Among them there are Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, but not only. Educated people are packing and leaving too. Those who cannot leave look sad and try to hide their emotions.
It is not unthinkable and it has already been announced by the self-proclaimed authorities of the Kremlin-blacked Crimea that the peninsula may start to ration electricity, fearing a cutoff from Ukraine’s mainland, which supplies most of the power and water to the territory stolen from the nation by Russia’s military force. Rationing electricity will mean that housing blocks will be assigned daily electricity consumption plans that will limit the hours and possibly even days of power.
People expect a sharp increase in food prices. So there are lines in supermarkets. People are buying canned fish and meat, alongside salt and the cheapest soap. I wonder what they would use the soap for if the self-proclaimed “government” of Prime Minister Serhiy Aksyonov announces water consumption limits as well?
There is a cash shortage in the banks and cash machines. There were very long queues near the PrivatBank cash machines, after the bank announced it would undergo restructuring.
Who is to blame for all this chaos?
A predominantly ethnic Russian myself living in the Crimea, I never felt discriminated against by the use of the Ukrainian language around me. I never felt somebody restricted my use of Russian.
But I feel ashamed of the way the ideological/linguistic/ethnic divisions in Ukraine are created and by the way that the Kremlin propaganda capitalizes on it.
I feel disgusted when the tragedies and the weaknesses of Ukraine are mocked by those with a Soviet mentality, known as “sovoks” in slang.
When 100 people were killed during the EuroMaidan that toppled Viktor Yanukovych as president on Feb. 22, I heard the pro-Russian public saying something like “they should have been killed or persecuted before they disrupted the social order.”
I feel absolutely disgusted by such statements.
If I had a chance, I would reply something like this: “OK, if you do not like the West, (Ukrainian nationalist Stepan) Bandera, the Orange (Revolution team of Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko), that is your choice! In Crimea, you had to only learn Ukrainian if you were aiming at a position within the public sector, before the language law was passed. If you did not like Ukrainian, you did not have to learn it. Ukraine would not have come to you and shot you for that!”
I would also say: “The same applies to the West. If you do not like the West, do not watch Hollywood films, do not use American computers, do not travel. Do not learn English. The West will not come to you and shoot you for that! But you cannot deny the other party the right to fight for what they consider their freedom. To die for what they consider their choice. And… of course, EuroMaidan was disrupting the social order for you, while Russian military ambitions in the Crimea, for some reason, are not!”
I feel disgusted when people who mock Ukraine and the Ukrainian army still prefer to receive subsidies from the Ukrainian state budget.
I feel disgusted when I observe hypocrisy and the weak being taken advantage of.
I feel ill and destroyed when I interact with people with no sense of justice. I feel ashamed of people in southeastern Ukraine who think that way. I do not have friends among people with such a mentality, but I still take it personally when Ukrainian sacrifices are being mocked.
I feel ill when I interact with people with no heart and no compassion.
Those wishing to build a gulag for other peoples and nations will end up in such a gulag themselves. Those willing to use tanks against other nations will tomorrow end up under the tanks themselves.
I feel responsible to distance myself from them as much as I can.
Anna Kirillova is the Political Consultant at the European Youth of Ukraine. She incorporates cross-cultural insights and her consulting experience into a road map for anyone willing to get acknowledged with the Eastern European politics. Anna knows firsthand what post-Soviet socio-political landscape looks like.
