukraine’s mainland, while others have stayed and simply tried to hide their views.

“We just wanted to show that we are a Ukrainian class. But it was really scary,” says Kateryna Latash, 18, of her high school graduating class’s decision to wear vyshyvanka on the last day of school. “We even thought of canceling the idea. Earlier there was a lot of aggression towards Ukraine’s patriots, and we were not sure about the possible reactions.”

A woman looks for a T-shirt in a souvenir kiosk in Crimea, August 2014.

All Ukrainian symbols are less than welcome in today’s Sevastopol, the seaport city of nearly 350,000 residents, 72 percent of whom are ethnic Russians. It was once nicknamed “the city of Russian glory” and it now extensively peddles merchandise that celebrates Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Almost every one of the city’s souvenir kiosks sells trendy $10 t-shirts, some of which feature Putin, the Russian president, dressed in military uniform with slogans like “Russians don’t abandon their kind,” “Crimea is Russia” and even threatening ones like “One who offends us will not live three days.” The Putin quote is from an old interview. Some t-shirts depict Putin as laughing at the West’s sanctions against Russia. Small Russian flags are sold everywhere for a little more than one dollar. Bigger flags are seen on almost every building in the city center.

Choice in souvenirs is far from the only change. While under Ukraine’s rule, pro-Russian citizens of Sevastopol freely expressed their views, fans of Ukraine have to hide. Some have set up a closed Facebook group to stay in touch. The group numbers some 225 members.

Expressing pro-Ukrainian views in Sevastopol does, indeed, come with a price.

Larisa Moskalets, 42, knows that well. She almost lost her job in a ticket sales office for telling a client that her president was Poroshenko, Ukraine’s leader, not Putin. Her employer first asked Moskalets to leave, but ended up just transferring her to a different office.

An ethnic Russian, Moskalets has lived in both Russia and Ukraine. She doesn’t speak Ukrainian perfectly, but nevertheless prefers to live in Ukraine, not Russia. She “follows political news and understands what is going on in Russia,” Moskalets says. “Morally it’s now extremely difficult for me here.”

Networking with other pro-Ukrainians helps, she said, so do brave gestures.

During the EuroMaidan Revolution that toppled Viktor Yanukovych as president on Feb. 22, she wrote “Sevastopol – Ukraine – Europe” in big black letters on a fence. She did it late at night to be on the safe side. After the annexation, she once told a vendor she wouldn’t buy a Russian flag because it is the banner of the occupiers.

While Moskalets’ husband and children share her views, her parents are heavily pro-Russian and call her a traitor. They almost stopped speaking to her. “This is the worst thing about this situation – how the ties between people are breaking down,” Moskalets says.

Serhiy Gogol, a 33-year old sailor from Sevastopol, agrees. His family comes from western Ukraine but has been living in Sevastopol since the late 1980s. He grew up going to Russian-speaking school but still prefers to speak Ukrainian to friends.

Serhiy Gogol, a 33-year old sailor from Sevastopol, Crimea.

However, Gogol’s best friend in Sevastopol welcomed Russia, but worried about losing Gogol’s friendship.

Gogol ended up deciding to sever his ties to Crimea. He worked as a navigator on a foreign ship in Brazil during Russia’s military invasion. When he returned to Sevastopol in late March, he found conditions intolerable and packed his things and took the train to Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine.

Gogol senses new danger on Sevastopol streets.

“I grew up here and always felt safe in this city. Now I don’t. Now there are many drunk and weird people on the streets, like never before,” Gogol says.

As he talks to Kyiv Post sitting on a bench in a park in Sevastopol, three police officers pass by and turn heads curiously to him, attracted by his Ukrainian speech.

Gogol is not alone in wanting to leave.

Latash, like half of her classmates who donned Ukrainian vyshyvanka on their last school day, is trying to enter a university on mainland Ukraine.

And Moskalets, who almost lost her job for her pro-Ukrainian views, is planning to get out of Crimea altogether after making Sevastopol her home for 18 years. She is considering Odessa because it is Russian-speaking and stands on the seashore, like Sevastopol. Moving is complicated, because selling an apartment in Sevastopol is not yet possible legally because of the ongoing transition to Russian jurisdiction.

“So in fact, we are hostages here,” Moskalets says — hostages in a hostile place with whipped up pro-Russian euphoria and little tolerance for those on the two-million person peninsula who still identify with Ukraine as their nation.

“It is easy to love the motherland when all is calm around you,” Moskalets said. “Loving it when everyone around spits in your face is different.”

Kyiv Post editor Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].

Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from www.mymedia.org.ua, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action, as well as Ukraine Media Project, managed by Internews and funded by the United States Agency for International Development.