Crimea ( ) or the
Autonomous Republic of Crimea ( ; ,
Avtonomnaja Respublika Krym; , Qırım, Qırım Muhtar
Cumhuriyeti) is the only autonomous republic of Ukraine
.
It is
located on the northern coast of the Black Sea
, occupying a peninsula of
the same name.
The territory of Crimea was conquered and controlled many times
throughout its history. The
Cimmerians,
Greek,
Persians,
Goths,
Huns,
Bulgars,
Khazars, the state of
Kievan
Rus',
Byzantine Greeks,
Kipchaks, Tatars, Kalmyks and the
Mongols all controlled Crimea in its early history.
In the
13th century, it was partly controlled by the Venetians
and by the Genovese; they were followed by the
Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire in the 15th to 18th centuries,
the Russian
Empire
in the 18th to 20th centuries, the Russian SFSR and later the Ukrainian SSR within the Soviet Union
in the rest of the 20th century, Germany
in World War II, and now Crimea is an autonomous
Ukrainian
administrative region.
Crimea is a
parliamentary
republic which is governed by the Constitution of Crimea in
accordance with the laws of Ukraine.
The capital and
administrative seat of the republic's government is the city of
Simferopol
, located in the center of the peninsula.
Crimea's area is and its population was 1,973,185 as of 2007.
Crimean Tatars, an ethnic minority
who now make up about 13% of the population, occupied Crimea since
the Mongol conquest. The Crimean Tatars were
forcibly expelled to
Central Asia by
Joseph Stalin's government. After the fall of
the Soviet Union, some Crimean Tatars began returning to the
region.
Etymology of the name
The name
Crimea comes from the name of a city, Qırım (today's
Stary
Krym
), which served as a capital of the Crimean
province of the Golden Horde.
The word
Qırım is believed by most researchers to derive
from archaic
Turkic "moat". However,
there are other versions of the etymology of
Qırım (like
f. ex.
qır – hill,
-ım – my in modern
Crimean Tatar). Russian
Krym
is a Russified form of Qırım. The
ancient
Greeks called Crimea
Tauris
(later
Taurica), after its
inhabitants, the
Tauri. The Greek historian
Herodotus mentions that
Heracles plowed the land that became Crimea using a
huge ox ("Taurus"): the name of the land thus asserts that its
people named their land, and hence themselves, after an
ox
used by a
mythical Greek figure.
In
English, Crimea is sometimes
referred to with the definite article, as the Crimea, as
in the
Netherlands
,
the
Gambia
, etc. However, usage without the article has
become more common in journalism since the years of the Soviet Union
.
History
Early history
The earliest inhabitants of whom we have any authentic traces were
the
Cimmerians, who were expelled by the
Scythians during the seventh century BC.
The remaining Cimmerians, those who took refuge in the mountains
later, became known as the
Tauri. According to
other historians, the Tauri were known for their savage rituals and
piracy and were also the earliest indigenous peoples of the
peninsula.
In the fifth century BC, Greek colonists began to settle along the
Black
Sea
coast; among them were the Dorians from Heraclea
who founded a sea port of Chersonesos
outside Sevastopol
and the Ionians from Miletus
who landed
at Feodosiya
and Panticapaeum (also
called Bosporus
).
Two
centuries later (438 BC), the Archon (ruler) of the latter settlers
assumed the title of the Kings of Cimmerian Bosporus, a
state that maintained close relations with Athens
, supplying
the city with wheat, honey and other commodities. The last
of that line of kings, Paerisades V, being hard-pressed by the
Scythians, put himself under the protection of
Mithridates VI, the king of
Pontus, in 114 BC.
After the death of
this sovereign, his son, Pharnaces II, was invested by
Pompey with the kingdom of Bosporus
in 63 BC as a reward for the assistance rendered to
the Romans in their war against his
father. In 15 BC, it was once again restored to the
king of Pontus, but then was ranked as a tributary state of
Rome
.
Throughout the later centuries, Crimea was invaded or occupied
successively by the
Goths (AD 250),
the
Huns (376), the
Bulgars (fourth–eighth century), the
Khazars (eighth century), the state of
Kievan Rus' (tenth–eleventh centuries), the
Byzantine Empire (1016), the
Kipchaks (the Kumans) (1050), and the
Mongols (1237).
In the mid-tenth century, the eastern area of Crimea was conquered
by Prince
Sviatoslav I of Kiev
and became part of the Kievan Rus' principality of
Tmutarakan.
In 988, Prince Vladimir I of Kiev also captured the
Byzantine town of Chersones
(presently part of Sevastopol) where he
later converted to Christianity.
An impressive
Russian
Orthodox cathedral marks the location of this historic
event.
In the
13th century, the Republic of
Genoa seized the settlements which their rivals, the Venetians
, had built along the Crimean coast and established
themselves at Cembalo
, Soldaia
, Cherco
and Caffa, gaining control of the Crimean
economy and of Black Sea commerce for two centuries.
Crimean Khanate: 1441–1783
A number of
Turkic peoples, now
collectively known as the
Crimean
Tatars, have been inhabiting the peninsula since the early
Middle Ages.
The ethnicity of the
Crimean Tatars is quite complex as it absorbed both nomadic Turkic
and European components (in the first place, the Goths and the Genoese
) which is still reflected in their appearance and
language differences. A small enclave of the
Karaims, possibly of Khazar (i.e. Turkic)
descent but members of a Jewish sect, was founded in the 8th
century.
It existed among the Muslim Crimean Tatars,
primarily in the mountainous Çufut Qale
area.
After the destruction of the
Golden
Horde by
Timur in 1441, the Crimean Tatars
founded an independent
Crimean
Khanate under
Hacı I Giray, a
descendant of
Genghis Khan.
He and
his successors reigned first at Qırq Yer
, and from the beginning of the 15th century, at
Bakhchisaray
.
The
Crimean Tatars controlled the steppes that stretched from the
Kuban and to the Dniester River
, however, they were unable to take control over
commercial Genoese
towns. After the Crimean Tatars asked for help from
the Ottomans, an Ottoman invasion of
the Genoese towns led by Gedik Ahmed
Pasha in 1475 brought Kaffa
and the
other trading towns under their control.
After the capture of Genoese towns, the Ottoman Sultan held
Meñli I Giray captive, later
releasing him in return for accepting Ottoman sovereignty above the
Crimean Khans and allowing them rule as tributary princes of the
Ottoman Empire. However, the Crimean Khans still had a large amount
of autonomy from the Ottoman Empire, particularly, followed the
rules they thought were best for them: Crimean Tatars introduced
raids into Ukrainian lands, which were used to get slaves to be
sold on markets.
In 1553–1554,
Cossack Hetman Dmytro
Vyshnevetsky gathered together groups of Cossacks, and
constructed a fort designed to obstruct Tatar raids into Ukraine.
With this action, he founded the
Zaporozhian Sich, with which he would
launch a series of attacks on the Crimea peninsula and the
Ottoman Turks. In 1774, The Crimean Khans fell
under Russian influence with the
Treaty of Küçük
Kaynarca.
In 1783, the entire Crimea was annexed by
the Russian
Empire
.
Russian Empire and Civil War: 1783–1922
The
Crimean War (1853–1856) devastated
much of the economic and social infrastructure of Crimea. The
Crimean Tatars had to flee from their
homeland
en masse, forced by the conditions created by the
war, persecution and land expropriations.
Those who survived
the trip, famine and disease, resettled in Dobruja, Anatolia
, and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the Russian
government decided to stop the process, as the agriculture began to
suffer due to the unattended fertile farmland.
During
the Russian Civil War, Crimea was
a stronghold of the anti-Bolshevik White
Army, including the Crimean People's Republic
. It was in Crimea that the White Russians
led by
General Wrangel
made their last stand against
Nestor
Makhno and the
Red Army in 1920.
After the
resistance was crushed, many of the anti-Communist fighters and
civilians had to board the ships and escape to Istanbul
.
Soviet Union: 1922–1991
On October 18, 1921, the
Crimean Autonomous
Soviet Socialist Republic was created as part of the
Russian SFSR. However, this did not protect the
Crimean Tatars, who constituted about 25 percent of the Crimean
population, from
Joseph Stalin's
repressions of the 1930s.
The
Greeks were another cultural group that
suffered. Their lands were lost during the process of
collectivisation, in which farmers were
not compensated with wages.
Schools which taught Greek were closed, and printed matter
containing Greek literature was
destroyed, because the Soviets considered the Greeks as
"counter-revolutionary" with their links to capitalist state Greece
, and their
independent culture.
During
World War II, Crimea was a scene
of some of the bloodiest battles. The leaders of the
Third Reich were anxious to conquer and
colonize the fertile and beautiful peninsula as part of their
policy of resettling the Germans in Eastern Europe at the expense
of the Slavs (
Generalplan Ost). The
Germans suffered heavy casualties in the summer of 1941 as they
tried to advance through the narrow
Isthmus of Perekop linking Crimea to the
Soviet mainland.
Once the German army broke through (Operation Trappenjagd), they
occupied most of Crimea, with the exception of the city of Sevastopol
, which was later awarded the honorary title of
Hero City after the war.
Sevastopol held out from October 1941 until July 4, 1942, when the
Germans finally captured the city. From September 1, 1942, the
peninsula was administered as the
Generalbezirk Krim
(general district of Crimea)
und Teilbezirk (and
sub-district)
Taurien by the Nazi
Generalkommissar Alfred Eduard Frauenfeld
(1898–1977), under the authority of the three consecutive
Reichskommissare for the entire Ukraine. In
spite of heavy-handed tactics by the Nazis and the assistance of
the
Romanian and
Italian troops, the
Crimean mountains remained an unconquered stronghold of the native
resistance (the partisans) until the day when the peninsula was
freed from the occupying force.
In 1944,
Sevastopol came under the control of troops from the Soviet Union
. The so-called "City of Russian Glory" once
known for its beautiful architecture was entirely destroyed and had
to be rebuilt stone by stone. Due to its enormous historical and
symbolic meaning for the Russians, it became a priority for Stalin
and the Soviet government to have it restored to its former glory
within the shortest time possible.
On May
18, 1944, the entire population of the Crimean Tatars were forcibly
deported in the "Sürgün"
(Turkish word for "exile") to
Central Asia by Stalin's Soviet
government as a form of collective punishment on the grounds
that they had collaborated with the Nazi
occupation forces. An estimated 46 percent of the deportees
died from hunger and disease. On June 26 of the same year the
Armenian,
Bulgar
and
Greek populations were also deported to
Central Asia. By the end of summer 1944, the
ethnic cleansing of Crimea was complete.
In 1967,
the Crimean Tatars were rehabilitated, but they were banned from
legally returning to their homeland until the last days of the
Soviet
Union
.
The
Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was abolished in June
30, 1945, and transformed into the Crimean Oblast
(province) of the Russian SFSR. On February 5, 1954 the
Presidium of the
RSFSR Supreme Council
requested the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine. On February 19, 1954,
the oblast was transferred from the
Russian
SFSR to the
Ukrainian SSR.
According to the decree by the
Supreme Soviet of the Soviet
Union, the transfer was caused by close (1) geographic, (2)
economic, and (3) cultural ties to the Ukrainian SSR. The transfer
was also conducted to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the
Pereyaslav Treaty 1654. On
April 26, 1954 the decree was confirmed by a law unanimously passed
in the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union.
In post-war years, Crimea thrived as a prime tourist destination,
built up with new attractions and sanatoriums for tourists.
Tourists
came from all around the Soviet Union and neighbouring countries,
particularly from the German Democratic Republic
. Also, Crimea's infrastructure and
manufacturing developed, particularly around the sea ports at
Kerch
and Sevastopol
and in the oblast's landlocked capital, Simferopol
. Populations of
Ukrainians and
Russians
alike doubled, with more than 1.6 million Russians and 626,000
Ukrainians living on the peninsula by 1989.
On September 10, 1990 the Oblast Council of the People's Deputies
adopted the statement to annul the decree of the Presidium of the
Supreme Council of the Soviet Union of June 30, 1945 and the
corresponding laws of the
Russian SFSR
in regards to the administrative changes that changed the Republic
into Oblast.
In November 1990 in Kiev
Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk signed the Russian-Ukrainian
Treaty which commits the two sides to respect each others
territory. On January 20, 1991 the All-Crimean was held in
Crimea with 81% participants involved. Out of those 93.3% voted for
the restoration of the Crimean
Autonomous SSR
in Soviet Union.
On February 12, 1991 the Verkhovna
Rada
recognized the referendum and adopted a law that
restored the status of the autonomous republic within the borders
of Ukrainian SSR and the city of
Sevastopol was granted special government status in the Soviet Union
. In the
Ukrainian referendum on
independence on December 1, 1991, 54.19 percent of residents
from Crimea and 57.07 percent from Sevastopol city voted in favour
of Ukrainian independence.
Autonomy within independent Ukraine
With the
collapse of the
Soviet Union, Crimea became part of the newly independent
Ukraine, a situation largely unexpected by its population. This led
to tensions between Russia and Ukraine. With the
Black Sea Fleet based on the peninsula,
worries of armed skirmishes were occasionally raised. In August
1991
Yuriy Meshkov established the
Republican Movement of Crimea and was registered on November
19.
On September 2, 1991 the National Movement of Crimean Tatars
appealed to the V Extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies in
Russia demanding the program how to return the deported Tatar
population back to Crimea.
Based on the resolution of the Verkhovna
Rada
(the Crimean parliament) on February 26, 1992, the
Crimean ASSR was renamed the Republic of Crimea. Crimea
proclaimed self-government on May 5, 1992, and on the next day
passed the first Crimean constitution.
On May 19, Crimea agreed to remain as part of Ukraine and annulled
their proclamation of self-government.
By June 30, Crimean
Communists forced the Kiev
government
to expand on the already extensive autonomous status of
Crimea. In the same period, Russian president
Boris Yeltsin and Ukraine's
Leonid Kravchuk agreed to divide the former
Soviet Black Sea Fleet
between Russia and the newly formed
Ukrainian Navy. On October 24 Meshkov
re-registered his movement as the
Republican Party of Crimea -
Party of the Republican Movement of Crimea.
On December 11, 1992
the President of Ukraine called
the attempt of "the Russian deputies to charge the Russian
parliament with a task to define the status of Sevastopol
as an imperial disease". On
December 17, 1992 was created the office of the Ukrainian
presidential representative in Crimea which caused wave of protests
a month later. Among the protesters that created the unsanctioned
rally were the Sevastopol branches of the National Salvation Front,
the Russian Popular Assembly, and the All-Crimean Movement of
the Voters for the Republic of Crimea. The protest was
held in Sevastopol on January 10 at
Nakhimov Square.
On January 15, 1993 Kravchuk and Yeltsin in the meeting in Moscow
appointed Eduard Baltin as the commander of the Black Sea Fleet. At
the same time the Union of the Ukrainian Naval Officers protested
the Russian intervention into the Ukrainian internal affairs.
Soon
after that there were more anti-Ukrainian protests led by the
Meshkov's party, the Voters for the Crimean Republic, Yedinstvo, and the Union of Communists that
demanded to turn Sevastopol
under the Russian jurisdiction and followed by the
interview given by the Sevastopol's Communist, Vasyl Parkhomenko,
who said that the city's Communists request to recognize the
Russian as the state language and restoration of the Soviet Union
. On March 19, 1993 the Crimean deputy and
the member of the National Salvation Front, Alexander Kruglov,
threatened the members of the Crimean Ukrainian Congress not allow
into the building of the Republican Council.
Couple of days after
that Russia
established
an information center in Sevastopol
. In April 1993 the Ukrainian Ministry of
Defense submitted an appeal to Verkhovna Rada
to suspend the Yalta Agreement 1992 that divided the
Black Sea Fleet that was followed by the request from the Ukrainian
Republican Party to recognize the Fleet either fully Ukrainian or a
fleet of a foreign country in Ukraine. Also
over 300 Russian legislators called the planned Congress of
Ukrainian Residents a political provocation.
On April 14, 1993 the Presidium of the Crimean parliament called
upon the creation of the presidential post of the Crimean Republic.
A week later the Russian deputy, Valentin Agafonov, stated that
Russia is ready to supervise the referendum on Crimean independence
and include the republic as a separate entity into CIS. On July 28,
1993 one of the leader's of the Russian Society of Crimea, Viktor
Prusakov, stated that his organization is ready for an armed mutiny
and establishment of the Russian administration in Sevastopol. In
September Eduard Baltin accused Ukraine in converting some of his
fleet and an armed assault on his personnel and threatened to take
the
countermeasures by placing fleet on alert.
On October 14, 1993, the Crimean parliament established the post of
President of Crimea and agreed
on the quota of the Crimean Tatars representation in the Council to
14. The head of the Russian People's Council in Sevastopol,
Alexander Kruglov, called it
excessive. The chairman of
the Tatar
Mejlis,
Mustafa Cemiloglu (Djemilev), used
words
categorically against in regards to the proposed
election for Crimean president on January 16. He stated that there
cannot be two presidents in a single state. On November 6, the
Crimean Tatar leader,
Yuriy Osmanov
was murdered. Series of terrorist actions rocked the peninsula in
the winter among them were the arson of the Mejlis apartment, the
shooting of a Ukrainian official, several hooligan attacks on
Meshkov, the bomb explosion in the house of a local parliamentary,
the assassination attempt on a Communist presidential candidate,
and others. On January 2, 1994 Mejlis announced a boycott of the
presidential elections, which were later canceled. The boycott
itself was later taken over by other Crimean Tatar organizations.
On January 11, Mejlis announced their representative,
Mykola Bahrov, the speaker of the Crimean
parliament, as the presidential candidate. On January 12, some
other candidates accused Bahrov of severe methods of agitation. At
the same time
Vladimir
Zhirinovsky called on the people of Crimea to vote for the
Russian Sergei Shuvainikov.
On
January 30, 1994, the pro-Russian
Yuriy Meshkov was
elected to the new
post but quickly ran into conflicts with parliament. On
September 8, the Crimean parliament degraded the President's powers
from the head of state to the head of the executive power only, to
which Meshkov responded by disbanding parliament and announcing his
control over Crimea four days later.
Amendments to the
constitution eased the conflict , but on March 17, 1995, the
parliament
of Ukraine
intervened,
scrapping the Crimean Constitution and removing Meshkov along with
his office for his actions against the state and promoting
integration with Russia
.
After a interim constitution lasting from April 4, 1996, to
December 23, 1998, the currently existing constitution was put into
effect, changing the territory's name to the
Autonomous
Republic of Crimea.
Following the ratification of the May 1997 Treaty of Friendship,
Cooperation, and Partnership on friendship and division of the
Black Sea Fleet, international
tensions slowly eased off.
With the treaty, Moscow
recognized
Ukraine's borders and territorial integrity, and accepted Ukraine's
sovereignty over Crimea and Sevastopol. In a separate
agreement, Russia was to receive 80 percent of the Black Sea Fleet
and use of the military facilities in Sevastopol on a 20-year
lease.
However,
other controversies between Ukraine and Russia still remain,
including the ownership of a lighthouse
on Cape
Sarych
. Because the Russian
Navy controlled 77 geographical objects on the south Crimean
Shore, the Sevastopol
Government Court ordered the vacating of the
objects, which the Russian military did not carry out. Since
August 3, 2005, the lighthouse has been controlled by the
Russian Army. Through the years, there have
been various attempts to return Cape Sarych to Ukrainian territory,
all of which were unsuccessful.
In 2006,
protests
broke out on the peninsula after
U.S. Marines arrived at the Crimean
city of Feodosiya
to take part in the Sea Breeze 2006 Ukraine
-NATO
military exercise. Protesters greeted
the marines with barricades and slogans bearing "Occupiers go
home!" and a couple of days later, the Crimean
parliament
declared Crimea a "NATO-free territory."
After several days of protest, the U.S. Marines withdrew from the
peninsula.
In September 2008, the
Ukrainian Foreign
Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko
accused Russia of giving out
Russian
passports to the population in the Crimea and described it as a
"real problem" given Russia's declared policy of military
intervention abroad to protect Russian citizens.
During a
press conference in Moscow
on 16
February 2009, the Mayor of Sevastopol
Serhiy Kunitsyn claimed (citing recent polls) that
the population of Crimea is opposed to the idea of becoming a part
of Russia
.
Although western newspapers like
the Wall Street Journal have
speculated about a Russian
coup in Sevastopol
or another Crimean city in connection with the
Russian-Georgian war and the
Recognition
of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Russia.
Valentyn
Nalyvaychenko, acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine
(SBU), stated on February 17, 2009, that he is confident that any
“Ossetian
scenario” is impossible in Crimea. The SBU
had started criminal proceedings against the pro-Russian
association "People's front Sevastopol-Crimea-Russia" in January
2009.
On the 55th anniversary of the transfer of Crimea transfer of the
Russian SFSR to the
Ukrainian SSR (on February 19, 2009) some 300
to 500 people took part in rallies to protest against the
transfer.
On 24 August 2009, anti-Ukrainian demonstrations were held in
Crimea by ethnic Russian residents. Sergei P. Tsekov said that he
hoped that Russia would treat the Crimea the same way as it had
treated South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Return of Crimean Tatars

Proportion of the population that is
Crimean Tatar in various regions of Crimea.
Another area of conflict on the peninsula is land ownership. Since
the Crimean Tatars were forcibly deported from their homeland by
Stalin in May 1944, other people,
particularly
Russians, settled the
peninsula and took control of the lands formerly belonging to the
Crimean Tatars. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Crimean Tatars
were allowed to return to Crimea, but conflict arose when they
demanded the return of land seized after their deportation.
Government and politics
Crimea is a
parliamentary
republic that has no
president.
The
legislative body is a 100-seat parliament, the Verkhovna
Rada of Crimea
which is elected every five years since amendments
to the Crimean Constitution in 2009.
The executive power is represented by the
Council of Ministers, headed
by a
Prime Minister who is
appointed and dismissed by the Verkhovna Rada, with the consent of
the
President of Ukraine. The
authority and operation of the Verkhovna Rada and the Council of
Ministers of Crimea are determined by the
Constitution of Ukraine and other
the laws of Ukraine, as well as by regular decisions carried out by
the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea.
Justice is administered by courts that belong to the
judicial system of Ukraine.
Elections and parties
While not
an official body controlling Crimea, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar
People is a representative body of the Crimean Tatars, which
could address grievances to the Ukrainian central
government, the Crimean government
, and international bodies.
During the
2004
presidential elections, Crimea largely voted for the
presidential candidate
Viktor
Yanukovych. In both the
2006 Ukrainian
parliamentary elections and the
2007 Ukrainian
parliamentary elections, the Yanukovych-led
Party of Regions also won most of the votes
from the region.
Following the Crimean parliamentary election, 2006, the following
political parties are represented in the Verkhovna Rada bloc: "Za
Yanukovycha!" (
Party of Regions and
the Russian Bloc): 32.55% (44
mandate); party "Soiuz": 7.63% (10
mandates); Kunytsyna Electoral Bloc: 7.63% (10 mandates);
Communist Party of Ukraine: 6.55%
(9 mandates);
People's
Movement of Ukraine: 6.26% (8 mandates);
Yulia Tymoshenko Electoral
Bloc: 6.03% (8 mandates);
People's Opposition
Bloc of Natalia Vitrenko: 4.97% (7 mandates);
Opposition Bloc "Ne Tak": 3.09% (4
mandates).
Crimea – United States relations
On 18
February 2009 the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea sent a letter to the
Cabinet
of Ministers of Ukraine
and the President
of Ukraine in which it stated that it deemed it inexpedient to
open a representative office of the United States
in Crimea, and it urged the Ukrainian leadership to
give up the idea. The letter is to be sent also to the
Chairman of the UN
General Assembly. The contents of letter were adopted as policy
in a 77-to-9 roll-call vote with one abstention in the Crimean
parliament.
Administrative divisions
Crimea is subdivided into 25 regions: 14
raions (
districts) and 11 city
municipalities, officially known as "territories governed by city
councils".
While the City of Sevastopol
is located on the Crimean peninsula, it is
administratively separate from the rest of Crimea and is one of two
special municipalities of Ukraine.
Raions
City municipalities
Major cities
Geography and Climate

Map of Crimea with major cities.
Crimea is
located on the northern coast of the Black Sea
and on the western coast of the Sea of Azov
, bordering Kherson Oblast
from the North. Although located in
the southwestern part of the Crimean peninsula, the city of
Sevastopol
has a special but separate municipality
status within Ukraine
.
Crimea's total land area is 26,100 km² (10,038 sq mi).
Crimea is connected to the mainland by the 5–7-kilometre
(3–4 mi) wide
Isthmus of
Perekop.
At the eastern tip is the Kerch
Peninsula
, which is
directly opposite the Taman Peninsula
on the Russian mainland. Between the Kerch and
Taman peninsulas lies the 3–13-km (2–9 mi)-wide Strait of
Kerch
, which connects the waters of the Black Sea with
the Sea of Azov.
The Crimean coastline is broken by several bays and harbors.
These
harbors lie west of the Isthmus of
Perekop by the Bay of Karkinit;
on the southwest by the open Bay of
Kalamita, with the ports of Eupatoria
and Sevastopol
; on the north by the Bay of Arabat
of the Isthmus of
Yenikale or Kerch
; and on the
south by the Bay of Caffa or Feodosiya
, with the port of Feodosiya.
The
southeast coast is flanked at a distance of 8–12 km
(5–8 mi) from the sea by a parallel range of mountains, the
Crimean
Mountains
. These mountains are backed by secondary
parallel ranges. Seventy-five percent of the remaining area of
Crimea consists of semi-arid
prairie lands,
a southward continuation of the
Pontic
steppes, which slope gently to the northwest from the foot of
the Crimean Mountains.
The main range of these mountains shoots up
with extraordinary abruptness from the deep floor of the Black Sea
to an altitude of 600–750 metres
(2,000–2,500 ft), beginning at the southwest point of the
peninsula, called Cape Fiolente. At one time it was
believed that this cape was crowned with the temple of
Artemis, where
Iphigeneia
is said to have officiated as priestess.
Uchan-su
waterfall on the south
slope of the mountains is the highest in Ukraine.
Numerous
kurgans, or
burial mounds, of the ancient
Scythians are scattered across the Crimean
steppes.
The terrain that lies beyond the sheltering Crimean Mountain range
is of an altogether different character. Here, the narrow strip of
coast and the slopes of the mountains are smothered with greenery.
This
"riviera" stretches along the southeast coast from Cape Sarych
, in the extreme south, to Feodosiya, and is studded
with summer sea-bathing resorts such as Alupka
, Yalta
, Gurzuf
, Alushta
, Sudak
, and
Feodosiya
. During the years of Soviet
rule, the
resorts and dachas of this coast served as the
prime perquisites of the politically loyal. In addition,
vineyards and fruit orchards are located in the region. Fishing,
mining, and the production of essential oils are also important.
Numerous
Crimean Tatar villages,
mosques,
monasteries, and
palaces of
the Russian imperial family and nobles are found here, as well as
picturesque ancient Greek and medieval castles.
Most of Crimea has a temperate continental climate, except for the
south coast where it experiences a humid subtropical climate, due
to warm influences from the Black Sea. Summers can be hot ( Jul
average), and winters are cool ( Jan average) in the interior; on
the south coast winters are milder ( Jan average), and temperatures
much below freezing are exceptional. Precipitation in the interior
is low with only a year. On the south coast precipitation is more
than double that, with Yalta annually receiving about . Because of
its climate, the southern Crimean coast is a popular beach and sun
resort for Ukrainian and Russian tourists.
Places of interest
Economy
The main branches of the Crimean economy are tourism and
agriculture. Industrial plants are situated for the most part in
the northern regions of the republic.
Important industrial
cities include Dzhankoy
, housing a major railway connection, and Krasnoperekopsk
, among others.
The most important industries in Crimea include food production,
chemical fields, mechanical engineering and metal working, and fuel
production industries. Sixty percent of the industry market belongs
to food production. There are a total of 291 large industrial
enterprises and 1002 small business enterprises.
The main
branches of vegetation production in the region include cereals, vegetable-growing, gardening, and wine-making, particularly in the Yalta
and
Massandra
regions. Other agricultural forms include
cattle breeding, poultry keeping, and sheep breeding.
Other products
produced on the Crimea Peninsula include salt,
porphyry, limestone, and ironstone
(found around Kerch
).
The number of tourists visiting Crimea dropped by 12.7% (to 4.8
million people) in 2009 compared to 2008. A total of 261
sanatoriums and other tourist institutions are
operating in Crimea as of October 2, 2009 (274 in 2008), and they
were 46.1% full (50.9% in 2008).
Transport
Almost every settlement in Crimea is connected with another
settlement with bus lines. Crimea contains the longest (96 km
or 59 mi)
trolleybus route
in the world, stretching from Simferopol to Yalta.
The trolleybus line
starts in near Simferopol's
Railway Station
through the
mountains to Alushta
and on to Yalta
.
The
cities of Yalta, Feodosiya
, Kerch
, Sevastopol
, Chornomorske, and Yevpatoria
are connected to one another by sea routes.
In the cities of Yevpatoria and nearby
townlet Molochnoye are
tram systems.
Railroad lines
running through Crimea include Armyansk
—Kerch (with a link to Feodosiya), and Melitopol
—Sevastopol (with a link to Yevpatoria), connecting
Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland.
Demographics
As of 2005, the total population of Crimea is 1,994,300.
From 1989 to 2001, Crimea's population declined by 396,795 people,
representing 16.33% of the 1989 population, despite the return of
displaced groups such as
Crimean
Tatars. From 2001–2005 the population declined by another
39,400 people, representing a decline from 2001 of another
2%.
According to
2001 Ukrainian
Census, the population of Crimea was 2,033,700. The ethnic
makeup was comprised the following self-reported groups:
Russians: 58.32%;
Ukrainians: 24.32%;
Crimean Tatars: 12.1%;
Belarusians: 1.44%;
Tatars: 0.54%;
Armenians:
0.43%;
Jews: 0.22%; and
Italians: 0.015%.
Other minorities are
Black Sea
Germans,
Roma people,
Bulgarians,
Poles,
Azerbaijanis,
Koreans
and
Greeks. The number of
Crimea Germans was 45,000 in 1941. In 1944,
70,000
Greeks from the Crimea were deported
toCentral Asia and Siberia, along with 200,000 Crimean Tatars and
other nationalities.
Language
Ukrainian language is the single
official state language
countrywide, and is the sole language of government in Ukraine. In
Crimea government business is still carried out mainly in
Russian. Attempts to
expand the usage of Ukrainian in education and
government affairs has been less successful in Crimea than in other
areas of the nation.
Another language widely spoken is Crimean Tatar. According to the census mentioned, 77% of Crimean inhabitants named Russian as their native language; 11.4% – Crimean Tatar; and 10.1% – Ukrainian.
Migration
Currently 2/3 of the migrants into Crimea are from other regions of
Ukraine, every 5th is from the former Soviet Union and every 40th
from outside of the former Soviet Union. 3/4 of those leaving
Crimea move to other areas in Ukraine. Every 20th migrates to the
West.
Trends
The population of the Crimean peninsula has been consistently
falling at a rate of 0.4% per year. This is particularly apparent
in both the Russian and Ukrainian ethnic populations, whose growth
rate has been falling at the rate of 0.6% and 0.12% annually
respectively. In comparison, the overall growth rate of the ethnic
Crimean Tatar population has been growing at the rate of 0.9% per
annum.
The
growing trend in the Crimean Tatar population has been explained by
the continual Crimean Tatar repatriation (mainly from Uzbekistan
), the high birth rate amongst the resettlers, and
the low death rate as few senior citizens have resettled back into
their ancestral home.
Culture
Sport
Crimea figures prominently in Ukrainian sports, especially the most
popular:
Association football.
The most successful Crimean
football
club is
Tavriya Simferopol in
the
Ukrainian Premier
League, and it possesses one championship title. In the
Ukrainian First League Crimea
is represented by
FC
Feniks-Illychovets Kalinine,
FC Ihroservice Simferopol,
FC Krymteplitsia
Molodizhne,
PFC Sevastopol. In
the
Second League Crimea has
the club
FC Tytan Armyansk.
Crimea is represented within Ukrainian
Bandy
and Rink-bandy Federation.
See also
Footnotes and references
External links
Official links
Informational links