Chorus on Primorsky Boulevard

A little more than six months ago, Crimea became de facto Russian

But it is still connected with Ukraine by many threads: from there, products are being taken to the peninsula, opponents of the Ukrainian government are also running here. And in the opposite direction, representatives of the Crimean educated middle class follow

The pre -election rally of United Russia. Sevastopol, September 2014 /Photo: Leonid Ragozin

In the former naval sailor, Yuri Mishin, “a lump in his throat stood with joy,” when he realized that the dream of Russian Crimea was becoming a reality: “I always trampled when a chilly morning stood on a pier near a nuclear missile carrier and listened to the Soviet, and now the Russian anthem during the rise of the flag.” A native of Chita, Mishin studied in Sevastopol, and then served in the Soviet Pacific Fleet. Having retired, he moved to the city of his youth and “forced” adopted Ukrainian citizenship.

At the beginning of the Crimean events, Mishin, one of the leaders of the movement of the military reconstructors of Sevastopol (with the reconstructor Girkin-Rifelkov “personally is not familiar”), joined the Sevastopol self-defense. Meanwhile, his wife Manita, who is fluent in English and working with a guide with the Western tourist groups, searched for foreign journalists throughout the city to offer himself for an interview as a “voice of Sevastopol”. At the end of February, those who were frightened for the Mishin sons persuaded the spouses to leave for them in Moscow. “We sat on the train killed, lost. Where are we going, when to protect Sevastopol, keep the third defense? Not because we are so ideological, but because I love this city! ” - recalls Mishin. But soon, despondency came to an end - the couple returned to Crimea, which was already controlled by the Russian troops.

A few years ago, Mishin discovered the first Sevastopol hostel - called Funny Dolphin ("Funny Dolphin"). While Crimea remained Ukrainian, 90 % of Dolphin’s guests were Western backpackers, in Russian-tourists. But after the annexation of the peninsula, they stopped coming to the Crimea, and the first two summer months of 2014, the hostel is empty. Meanwhile, Manita Mishina lost work: Western companies specializing in military-historical tourism left Crimea. Cruise liners also no longer go to the Crimean ports.

However, in August, the hostel began to be filled with Russians who went to the Crimea either out of curiosity (many of their guests have never been here, Mishins say), or in search of housing and work. As a result, September became record: the hostel was almost filled at the very time when in previous years it was already closing.

The Mishins are not picked up: they are not so confident in the future, but they are full of enthusiasm-if only they would build a bridge (through the Kerch Strait), and even with the sanctions everything will somehow settled-"well, they cannot, the West, do not understand."

Yuri Mishin, a former military sailor, opened the first hostel in Sevastopol

People are in camouflage

The military pensioner is perhaps the most typical resident of Sevastopol - a city that before the collapse of the USSR, and partly after embodied the Soviet dream of order and comfort. Grandmothers are still gathering on the Sevastopol Primorsky Boulevard-just in order to sing Soviet songs in chorus.

Now next to the place of their meetings is a tent that sells T -shirts with Putin and “polite people”. There are also drawings of more radical content in stock: on the Count of Pier, we met a young man in a T -shirt with the inscription: "I ... your sanctions." The role of the verb was played by a icon with a man in the colors of the Russian flag, who committed sexual abuse of a man in the colors of the American flag.

Not far from the grandmothers, on the embankment, a miniature, but megapopular bar, which is owned by a friendly, strong, with a short haircut, a man named Vladimir (refused to name the name). A native of Belarus, he moved to Sevastopol from Yeysk (Krasnodar Territory) six years ago. The bar pours Crimean wines and port into closed coffee cups to get around the ban on drinking alcohol on the street. Vladimir is a little more than fifty years old, and he is one of those people who would look very natural in camouflage.

The camouflage of Vladimir, of course, is: he is a member of the Sevastopol self -defense from the first anti -Ukrainian rallies that began in February. The last time he put it on when he guarded the polling station in Inkerman during the first elections in Russian Crimea - September 14. “They sent me there as a look,” Vladimir says about the election.

He had no other option, except to join the self -defense, says Vladimir: “Then it was like this - either our bay will be red with blood, or Crimea will simply go to Russia peacefully.” Like many in Sevastopol, he believes that after the victory of Euromaidan, the city really threatened the landing of the Kyiv "fascists" from the "Right Sector". But he is still not sure, “how everything will turn”, and talks about the numerous difficulties that accompany the transition period: the rapid increase in prices, problems with products, the main supplier of which Ukraine remains (Russian sanctions against Ukraine to the Crimea do not spread - otherwise there would be hunger), disconnecting electricity and water. Vladimir is also worried about the appointment of a new, “non -Russian” director of Primorsky Boulevard and the emergence of shopping tents there, which, according to him, own the Armenians: Ukraine, after the repatriation of the Crimean Tatars, was not affected by the mass migration of the inhabitants of the Caucasus and Central Asia to the extent that Russia, many people there consider this advantage there.

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“Chaly is an informal person. For him, a great surprise was the construction of power in the Russian Federation and the inefficiency of decisions made ”

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People's leader

Vladimir connects undesirable changes in the last months with the new Governor of Sevastopol Sergey Chanyilo, the Putin's appointment, whom the pro -Russian majority of residents of Sevastopol hates as much as he loves the leader of the “Russian Spring”, businessman Alexei Chalian - he, according to the official version, himself abandoned the governor's post, which he later regretted publicly. As a result, Chaly headed the United Russia campaign for elections to the City Council and, having won almost all the places, brought there a team, the same as he was deprived of the political experience of people. He himself became the chairman of the Legislative Assembly.

In contrast with Sevastopol in the State Council of the Republic of Crimea (which Sevastopol is not), mostly representatives of the former Ukrainian elite were held: members of the former ruling Ukrainian “Party of Regions” were automatically co -applied to United Russia with the test of experience. (On this occasion, as it turned out, both parties agreed a few years ago).

Chaly - a person who fits poorly into Russian political realities. “He is a very informal person. For him, a large surprise was the arrangement of power in the Russian Federation, and how ineffective decisions are made, ”says on the basis of anonymity one of his closest associates.

According to the interlocutor of the magazine, the leadership of Sevastopol leads against Chally the “hard game” in the interests of the Ministry of Defense, which wants to monopoline the city and even return it to the closed status, as it was under the USSR. “They see Sevastopol as a trophy,” the source says.

However, the chief antagonist of the people's favorite is not even the Governor of Chanipolo, but the President of the President in the Crimean Federal District, Vice Admiral Oleg Belaventsev, a close associate of Sergei Shoigu, who worked with the last in the Ministry of Emergencies and the government of the Moscow region. Chaly, according to the source of The New Times, enjoys Putin’s support, but Putin is too high and far away. “Chaloma would need support for large groups here, but he does not pay enough attention to this issue,” complains the ally of the national leader.

But what Chally really loves is to talk about the development of the city. Its strategy clearly fits into the line, which in Moscow is associated with the words “caps” and “Skolkovo”. Chaly sees the future of Sevastopol as the “technological capital of the Black Sea”, where microelectronics, winemaking and modern education will develop. In a conversation with The New Times, the comrade -in -arms of Chalogo more than five times used the word "urbanism" ...

Rear of the Donbass

The stranger from the count of the Count of Sevastopol is confident in the invincibility of Russia before American sanctions

The theme of the war in the Donbass is completely not interested in the Sevastopol leader: “This is all to Aksenov” - that is, to the head of the Republic of Crimea. But the Donbass is present in the life of Sevastopol: refugees from the Ukrainian southeast live in rented apartments and sanatoriums, from which, however, the city is trying to get rid of it as much as possible: it was from Sevastopol that the inhabitants of Donbass were sent to Yakutsk and Magadan, where they were not expected either. Cars with Donetsk and Lugansk numbers drive through the streets, sometimes with inscriptions like: "Domestic a foreign car, taken from the rightrship." In many ways, Crimea and Sevastopol, in particular, are the rear of Novorossiya.

Both Yuri Mishin and the owner of the bar Vladimir spoke about the comrades in self -defense, who fight "for Novorossia." Vladimir was completely eager for the front, but his family “besieged” him. It’s easier to get to the Donbass rebels: “You don’t even have to call. There are people here, you approach them - three seconds, and you are already there. Yesterday, only a friend left - a month lay down after a wound and back, ”says Vladimir. Another friend of Vladimir Sevastopolets died - burned in a tank. When you ask if these sacrifices are justified, Vladimir shrugs: “I can’t say yet. The miners who promised everyone to throw all the helmets there - they are sitting there in the mines, and they are fighting for themselves who: people who have passed special training, the old military, and of course the Russians - the guys who went on vacations to defend the Donbass. "

The army of the DPR and the LPR somehow grew out of Crimean self -defense. When in April the militants of the detachment of the detachment Igor Girkin who captured Slavyansk began to communicate with journalists, almost every second of those who agreed to answer questions was connected with Crimea. In Simferopol, they still hold a hand on the pulse of events. According to the source of the magazine close to the Crimean self -defense of Crimea, the truce in the Donbass will not last long: "Do not worry - everything will be, and the corridor to the Crimea as well." Moreover, the latter, according to the source, is only a tactical task. Strategic - "the collapse of the Ukrainian state in its current form." At the same time, the bet is made not so much on the military successes of the “Novoros” as on the economic collapse and the Third Maidan.

The leader of the city anti -Maidan who fled to the Crimea after a fire in the Odessa House of Trade Unions, the deputy of the Odessa regional council Alexei Albu believes that the chances of creating an analogue of the DPR/LPR in his city are as high as before the tragedy. “The ratio of opponents and supporters of power in Odessa is 85 % by 15 %,” Albu is sure. In his opinion, in Ukraine, dissatisfaction with the economic situation and a falling standard of living is growing, which will inevitably lead to a fall in the “regime of Poroshenko”.

“We do not exclude situations when the Odessa residents take up weapons and, disappointed in a peaceful protest, will defend their rights with a machine gun in their hands,” Albu mints.

“I really do not like dishonesty. What Russia did, made me feel like a Ukrainian "

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"I have become a Ukrainian"

However, the Sevastopol bartender-Boevik Vladimir does not want such a development of events. He believes that the territories captured by supporters of Novorossia are quite enough and the Crimean corridor is not worth the blood that will spill to break through it. “Mariupol, sorry, did not take it, but it is possible without him,” says Vladimir. He is sure that it is time to stop the war.

Thousands of people in Crimea will rather agree with him - the Crimeans from the very beginning did not support the actions of Russian troops and pro -Russian formations in the Donbass. Many of them consider the Ukrainian army their army and wish it victory. These include not only the Crimean Tatars, the persecution of which The New Times wrote in the previous issue, but also ethnic Russians. Many of them until March did not feel special attachment to independent Ukraine. But now thousands of them leave the Crimea.

It is not difficult to meet opponents of Russia in Crimea - it is enough to talk with more educated representatives of the middle class. Simferopol entrepreneur Olga (asked not to name the surname) just like Yuri Mishin, she cried when she saw people who celebrate the success of the March referendum (on the independence of Crimea), but for exactly the opposite reason.

“At first it seemed: well, guys, now the 21st century, what“ green men ”. This cannot be, because it can never be. But when it became a reality, I just burst into tears in front of the TV, ”says Olga. She did not go to the referendum, because "she felt comfortable in Ukraine."

Unlike Yuri Mishin and Vladimir from Sevastopol self -defense, Olga has been living in Crimea since childhood. As well as the captain of the walking yacht belonging to some Muscovite Konstantin Sandulov-he was born and lived all his life in Sevastopol, always feeling Russian and not knowing the Ukrainian language. “I really do not like dishonesty. I believe: if there are international treaties, then they must be observed. What Russia did made me feel like a Ukrainian, ”says Sandulov.

In the near future he is going to leave the Crimea, where four generations of his family lived.

Photo: Leonid Ragozin