Translated material
Peninsula of the USSR
“Girl, I don’t even know ... Such information ... You know, I don’t want to communicate on this topic, ask others” - the seller of souvenirs on the coast of Alushta looks at me, squinting, and then quickly turns away. The question "Are magnets with Putin well sold?" It turned out to be "too political." This summer, in Crimea , they generally avoid talking about big politics, although its presence is felt everywhere.
The sticker on the window of the station ticket station congratulates passengers on the anniversary of the referendum and reports: “I voted for!”, And a minute later the cashier gives out a paper ticket in Ukrainian. Above the Yalta embankment, the McDonald's emblem rises, which has not been working there for a long time, but in Alushta you can drink coffee in Starmax and eat a sandwich in Krymburger, patriotic analogues of the Western Fastfood.
- Are there really people who will bring a magnet with Obama in the form of a monkey home from rest? - I ask the girl selling souvenirs.
- If you knew how they were going! T -shirts, mugs, magnets. Moreover, not only Russians take, even Ukrainians! True, they have to hide, otherwise they can be taken on the border, at their own peril and risk ...
The sticker on the window of the ticket office congratulates the anniversary of the referendum, and a minute later the cashier gives out a paper ticket in Ukrainian.
On the beaches of Yalta, Alushta, Simeiz, it is difficult to find a free space in the middle of the day. A narrow coastline adds problems, not wider than ten meters - you do not take a lot. At local stations, it is impossible to buy a ticket without defending in line for at least twenty minutes. The numbers in the boarding house and sanatoriums of the middle hand are booked for several weeks in advance, but the locals still call the current season unsuccessful - they say that over the past two years, less than it was in Ukraine.
- Waiting July - waited! And what?! There is no one in general! What to do now? - At the station, a woman with a yellow plate “Housing” screams into the phone. The main losses this season are suffered precisely by private traders. Some owners raised the fee - the cost of utilities increased, others, on the contrary, were reduced because they delivered in dollars. Everyone ended up in the minus.
© Viktor Korotaev / Kommersant Evpatoria, 2015“I don’t know who lack people there, we have a full of people in the store,” says Anastasia, the seller in the optics store. - Private traders probably do not like that people are mainly going without a lot of money - now only Russia is resting, and the times are difficult, not everyone is ready to spend. So this is not enough money, not people. As if everyone forgot how the tourists came with their potatoes before.
In a few days in Crimea you can see Russians from all regions of the country. Visitors as one complain about the cost of products, the price of which over the past couple of years has climbed almost double, as well as the cost of tickets to the Crimea. But the main problem of vacationers is to withdraw money from a bank card in Crimea. There are only a few banks with which the Crimean branch of the Bank "Russia" collaborates. There is no Sberbank among them, so most vacationers are forced to draw up a card on the spot or come to relax with cash.
Ukrainians are practically not visible in Crimea, only those who have relatives here come, the rest are not ready for a long time and difficult to cross the border. But on the beach in Alushta, for example, you can meet young guys from Malaysia and Namibia, students of Simferopol Medical University. They say that the resort is wonderful, only people are not as friendly as we would like.
This is not enough money, not people. As if everyone forgot how the tourists came with their potatoes before.
Next to them is a guy in a T -shirt with a portrait of Putin and the signature "The most polite of people." A local resident considers himself “not quite a patriot”, wears a T -shirt, “because a gift”. He says that the people are calm about the changes, because of Putin there were never problems here. But it does not always turn out calmly. On the bus, I hear a conversation between vacationers of the Russians that here is “all initially ours”, and I see the pursed lips of silent passengers. The taxi driver tells how he talked with patriots who arrived from Siberia, who promise that Russia will teach local people to work. Or the tourist Natalya from St. Petersburg will tell you what to avoid talking about politics with local residents, because "here they consider us zombie, but in fact they are zombie."
Between the cities, old Soviet trolleybuses run, which are constantly breaking, but still go on the flight full to the eyeballs. Every Sunday in Yalta, dancing under the orchestra arrange, opposite the monument to Lenin, elderly couples dance. Here, Soviet commemorative boards are alive on the walls of houses and even some signs and posters. In the beaches and markets, Crimea cannot be distinguished from Gelendzhik or other Russian resort. But the signs in stores are duplicated in Ukrainian, Ukrainian signs are still left on the tracks, and many villages are also called in the Ukrainian way. Every evening, from the nearest mosque on the entire coast, a call to prayer is heard, on the streets you can hear Tatar speech or talk about how difficult it is to follow the post in Ramadan. Over time, the question "So Ukraine is here or Russia?" It becomes meaningless. You understand that most of all life on the peninsula is similar to a fragment of the USSR, preserved until 2015.
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