Black Sea can go up in a fireball – a looming natural disaster

Yesterdays act of terrorism when Ukraine blew up the Kahovskaja HPP dam creates not only a military and humanitarian difficulty for Russia, not only does it create a short-term ecological disaster, killing hundreds of thousands of animals in one swipe, not only does it create a mid-term epidemiological disaster, when ll that has been washed off begins to rot and decompose, it also exacerbates a long-term looming catastrophe hanging over the Black Sea. As it stands now, the sea is already on the verge of going up in a hige fireball, and any additional dumps of the sediments and warm water only hasten that outcome.

Below is a translation of an article by “Argumenty i Fakty” from the 29th of May 2023.


Deep poison. A scientist from Turkey warns of a catastrophe of the Black Sea

Turkish geologist, Professor Osman Bektash warned about the impending danger to all who live on the Black Sea coast. According to him, global climate change is to blame.

The middle layer is thinning

Insufficient precipitation and an increase in temperatures above average values have led to the fact that life in the depths of this sea has become impoverished. The number of fish has decreased, the diversity of biological species has decreased. But that’s not even the main concern.

The Black Sea is practically a closed basin, it is connected to the World Ocean through the narrow Bosphorus Strait. The rivers flowing into it — the Dnieper, Dniester, and Danube — have deposited silt over millions of years, which settled on the bottom and produced hydrogen sulfide as a result of chemical reactions. The excess of this gas with a foul smell of rotten eggs in the depths is the most famous and unusual feature of the Black Sea. It accumulated there for a long time, and since its solution is heavier than water, hydrogen sulfide concentrated in the deepest places.

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The 9th of May 2023 – Remembering the continued fight against Nazism

On this Victory Day, the 9th of May 2023, I want to remember not the Victory on the 9th of May 1945 in the Great Patriotic War and the World War II, I want to remember the continued struggle against Nazism, a struggle that Russia once again had to hoist up on its shoulders.

The perfect way to remember it, is another 9th of May celebration that happened a year earlier – in 1944 – when the Crimean city of Sevastopol was liberated from the German Nazis, who had been rampaging Crimea for almost 2 years, not unlike how the Ukro-Nazis had been rampaging Donbass for the long 8 years since 2014.

In a small way the liberation of Sevastopol was a Victory, but more struggle was still ahead, just like today.

6 years ago, when Artjom Grishanov made this clip, the continuation of the fight was only starting, the warnings in the documentary portion of the clip were not heeded, the “delirium” that Putin spoke of back then, has engulfed the “garden”.

And now, the article co commemorate the continued fight.


Liberation of Sevastopol from the Nazi invaders

The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Ruins of Sevastopol

On the 9th of May 1944, during the Great Patriotic War, as a result of an offensive operation that got the name of “Crimean”, the city of Sevastopol was liberated from the German Nazi troops.

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The Legacy of Gorbachev. Germany is denying Russia what it got from Russia 30 years ago.

After Gorbachev’s passing, a lot can be said about his deeds and legacy. Little of it will be positive.
At best, he’s remembered as a bumbling fool, who started reforms that he was in no position to bring to a positive fruition.
At worst he – along with Yeltsin – is remembered as a malicious traitor to the Russian world, responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people as the result of the demolition of the USSR, which started several years before the fateful events of 1991.
As a middle-ground, I would recommend Scott Ritter’s article in Consortium News SCOTT RITTER: Mikhail Gorbachev, a Vector of Change

My today’s translation takes a look at Gorbachev’s legacy from a different angle – from the perspective of the reunification of Germany. It was in 2014 that first read a short comment about the German counter-historical stance on the reunification of Crimea in light of the prior reunification of Germany. Back then it was just that – a comment in some other discussion. Yesterday I came across an article at the Federal News Agency site that makes a much deeper , and more passionate dive into the matter. And article, a translation of which I am presenting below.


Germany refuses the Russians what Russians gave her thirty years ago

03.09.2022


Pravda Komsomolskaya/Russian Look

In Germany, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is very much loved. Much more than in Russia and many former Soviet republics. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was even called “the best German” because he did a huge historical thing for the German people. He united a divided Germany.

But he demolished his own country.

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The brief history of Crimea

Less than a year ago USNATO did a desperate push to start WWIII: On the brink of WWIII. Will NATO push for it 76 years after the NAZI defeat?. Now with the USA proclaiming its intent to start military aggression on the territory of Ukraine and fight Russia to the last Ukrainian – in other words to start a fratricidal war, with artillery shelling of Donetsk resumed by the UkroNazis (Ukrainian breakaway republic shelled, nearby RT crew reports) and with occasional shells exploding on the Russian side of the border (Russia makes artillery shell claim), it is a good time to take a pause and look back at history once again.

Crimea being one of the bones of contentions for the USNATO, who lost the prospect of placing a military base there, the following article put the peninsula’s history into a much-needed perspective, reiterating many of the points that I wrote about earlier on these pages, to wit, that Crimea’s transfer to Ukraine by Khrushov was illegal, unconstitutional and undemocratic, violating with prejudice all those values that the West is supposedly standing for!

however, this article covers a much wider swath of history, including those aspect, entirely unfamiliar to the Western populace (and in some cases to modern-day Russians).

How Crimea became part of Russia and why it was gifted to Ukraine

Here is a fragment of the article:

Legal nihilism in the USSR and its consequences

The question of the legality of the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was raised even before the collapse of the USSR. The fact is that, according to the Soviet Constitution of 1937, neither the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, nor even the Supreme Soviet had the right to alter the borders of a republic. This was only constitutionally possible after holding a referendum to determine the opinion of the population living in the territory to be transferred. Of course, no referendum was ever held on the peninsula.

In November of 1990, the Crimean Regional Council of People’s Deputies decided to hold a referendum on whether to restore the peninsula’s status as an Autonomous Republic. Of those who took part, 93.26% voted in favor. Thus, Crimea became a participant in negotiating the terms of a new Union Treaty, which Mikhail Gorbachev was preparing at the time. Next, Crimean lawmakers planned to appeal to Gorbachev to cancel the illegal transfer of the peninsula to Ukraine, but the USSR collapsed before they had time to do so. Subsequently, the parliament of the Russian Federation voted on May 21, 1992, to confirm that the decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of February 5, 1954, entitled ‘On the Transfer of the Crimean Region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR’, had no legal force, since its adoption was “in violation of the Constitution (Basic Law) of the RSFSR and legislative procedure.

Since the Constitution of the Soviet Union was still in force and there was still no Ukrainian Constitution including Crimean autonomy, the Supreme Council of Crimea adopted its own declaration of independence for a Republic of Crimea. A referendum to decide its fate was planned for August 2, 1992, but the Ukrainian central authorities would not allow the plebiscite to take place.

In 1994, Crimea, which had status as an Autonomous Republic within Ukraine, elected a president who supported reunification with Russia, as did most of the members of the republic’s parliament. In response, Ukraine’s leadership unilaterally abolished the Crimean Constitution, the ‘Act on State Sovereignty of Crimea’, and the post of Crimean president, while banning all the parties that had made up the majority in the Crimean parliament. Against the will of the population, Crimea became Ukrainian.

Dedicated to the 75th Anniversary of the Victory. Hero-City of Sevastopol. NTV video-tribute

Sevastopol. The Crimean city that the locals say survived three sieges, the longest one ending in 2014. The second siege was between 1941 and 1944, when the city ultimately fell under the German control yet retained it fighting spirit until its liberation.

Below is an NTV tribute to the Hero-City of Sevastopol with my translation of the transcript

By the start of WWII, Sevastopol was the largest port of the Black Sea, and the main maritime military base of the USSR. Thus it was among the first Soviet cities bombed by the German aviation on the 22nd of June 1941.

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Crimean Bridge Complete – The First Passenger Train Passes!

Such splendid news on the eve of the New Year of 2020!

The 100-year-old Russian dream has come to fruition and the bridge to Crimea is now complete. It was during the reign of tzar Nikolai II that the first plans to build the bridge to Crimea appeared. The technological know-how was not, however, in place and the first actual attempt to build the bridge happened right after WWII. The bridge was constructed between the two nearest shore points and could not withstands the pressure of the ice, so it collapsed shortly after its construction. And now this third attempt is a resounding success, started shortly after Crimea’s reunification with Russia and necessitated by the hostile attitude from the Russian break-away Borderland area. The bridge now carries both cars and trains.

Watch the exclusive reportage of the first passenger train passage by the British independent journalist Graham Phillips
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GsuYrEoGkg

And here is a local view:
MEET! The FIRST TRAIN to CRIMEA! Simferopol. Railway Station comes to life! Sevastopol.

Celebrating the 5th Anniversary of Crimea’s Reunification with Russia

This March marks 5 years since the people of Crimea overwhelmingly voted in favour of reunification with the rest of Russia. This event was preceded by a violent Western-sponsored coup d’etat in Ukraine, which removed there the legitimate government and left Ukraine without any constitutional government for several months. De facto Ukraine was ruled by the US/EU-approved Ukro-Nazi mod, which saw as its mission eradication of everything Russian in Ukraine. And Crimea stood high on their list of territories to be depopulated from the Russians.

USA had its own interests in Crimea, having scouted it for its new US-NATO military base. Crimea would have become another Kosovo for the US-NATO, Kosovo, which was split off from Serbia in a savage aggression on Yugoslavia by the US-NATO in March 1999 and lead to the establishment one of the largest US-NATO military bases in Europe – Camp Bondsteel, which Graham Phillips documented in his latest reportage.

And then “The Third Siege of Crimea” – as the locals call it, the longest 25-year-long siege, ended and Crimea reunited with its motherland!

The Crimeans overwhelmingly voted for the reunification, exercising their right under the international law and the UN charter of people’s right to self-determination. It was not the first time the Crimeans voted for the reunification, but this time it worked, while in 1991 the results were ignored and suppressed.

Whatever passed between Russia and Ukraine in 1954, it was not sovereignty over Crimea. The Union States did not have sovereignty over the autonomous bodies within them. The USSR had sovereignty over both of them. According to the Constitution the Supreme Soviet would determine the fate of the autonomies if a state seceded.

USSR Law of Secession: “The people residing in the autonomies are given a right to independently decide whether to remain in the Soviet Union or in the seceding Republic as well as to decide on their state legal status.”

Crimean Referendum Jan. 20, 1991: “Do you support re-establishing the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as a subject of the Union SSR and a participant of the Union Treaty?”

— 94.3% yes —

As 2.5 million Crimeans celebrated, the West was gnashing its collective teeth as the loss of a prospective military base for the USA to put their missiles aimed at Moscow. Sanctions followed, trying to punish the Crimeans for their choice. Ukraine, with the Western blessing, blew up the electric power lines as well as left the peninsular without water, leading to a large-scale humanitarian disaster. No-one bombed the Obama regime for organising it, but Russia rather quickly managed to restore both water and power to the peninsular through a dedicated infrastructure bridge.

More sanctions followed from the West. The Russians felts especially betrayed by the Germans – only in 1989 Gorbachev, against the strategic interests of the USSR, and to the hollow NATO promises of “not one inch East of Berlin”, green-lighted the reunification of the German people. And that is how the Germans repaid when the Russian people reunified – by slapping on sanctions.

Time passed, and Russia continued to undo the damage done to Crimea by the 25 years of Ukrainian neglect. They built new infrastructures, built new international airport, built a large mosque for the Crimean Tatars and recognised their language as one of the three official languages in Crimea (something Ukraine promised to do, but never did), they built the miracle of engineering – the Kerch railway and motor bridge, they restored Artec.

Looking back at 2014, when this revival started, I found my copy of Argumenty i Facty from the 18th of March 2014, which I keep as a valuable memento – akin to how our grandfathers would have kept newspapers announcing the end of WWII. Here is the facsimile of its front page.

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Five Years Later, the Crimean Scythian Gold Worth $4 Million May Fall into Poroshenko’s Hands

In a twist of fate, just as Crimea returned to Russia after 25 years of Ukrainian oppressive rule, Crimea’s most precious collection of Scythian gold was on tour in European and promptly became arrested by Holland. It is in Holland still, despite several Crimean Museums’ ownership of the collection. After the first hearing in 2016, Holland awarded the golden collection to Ukraine. The decision was appealed, and is now coming for a near hearing in Holland. The following article in Argumenty i Fakty from 12.03.2019 is about this.


The gold that got stuck.
Will Poroshenko get the wealth of the ancient Scythians?

The second trial, which will decide the fate of the exhibits of the Crimean museums, started in Holland.


The gold of the Scythians. © / PHGCOM / Commons.wikimedia.org

Hearings on the case of the “Scythian gold” began on March the 11th in Amsterdam. In 2014, it was taken from the Crimean museums to an exhibition in Amsterdam. After the reunification of Crimea with Russia, the Ukrainian authorities demanded to return the exhibits to Ukraine. In 2016, the district court of Amsterdam ruled in favour of Kiev. Crimean museums have filed an appeal, which will now be considered in court.

Aif.ru answers the main questions about the upcoming process.

What are these gold artefacts?

In February 2014, when Maidan was raging in Kiev, the exhibition “Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea” was opened in Amsterdam. It collected the best exhibits from the ‘Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine’, ‘Kerch Historical and Cultural Reserve’, ‘The Central Museum of Tavrida’, ‘Bakhchisarai Historical and Cultural Reserve’ and ‘The National Reserve “Tauric Chersonesos”‘. Amsterdam became another point in the Museums’ “tour” of the collection: before Holland they were exhibited in Bonn, Germany.

The exhibition told the story of the Scythians, an ancient nomadic people who from the VIII century BC inhabited the steppes between the Danube and the Don, including the Crimea. The history of the Scythians is told in a large number of written sources by various ancient authors, especially Greek, because the Scythians lived next door to numerous Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast (one of them was the famous Crimean Chersonesos).

Archaeologists still find artefacts of the Scythians all over the Northern Black Sea coast in the burial mounds in which the nobility and commoners were laid to rest. Most of the “tombs” were looted long before the scientists came to the scene, so it is very rare to find untouched graves. However, those burial grounds that the robbers could not reach, contain many valuable artefacts, including gold, which the Scythians associated with Royal power and eternal life.

Why is this collection valuable?

In total, the exhibition presented 1071 items from Crimea: weapons, jewellery, various products and household items. The total cost of the exhibits exceeds $4 million.

There are unique historical artefacts among the items currently held in Holland. For example, the sculpture of the snake-goddess, which was sent to the exhibition from the Kerch Museum. It was discovered in the XIX century and then gave rise to a sensation. Herodotus wrote that the Scythians descended from the union of Hercules with the serpentine virgin. For a long time it was believed that the ancient Greek historian himself came up with this myth, but the discovery proved that this legend was popular before Herodotus.

The pearl of the collection were the Chinese lacquered boxes, presumably made in China in the I century AD. They were found in one of the burials. How the boxes got to Crimea is not quite clear, but it shows the extensive connections of the peninsula, which was at the crossroads of trade routes between the West and the East.

Why did the court of Amsterdam decided to give the gold to Ukraine?

The host states signed contracts with two parties: the museums representing the collections and the Ministry of Culture of the country that sent the exhibition. Then it, naturally, was Ukraine. Since the annexation of Crimea changed the jurisdiction of museums, there arose a dilemma: who to return the exhibits to? To the museums with which they signed the contracts, or to the country which they belonged to before?

The Ukrainian authorities insisted that the exhibits could not be returned to the “occupied territory”. The Crimean museums answered that artefacts, which they provided, were found in the territory of the peninsula, and must therefore be returned there.

In December 2016, the district court of Amsterdam ruled that all exhibits should be transferred to Ukraine, as “only sovereign states can claim cultural heritage”. Commenting on this decision, the General Director of ‘The Central Museum of Tavrida’ Andrey Malgin told “AiF” that in this case they preferred to prioritise the right of the state property. “But there are also norms of ethics, scientific norms. I am sure that if the case concerned a Western European Museum, such important concepts as the unity of the museum collection or the right of the museum to the operational management of artefacts would have surfaced. They would have also remembered that our museums are older than the state of Ukraine, that we kept these items, that they, ultimately, belong to the land from which they were extracted”, — said Malgin.


Gold ornaments found in Scythian burial mound. Archival photo.

What can happen to the appeal?

The Crimean museums have filed an appeal against the decision of the Amsterdam court. Now the fate of the exhibits will be decided by the Dutch court of appeal. The trial may be delayed for another two months. First, the court will hear the arguments of the parties, then it will have 6 weeks to make a decision. If it is in favour of Kiev, then the President of Ukraine elected this spring (and at the moment Petro Poroshenko has a good chance to keep his post) will receive a generous “gift” from the West on the occasion of his inauguration.

But until the trial is completed, all items from the Crimean collection will still be in the Netherlands. “This process is slow. But hope is always there,” said Aifi Malgin.

Yes, Scythians Are Us! (Documentary with EngSubs)

In 2014 Russian TV channel Culture aired a documentary, looking through the depth of time, trying to decipher who are Scythians, Sarmatians, Slavs and Russians, if they are one and the same people. The conclusion was mostly positive – yes, they are. The authors looked at the data from the chronicles, archaeology, linguistics and genetics, weighing arguments both for and against.

The film’s conclusion is open, and in a typical Russian way advocating peace and cooperation of all peoples, whoever their ancestors may be.

I want to add one material to better illustrate the point, made at 24:04, and citing Lavrentij Chronicles. I have the copies of those texts, and present the excerpt below with the words “Great Scythia” highlighted.


In the year 6415 Oleg went against Greece, having left Igor in Kiev; taking the multitude of Varjags, Slovens, Chudis, Krivichis, Merjus, Poljans, Severjan (Northerners), Drevljans (elder ones), Radimichis, Horvats (Croats), Dulebs, Tiverce, who are known as Tolkovny (Tolmachi – interpreters): and together they are called the Great Scythia (Velikaja Skuf’). And together with all of these Oleg went astride horses and in the ships, and the ships were counting 2000. And when they arrived at Czargrad, and Greece…

One notable thing, besides the mention of the Scythians as a collective name of the Slav people, is the date: year 6415. That is a separate topic of the Russia calendar, that was discarded by Peter I, and which lead to shortening and subsequent rewriting of the Russian history to suit the needs of the influentially growing Germanic aristocracy that was slowly taking over Russia’s political life at that time. I am going to publish a separate article about it soon.

Addendum: a 1531 map of Orontius Finaeus (Oronce Finé) came to my attention:

Orontius Finaeus map of 1531

Leaving aside the fact that it shows the coastline of Antarctica, uncovered by ice – probably from before the quite recent Flood time, when that continent’s coastline was accessible, we can look at the following part of Eurasia and see…

Scytia – mentioned twice, as well as Tartaria, Russia, and Bulgaria – the latter where it was supposed to start, along the Volga (Volgari-Bolgari) river bank, East from the Crimean meridian.

And now, on to the documentary…

The formatted subtitle file in ASS format can be downloaded separately. Full text of the script is below the video frame.


Yes, Scythians Are Us! at Rumble

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Celebrating 3 years of Crimea’s reunification

Three years ago, on the 16th of March 2014 Crimeans unanimously voted to return home. Below are two maps with the results of that pivotal referendum:

ADDED! Lada Ray has showcased several more videos of the celebration and the 2014 flashbacks at Futurist Trendacst: Russia Celebrates Three Years of Reunification with #Crimea. #Putin 2014 Flashbacks

ADDED! Independent British journalist Graham Philips published at his blog The Truth Speaker a series of videos that he filmed in Crimea prior and during the referendum: Crimea: March 16th, 2014 – As It Really Was. Highly recommended!

ADDED! Fireworks in Moscow on the 18th!

Photos from today’s celebrations in Crimea


Percentages of the turnout per region. Total electorate: 1.543.815 people.


Percentages show the number who voted for the reunification with Russia. Background colour is the turnout from the total electorate. Orange (Lenin region) did not have the opportunity to participate in the referendum.

Following the coup d’etat in Kiev and preceding the referendum, people were already on the streets, as can be seen from the image below from the 23rd of February from Sevastopol. People were forming militia to stand up to the nazi thugs, who were heading towards Crimea. Luckily, the worst case scenario was avoided, though several Crimeans – who were in Kiev protesting against the coup d’etat – were accosted on their way back to the peninsular and killed.

So when reunification happened, the relief and joy were palpable. Crimeans were and are happy to be back home. And for all Russians, despite the demonstration and sanctions that followed, that was the most important, the brightest event of this century so far.



Crimea is Russia

And for all the neigh-sayers, I have it from a reliable source that Russian Crimeans are willing to fight if someone tries to deprive them of this victory. It won’t be the first time. Here is a photo from my photo album, which I took in 2010, while Crimea was still under Ukraine. Ask yourself, would the people who were so meticulously taking care of their history, of they heroism against the German nazi occupation, take kindly to a nazi regime that took over Ukraine, a regime, that banned and criminalised all the symbols of the 1945 victory?


Steam Engine of the legendary armoured train “Zheleznjakov”, which took part in the heroic defence of Sevastopol in 1941-1942. Inscription on the side of the engine: “Death to Fascism”.

Crimea Celebrates the 2nd Anniversary of Reunification

On the 18th of March 2016 Crimea and Sevastopol celebrated the second anniversary of the joyous event of their reunification with Russia, after a 60-year long separation.

Lada Ray published a very much needed recap of the events that lead to the reunification in:

#Sevastopol #Krim #Rossia: 2nd Anniversary of Crimea’s Reunification with Russia

Following the February Ukraine coup, on March 16th, 2014, Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine and reunite with Russia. 95% to 97% voted for reunification, depending on the area. Simultaneously, a referendum whether to accept Crimea and Sevastopol as two new subjects of the Russian Federation took place in Russia. 95% of Russians said ‘yes.’

On March 18-19, Crimea and Sevastopol joined the Russian Federation as two newest subjects. The transition went smoothly and peacefully, not a single shot was fired and only two casualties were registered on both sides, shot by a provocateur Ukrainian sniper sent there to attempt inciting violence (by the old CIA playbook).

At the time, 16,000 Russian troops were stationed in Crimea, based on the Black Sea Fleet Sevastopol base lease agreement with Ukraine. Simultaneously, 20,000 Ukrainian troops were stationed on the peninsula as well. Out of these 20,000, about 18,000 Ukraine troops pledged allegiance to Russia, while only 2,000 chose to leave back to Ukraine. They were allowed to leave peacefully and with dignity.

The article also contains video from the celebrations in Crimea and from the Beautiful (Red) Square. Here I want to present one very significant song, the anthem of Sevastopol.

The Legendary Sevastopol

Music: Vano Muradeli
Text: Petr Gragov
Written: 1954
Ratified as the official anthem of Sevastopol on 29.07.1994

Russian text of the song and some history can be read in this Wikipedia article.

Fly winged wind.
Over seas, over land,
Tell the whole world,
About my beloved city.

Tell to the whole world,
How on the Crimean shores,
Our grandfathers fought,
And glorified in battle.

[Chorus:]
Legendary Sevastopol,
Impregnable to enemies.
Sevastopol, Sevastopol –
The pride of Russian sailors!

Here we went to the rightful and holy battles,
For our Motherland,
And your previous glory,
Have we multiplied.

Having shrugged of black sailor overcoats,
The Black Sea sailors, during the days of War,
Went against tanks with only handgrenades,
Your sons went to their deaths,

[Chorus]

If across the sea
enemies should come to us with swords,
We’ll meet the unwelcome guests
with annihilating fire

The whole of our dear country knows,
That the battleships do not sleep
And are guarding surely
The shores of the homeland

[Chorus]

Some trivia: During the most vicious period of Ukranisation of Crimea in 2006, Ukrainians tried to re-write the text, replacing “Russian sailors” with “Ukrainian sailors”, “Sevastopol” with “white-stone fortress”, and “Cossacks” were added. The reaction of the citizens was strongly negative, to say the least.

You can hear a rendition of it, where a girl spontaneously performed it at an election locale on the 16th of March 2014:

Who and How Transferred Crimea into Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1952-1954

Below is my translation of a very informative article by Mikhail Smirnov, published in Svobodnaja Mysl’ (Free Thought).

1Nemo1KPB8UjQjrURqn6V7Mscungx44XS2Please note that translating a documentary film or an article takes a lot of time and emotional effort. I am doing it on a voluntary basis, but if someone feels like supporting my work, a Bitcoin donation to the following address is appreciated: 1Nemo1KPB8UjQjrURqn6V7Mscungx44XS2

It is worth noting, that when the author points out the Russian roots in Crimea, he is most probably referring to the Scythians, who are just the same people as Rus, but going under a different name. See my summery of the documentary Yes, Scythians Are Us.

When reading the text below, note one historic peculiarity of USSR of that time. While 14 republics were almost always denoted by their national name – e.g Ukrainian SSR (Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) – there was one exception. In USSR no one spoke of Russia, to the extent that the existence of Russia as a republic was largely forgotten. Instead the acronym RSFSR was always in use (decoded as Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic).

At the end of this post, after the main article, I present my translation of the closing speech by K.E Voroshilov from the stenography of the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from the 19th of February 1954, which is an important historical evidence, setting the stage for the transfer of the peninsular and the expectations connected to the act.


It was not Khrushchev, who made the decision on the transfer of Crimea, but his rabid anti-Stalinism and voluntarism became the propelling power behind this whole undertaking. There were no objective reasons for this decision.

In the history of the presence of the Crimea within modern Ukraine, which, as it is now widely known, began with the official transfer of the Crimean region of the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 and is associated with the name N.S.Khrushchev, you can set apart the pre-history, that is the actually history of decision-making on behalf of the Crimea, from hatching of the idea to the party-bureaucratic mechanism for its implementation.

As it is well-known, at the time of its transfer into the Ukrainian SSR in 1954, Crimea had the status of the region within the RSFSR. From 1921 to 1945 it was a multi-national autonomy within the Russian Federation – the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (KrASSR) with the official languages ​​of Russian and Tatar, and in places of compact settlement – also German and Hebrew. After the well-known dramatic events during the War, the administrative status of Crimea was downgraded: Crimean Autonomy was eliminated by converting it into the Crimean region, officially – due to changes in the ethnic composition of the population of Crimea. Crimean Autonomy was restored in 1991 as part of the Ukrainian SSR, and in 1992 it was renamed into the Republic of Crimea.

In the public mind there is a long-established stereotype, which firmly connects the transfer of the Crimean region of the RSFSR into the Ukrainian SSR with the name of N.S. Khrushchev. By and large it is justified, but, after all, a few comments clarifying and enriching the picture of the event will be reasonably useful.

According to the memoirs of the contemporaries of the events, the idea of ​​the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine began to ripen in Khrushchev’s mind ever since the time, when he in 1944-1947 headed the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, and at the same time was the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR. The year was 1944, the war was still going on. The boss off the USSR, I.V. Stalin, demanded that Khrushchev sent from the Ukrainian SSR to the neighbouring republic 100 thousand people – they were supposed to help with the rebuilding of the Russian Federation. But the position of Ukraine itself was not less, but even more severe, as during the Great Patriotic War almost the whole of its territory saw devastating military operations, and almost all of it has been exposed to enemy occupation. Nikita Khrushchev was furious. “Ukraine itself is destroyed, and more is taken from us” – he raged. (Head of the Soviet trade unions, Lavrentij Pogrebnoy, was a witness to Khrushchev’s indignation in 1944. A few years later, he told one of the Soviet writers about the events.)

Khrushchev could not directly oppose Stalin’s orders. So perhaps even then, or a little later, he hatched the idea that a decent compensation for this extra effort (and even, maybe for Starvation [translator’s note: Gologomor, for the real history surrounding it, I’d recommend reading the article The Real Truth About USSR: Golodomor and Collectivization in Ukraine]), could become a significant territorial gain of Ukraine within the USSR: of course, at the expense of the beneficiary of the “Ukrainian brotherly” assistance – the Russian Federation, which was to boot the most rich territory-wise. Even a cursory glance at the map of the Soviet Union was enough to see the most likely scenario for this: geographically isolated from the rest of the territory of the RSFSR, but located in the vicinity of the Ukrainian SSR and adjacent to it, is the Crimean peninsula. And being by nature a voluntarist, he vowed that he will get Crimea, whatever it takes.

But Khrushchev began the direct implementation of his idea later, in the first half of the 50s, or more precisely – starting from 1952, when the signs of limitations in functional capacity of Stalin became more and more obvious for the party leadership. (Stalin announced that he was going to retire at the October Central Committee plenum of 1952, which was held after the completion of the XIX Congress of the CPSU. But already starting from February 1951, three Politburo members (G.M. Malenkov, L.P. Beria, N.A. Bulganin) were given the right to sign various documents on behalf of Stalin, as, according to Molotov, due to the decrease in performance he did not sign many government documents for a prolonged period of time.) The real opportunity opened up only in connection with the death of Stalin. But it is possible that another significant cause for activation of Khrushchev on this subject at that time was also the activity of a supporter of Stalin’s policy in regard to the Crimea, which brought to the fore the ideas that went counter to Khrushchev’s.

According to unconfirmed records, in October 1952, the first secretary of the Crimean regional party (in 1949-1954) P.I. Titov, while being a delegate of the XIX Party Congress, addressed personally to Stalin with a written offer to rename the Crimean region into Tauridia. In his opinion, it would be entirely consistent with the history of the region, starting from the XVIII century. In particular, as one of the arguments, Titov appealed to the forgotten Soviet Republic of Tauridia. He believed that for the Crimean region of the RSFSR “it’s high time to restore its Russian, Rus name”.

Titov’s proposal was not priorly discussed in the Crimean Regional Party Committee and was not approved by them. But we know that the second person in the region – D.S. Polanski (in 1952-1954 the chairman of the executive committee of the Crimean Regional Council) – objected to this initiative. On the other hand he supported the transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR. Twenty years later, the nomenclature Party member G.V. Myasnikov, while at that time the second secretary of the Moscow city committee of the Komsomol remembered Polyansky thus: “I remember how he went up the hill. He met Khrushchev and Titov in the Crimea. An idea of ​​the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was brought up. Titov rejected the idea right away, while Polyansky said it was “brilliant”. The next day they gathered the plenum of the Crimean Regional Committee, Titov was driven out, while Poljansky became the first secretary of the regional committee.”

But it is more likely that this “cleansing out” of Titov took place more gradually, after the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of USSR, N.S. Khrushchev visited the Crimea in October 1953. Khrushchev’s son-in-law, Adjoubei Alex, who accompanied him on his trip around the country, recalled that when Khrushchev came to the Crimea at that time, he was shocked by how disastrous was the situation in the region and how great was the discontent by this among the local residents. At the same time, however, Khrushchev remained true to himself, and when he saw at the local airport some aircraft, he immediately ordered to fly it over to Kiev. And then, a few hours later, he already talked, over a supper, with the local party leaders about the transfer of Crimea and resettlement of Ukrainians into Crimea. Most likely, it was at this moment that an open dispute ensued between him and Titov. According to Titov’s deputy, L.G. Mezentsev, the head of the Crimea was called in to Moscow in mid-January of 1954 to inform him of preparation of a decision on the transfer of the region. He protested, for which on the 16th of January he was replaced with a Ukrainian Dmitry Polyansky. Thus, based on the totality of the memories of witnesses, it can be argued that P.I. Titov strongly objected to Khrushchev regarding the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine, and he had constant clashes with the Secretary of the Central Committee on this issue, which resulted in this imperious and prudent owner of the Crimean region being finally deposed to the rank of Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the RSFSR. In general, according to the researchers, Khrushchev initiated a rather limited number of people into his intentions with respect to Crimea. Among them – the first secretary (since June 1953) of the Communist Party of Ukraine A.I. Kirichenko, who, at the time, was also a candidate member of the Praesidium of the Central Committee of CPSU and was in good standing with Khrushchev.

But Stalin, who was by that time ill, delayed an official response to Titov. According to the memoirs of some of Titov’s colleagues, in the spring of 1953 and later he, nevertheless, referred to a brief personal answer from Stalin, which was sent personally to him in late January 1953, saying that his proposal was “interesting and perhaps correct. This question can be discussed and resolved.” In the middle of November of 1953 Titov told about this opinion of Stalin to Khrushchev and Polyansky, when the principal decision on the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine had in fact already been made.

An indirect confirmation of the fact that Stalin was quite seriously considering Titov’s proposals, can be the process of renaming of the Crimean Tatar names into Russian ones, which began from the mid-1940s and which was initiated by Stalin himself after the deportation of the Tatar population from there. There are many sources describing this. For example, a comprehensive project on renaming in Crimea was dated with the 25th of September 1948, when the Crimean Regional Committee passed the decree “On renaming of settlements, streets, certain types of work, and other Tatar designations”. However, it was not planned to rename Crimea itself. But even before that, in the 1944-1946, 11 out of 26 Crimean regional centres were renamed (for example, the Ak-Mechetsky region into Chernomorskij, Larindorfsky into Pervomaisky) as well as 327 villages. In the period from 1948 to 1953, it was planned to rename some towns. The documents recorded in particular that Djankoi was going to become either Uzlovo, Severnyj or Verhnekrymsk, Saki turning into Ozernoje, and they wanted to call Bakhchisaray – “Pushkin”. Kerch was supposed to be given the name of “Korchev”, known from the old-Russian chronicles. In general, during 1947-1953 new – Russian – names were given to 1062 settlements and nearly 1300 natural object, mostly replacing Tatar ones. It is obvious that in the context of this process, also Titov’s proposal to change the name of the Crimea looked quite logical. However, the renaming slowed down when the turn of the cities came. And after Stalin’s death, the plan to rename the Crimean cities was abandoned altogether.

Thus, we can see that the project of the inclusion of Crimea into Ukraine was preceded by a project of strengthening of Russian presence in Crimea, and in 1952-1953, as a logical completion of the latter, there was also a project, which remained on the level of an idea, of re-renaming the Crimean region into Tauridian.

(An aside from the translator: Crimean Tatars are more likely Mongolians, the descendants of the Golden Horde of the Mongolian Khan Baty, who raided and occupied the peninsular in the 14th century. The name given to the peninsular by them was “Kyrim”, meaning “trench”. Before the Mongol occupation the peninsular had the Greek name of “Tauridia”. What the endemic population, Scythians, called their land back then is lost.)

As is known, the Russian presence in Crimea has been recorded since ancient chronicled times. Of particular interest to us – in the light of the events of the XX century that we discuss here – is “Tmutarakan” sub-plot of this presence. The original antique city of Panticapaeum, which in the era of the Khazarian Khaganate (translator note: For a well-researched foray into the history of Khazarian Kaganate, I would recommend reading Lada Ray’s Earth Shift Report 6: UKRAINE – NEW KHAZARIAN KHAGANATE?) of the VIII century got the name of Karsha or Charsha, which in Turkic means “market” or “bazaar”, is mentioned in the old-Russian historical records of the events of the X century under the Slavinised name of Krchev (Korchev) [Кърчевъ]. In the tenth century, Tmutarakan principality – part of the Ancient (Kievan) Rus – takes root on the Crimean and the Caucasian coasts of the Kerch Strait. Korchev was closely associated with the capital of the principality – Tmutarakan, while the Eastern geographers of that time called the Kerch Strait for the Russian River.

And so it was in Kerch that, after a long period of Ottoman history in Crimea, Russia once again establishes on the peninsula, several years before its full incorporation into the Russian Empire. In 1771 Russian troops took Kerch and neighbouring fortress Yeni-Kale. By the Kuchuk-Karnadzhiyskomu peace treaty between the Russian and Ottoman empires, which ended Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774, this city with its fortress was the first of all the Crimea to become part of the Russian Empire, while, in accordance with that agreement, the Crimean Khanate as a whole then became independence from the Ottoman Empire, with the exception of the influence in the questions of religion. The manifesto of Catherine II was issued on the 8th of April 1783 and decreed the accession of Crimea, Taman and Kuban into the Russian Empire. By the decree of the 2nd of February 1784 Tauridian region (oblast) was established, covering some of the continental land. Later it was transformed into a province (county).

It is quite possible that the role of Kerch, and the Kerch Peninsula as a whole, in the Russian development on Crimea was the foundation for another P.I. Titov’s proposal in November 1953, which he already addressed to Polyansky and Khrushchev, and reiterated in January 1954. It pertained to the inclusion of this region (ie. Eastern Crimea) with the status of the “Kerch region” into the composition of RSFSR. Already then Titov had a well-founded belief that it was inadvisable for RSFSR “to vacate” Crimea, and, thanks to the newly formed region, the strategically important Kerch (Azov-Black Sea) Strait – “Russian River” – would still be a part of RSFSR. Titiov’s “Kerch” was outright rejected by Khrushchev followers, so much so, that the entire water area of ​​the Kerch Strait in the subsequent transfer of the Crimea ended up being assigned to the Ukrainian SSR.

The question of what was the nature of the whole of Crimean autonomy – national or territorial – is also of crucial importance. Lenin’s Sovnarkom initially created both types of autonomies, but over time only the national ones were left. The Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, in this regard, had become a unique autonomous construct, which retained its territorial nature. According to the All-Union census of 1939, Russians comprised 49.6% of the Crimean population, Crimean Tatars – 19.4%, Ukrainians – 13.7%, Jews – 5.8%, Germans – 4.6%. But as the total population during the war declined sharply, and its ethnic composition underwent fundamental changes, Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was transformed into the Crimean region (oblast) on the 30th of June 1945. Unlike most other autonomous regions, where there was the predominance of the indigenous population, the Crimean Autonomous Republic was not Tatar from the very beginning of its establishment. Moreover, 2/3 of the population of the Crimea at the time was Russian, and only one-third consisted of the peoples who had settled here before the Russians and made up the indigenous population of the peninsula. (Translator note: in the bird’s eye historic perspective, Russians are the indigenous population of the peninsula, who were driven from Crimea, but later returned.) At the same time, flirting with Kemalist Turkey, the Soviet leadership traditionally appointed mostly men of Tatar origin to the leading positions in the republic. This created a false impression that the Crimean autonomy was, like all the other, the national one – Crimean Tatar. But as it is known, in accordance with the provisions of the National Defence Commission of 11th of May and the 2nd of June 1944, of all Tatars of all ages (about 180 thousand people) were deported from Crimea to Kazakhstan. (Translator note: the exception was given to mixed-marriage families, where a Tatar woman was married to a Russian.)

All of the above sheds some light on the political context in which Khrushchev’s fateful for the history of the Crimea voluntarist decision was conceived and prepared. But it is equally important to take into account the details of the mechanism of this decision at the state level.

The fact is that N.S. Khrushchev became the first person in the USSR leadership only in 1955. While immediately after the death of Stalin (at the time of the death he held the post of the chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers), the head of government and a key figure in the leadership of the USSR was G.M. Malenkov. By the end of Stalin’s life, Malenkov was one of the main contenders for the post of supreme leader of the country, and immediately after his death, inherited the post of the chairman of the Council of Ministers. I.V. Stalin died on the 5th of March 1953, and at that time, in the beginning of the 1950s, this was the main post, while the position of the General Secretary of the CPSU was abolished, since, according to the late Stalinist concept of the governance structure, the Communist Party should no longer play a leading role in governing of the country.

M.S. Voslensky in his famous book “The Nomenclature” writes:

In the days after the death of Stalin in March 1953, it was customary to conclude speeches at the memorial meetings in the following typical ending: “Eternal glory to the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, Secretary of the CPSU I.V. Stalin! Long live Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee G.M. Malenkov!”

As it becomes clear from these titles, according to a new tradition established by Stalin, the post of the President of the Council of Ministers of USSR was the most important positions in contemporary system of power, and that it was inherited by Malenkov. And although the decision from March the 5th 1953 of the joint meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the USSR Council of Ministers abolished the Bureau of the Presidium of the Central Committee of CPSU, and on the the 14th of March 1953 the political opponents of Malenkov managed to deprive him of his post of a Secretary of the CPSU (ie, at the time, one of the many secretaries of the Central Committee), in 1953-55 he was still the Chairman of the USSR, and presiding over the meetings of the Presidium of the Central Committee of CPSU (as Politburo of the Central Committee of CPSU was called at the time). And thus, according to the then semi-official representations of the structure of power in the USSR, and, to an even greater extent, due to the political practice established under Stalin’s influence, he was the real leader of the country. It was during the period of his leadership of the country, that the transfer of the Crimean region into the Ukrainian SSR actually took place.

And if you take the viewpoint of those, who do not recognize that the decisions in the USSR were taken collectively, but absolutely want to assign personal responsibility for any decision to one of the “leaders”, then we must blame Malenkov, and not Khrushchev for the transfer of the Crimean region. By the beginning of 1954, when the Crimea was handed over, Khrushchev was not yet a sufficiently influential figure so as to define such major decisions. He was one of the secretaries of the Central Committee, responsible for the work of the entire Secretariat (on September the 7th 1953 he was elected 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU), he was a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, and was a member of a group, warring with the group of Malenkov. The very same Voslensky in his book indicates that Malenkov tried his best to belittle the role of the Central Committee Secretariat, and it was under him that they began to speak of the secretariat as of a purely technical body. Therefore, it is logical to assume that any significant initiatives emanating from Khrushchev, would not get the support of Malenkov.

If, however, we are be absolutely exact, then from a purely formal point of view, the transfer of Crimea was initiated by a collective body – the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, which meetings at that time were chaired by Malenkov. This can be seen from documents published in “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” (Federal Edition #3409 of the 19th of February 2004):

From the protocol N 49 of the Central Committee of the CPSU Presidium meeting on the transfer of the Crimean region from the composition of the RSFSR into the composition of the Ukrainian SSR
25th of January 1954
Presided by: G.M. Malenkov
Present:
Members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, comrades N.S. Khrushchev, K.E. Voroshilov, N.A. Bulganin, L.M. Kaganovich, A.L. Mikoyan, M.Z. Saburov, M.G. Pervukhin.
Candidates for members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, comrades N.M. Shvernik, P.K. Ponomarenko.
CPSU Central Committee secretaries, comrades M.A. Suslov, P.N. Pospelov, N.N. Shatalin.

XL About transfer of the Crimean region from the composition of the RSFSR into the composition of the Ukrainian SSR
1. To approve as amended at the meeting, the attached draft of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the transfer of the Crimean region from the composition of the RSFSR into the composition of the Ukrainian SSR.
2. To deem it appropriate to hold a special session of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of USSR, at which to consider a joint submission to the Bureau of the Supreme Soviets of the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR on the transfer of the Crimean region from the composition of the RSFSR into the composition of the Ukrainian SSR.

Secretary of the CPSU Khrushchev
АЛРФ.Ф.З.Оп.10.Д.65Л1,4-б Подлинник (original)

However, having the real distribution of power in the USSR leadership elite in favour of the government agencies – as a testament from Stalin, outwardly the power system in the country continued working in a mode, familiar to the people, that is, in such a way, that the decisions of the Central Committee of the CPSU were governing in relation the decisions of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which was only a “law publishing” body, which gave the appearance of democracy to decisions, which had actually been taken in the Central Committee. Thus, the Council of Ministers, headed by Malenkov, was sidelined on the decision of the Crimea. This decision was taken by the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, a meeting presided by Malenkov.

Again, from a purely formal point of view, N.S. Khruschev’s responsibility for this decision consisted only in the fact that he, like everyone else, voted “for” and in addition to this, as the 1st Secretary of the Central Committee heading the work of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, put his signature, just formally certifying the protocol. In the same way as in the Brezhnev period Giorgadze put his signature after Brezhnev’s signature. But analysis of the alignment of the centres of power in the power system of that time shows that the decision of the Presidium chaired by the economic planner Malenkov could be a bargaining chip (albeit a pretty small one) in the nomenclature and political struggle of his supporters with the group of Khrushchev – the highest at that time party functionary. In any case, with that set up, Malenkov was a guarantor that, as a result of this decision, there would be no major changes in the Crimea’s situation and, above all, in the nature of economic relations of the Crimean region within the control system of the USSR.

From the extract from the protocol N49, cited above, it is clear at the same meeting the draft of the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the transfer of Crimea was approved, which after a multi-stage procedure, would in the end be “rubber-stamped” by the Supreme Council. The Supreme Soviet of the USSR rubber-stamped the decree draft at its meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of February the 19th 1954. Here is the text of the decree:

The stenography of meeting can be consulted here. (Translator note: I will translate the closing speech of Voroshilov, which gives additional context to the political and cultural background, as well as assumed conditions, of the transfer.)

DECREE
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
On the transfer of the Crimean region from the composition of the RSFSR into the composition the Ukrainian SSR

“Given the commonality of the economy, the proximity and close economic and cultural ties between the Crimean region and the Ukrainian SSR, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics RESOLVES:

Approve the joint submission of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR on the transfer of the Crimean region from the composition of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic into the composition of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.”

Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR K.VOROSHILOV
Secretary of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR N.PEGOV
Moscow, The Kremlin, February 19, 1954.

And already on the 26th of April 1954 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR by the Law “On the transfer of the Crimean region from the composition of RSFSR in the composition of the Ukrainian SSR” approved the decree of its Presidium and made the appropriate changes to Articles 22 and 23 of the Constitution of the USSR.

Incidentally, we must note that the issue of transfer of the Crimea went in the agenda of the meeting of the Presidium of the CC CPSU as item XI or XL (it is not very clear from the publication of the document). In any case, this issue was not perceived as being particularly important. It is possible that this attitude has led to a certain constitutional legislative negligence in the design of the entire transfer procedure. The fact is, under Article 18 of the Constitution of USSR, which was in effect by 1954, the territory of a republic could not be altered without its consent. Such consent was given by both Republics in the form of a Ruling of the Presidium of the Supreme Councils of the two Republics. However, Article 33 of the Constitution of the RSFSR, which contained a list of the authorities given to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, there is no authority to change the boundaries of the RSFSR. Not to mention the fact that out of the 27 members of the meeting of the 5th of February 1954, during which the issue was addressed, only 15 were present.

Further considering the nature of the relationship of the then leadership of the USSR to the “Crimean issue”, one should also note the following. For example, in the relevant documents of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet it was claimed both wisely and pompously, “that the transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR, taking into account the commonality of their economies, the proximity and close economic and cultural ties, is fully appropriate and is a testament to the boundless trust of the Russian people in the Ukrainian people…” This is how the “Ukrainians” at the helm thought back then. At the same time, the event itself passed completely unnoticed. It was not widely presented by the official propaganda to the Soviet and foreign public as another triumph of the party reason and higher justice. Probably for this reason, the Western press said nothing about this. While in the Soviet publications one can only find a couple of paragraphs about the symbolic meaning of this act in the context of the 300th anniversary of the “reunification” of Ukraine and Russia. However, the celebrations that took place in late May 1954 were generally devoted only to the anniversary. And even in the festive speech of Khrushchev, not a word was said about the Crimea. The absence of any indication to the transfer of Crimea in the Soviet sources of the time leads to some extent to a probable assumption, that the leaders of the Soviet Union intended to create in the perception of the peoples of the Soviet Union the idea, that the presence of the Crimea as part of Ukraine was a self-evident fact, and the decision to transfer the peninsula was represented as something long-overdue and almost as correction of a certain historical misunderstanding. But it is also quite possible that there was a feeling of voluntary overeagerness, and that there was no complete confidence that the decision, taken completely privately and without extensive discussion between the peoples of the two largest of the Soviet republics, would not cause public rejection. (Translator’s note: It did, at the “kitchen talk” level, much of which I heard first-hand, while spending many a summer of my youth in Crimea.)

N.S. Khruschev made a considerable progress towards senior management position of the country only in 1955 as a result of the nomenclature struggle for the removal of Malenkov from power. In 1955, Malenkov was dismissed from the post of Chairman of the USSR, and on the 29th of June 1957 he was removed from the Presidium of the CC CPSU. It is not known when exactly he ceased to be “presiding” at the Presidium meeting, but most likely in the very same 1955.

Since that time, that is, from the time when N.S. Khruschev, as the 1st Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, began to gradually strengthen his position as the sole leader of the Communist Party, we can say that the party organs as a whole began to regain the lead in the country’s leadership. However, until 1958 the high status and independence of the state and economic apparatus inherited from the Stalinist era remained. Chairman of the USSR from 1955 to 1958 was N.A. Bulganin, who previously, just like Malenkov, was one of the Vice-Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers of Stalin. It was only in 1958 that Bulganin was dismissed, and his position was also taken by N.S. Khruschev while still holding the post of the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. The defeat of the group of Bulganin, Malenkov, Kaganovich, Molotov and Shepilov occurred in June 1957 when at first during the meeting of the Presidium (Politburo) of the Central Committee of the CPSU by a majority vote, it was decided to abolish the post of the 1st Secretary of the CPSU and to appoint Khrushchev Minister of Agriculture, and then during an urgently convened plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, as a result of the dramatically unfolding events and with Zhukov’s help, Khrushchev managed to turn the situation to his advantage, and called Bulganin/Malenkov’s group for “anti-party”. Only after 1958 can N.S. Khurshev be held solely responsible for the supreme power decisions in the country. The Crimean region was transferred to Ukraine at the beginning of 1954, while the opinion about the deciding role that Khrushchev played in it, was formed only later with the help of the official propaganda.

Soviet newspapers, like mirrors, reflected the change in the ratio of different branches of power in the USSR. The newspaper “Pravda” of the 21st of December 1955 in its report on the national meeting of the top performers of agriculture in Tashkent, said: “spacious auditorium of the theatre named after Alisher Navoi was filled to capacity. 11 am. Loud and prolonged applause greeted the appearance at the meeting the Chairman of the presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers N. Bulganin and First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, N.S. Khrushchev. Places on the podium are occupied by the first secretary of Central Committee of the Communist Party: Uzbekistan – A.I. Niyazov, Kazakhstan – LI Brezhnev, Tajikistan – BG Gafurov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers: Uzbek SSR – N.A. Mukhitdinov, Tajik SSR – T. Uldzhabaev, Turkmen SSR – B. Ovezov, Kirghiz SSR – A. Suerkulov, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR Sh.R. Rashidov.” Here, the Chairman of the USSR Council is still mentioned in the first place, while the first secretary of the Communist Party – in the second, as a figure of lesser importance.

But already in 1960, at the height of Khrushchev’s personality cult, there is a dominating and familiar us from the days of Stagnation formula, where the Central Committee of the Communist Party is mentioned in the first place: “The workers of agriculture of the Penza region report to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Government and personally to Comrade N.S. Khrushchev that, realizing the historical decision of the XXI Congress of the CPSU, collective and state farms, overcoming the difficulties created in the current year due to adverse weather conditions, have grown a good harvest, and completed the plan to sell grain to the state ahead of schedule – on August the 9th – using 20 working days.” (“Pravda” of the 12th of August 1960).

There are some important considerations at the end of this brief historical sketch of this dramatic episode in the history of Russia. In that harsh time P.I. Titov became the forerunner of the modern Communist Party of the Russian Federation in that part of its activity, which is directed today to protect the all-Russian interests. It is a pity that his name have not become a symbol of the 23-year-long modern struggle for liberation of the Russian-speaking people of the Crimea against the Ukrinising occupants. In light of the events of the modern Russian history, that person is worthy of his memory being perpetuated at least by a commemorative plaque in Simferopol, and at least a mention of him in the future textbooks of the history of the Fatherland as a Russian citizen, who was not afraid to go against the voluntarist projects of omnipotent Russian Ukrainophile Khrushchev. The country and the people need to know their heroes, and not only the negative ones.


Below is a translation of the closing speech by K.E Voroshilov from the stenography of the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from the 19th of February 1954. As the commentary note at the top of that site says, “The Communist regime held no referendum or any opinion poll among the Crimeans regarding their transfer into the Ukrainian SSR”. All highlighting in the translation is mine.

Comrades, the decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the joint proposal of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR regarding the transfer of the Crimean region from the composition of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic into the composition of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic is a testament to further strengthening of the unity and indestructible friendship of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples within the great powerful fraternal family of the peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This significant act of great national importance once again confirms that the relationship between sovereign allied socialist republics in the USSR is based on genuine equality and a real understanding and respect for mutual interests, aimed at the prosperity of all of the Union republics.

In history, there is no – and can not be – other such relation between States. In the past, especially under capitalism, at the very root of relations between states there was an aspiration for territorial conquest, the pursuit of strong states profiteering at the expense of territories of weaker countries. Only within the conditions, created by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may there be such a fair resolution of all issues between Union Republics, decisions based on economic feasibility and sensibility, full of mutual friendship and fraternal co-operation of their peoples. The transfer of the Crimean region of the RSFSR into the Ukrainian SSR is in the interest of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, and meets the national interests of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The Crimean region, due to its historical development, due to its territorial and economic status, is important for the whole of the Soviet state. And in the distant and recent past enemies have repeatedly tried to take away the Crimean peninsula from Russia, use it to plunder and ruin Russian and Ukrainian lands, establish a base there for attacks on Russia and Ukraine. However the Russian and Ukrainian peoples had more than once, in their common struggle, severely beaten the arrogant invaders and thrown them out of the borders of Ukraine and Crimea. Ukraine and Crimea are closely linked by common economic interests – this has already been eloquently stated both by the presenters and by comrade speakers. Cultural relations between Crimea and Ukraine in particular have increased and deepened. The transfer of the Crimean region into the Ukrainian SSR will undoubtedly further strengthen the traditional ties.

Comrades, this friendly act takes place in the days when the Soviet people solemnly celebrate the remarkable historical date of the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Russia and Ukraine. This is a great traditional celebration not only of the Ukrainian people, but also for all the peoples of the USSR. Friendship of peoples – one of the foundations of our great multinational Soviet state, the source of its invincible might, of its prosperity and power. We know and rejoice that the Russian, Ukrainian and other peoples of our vast country, will also in the future continue to develop and strengthen their brotherly friendship. Let our great Motherland – the fraternal Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – develop and grow stronger!

Ukraine: Still Smouldering Tinderbox (I) [Re-blog with comments]

Below is a re-blog of Michael Jabara CARLEY’s article Ukraine: Still Smouldering Tinderbox (I) published at the Strategic Culture Foundation site.

But before I present the text, I want to add a few comments of my own, which the reader can keep in mind while reading the article.

The city of Odessa was founded in 1794 by Russian Empress Catherine II and was the first free trade port in Russia.

The city of Nikolaev was founded in 1789 by Russian Count Potjomkin as a ship-building docks. It got its present name in commemoration of the victory by the Russian troops, when Turkish fortress Ochakov was taken in 1788 on the day of St.Nikolaj.

Regarding what the American handler of the Ukrainian puppet government, Proconsul Pyatt was saying, that Russia wants to “create Novorossia”. Russia has no need to create Novorossia. Novorossia is actually an old concept – it was an administrative region within Russia at the time, when the European emigrants were still stealing the land from the Native Americans. For an in-depth look at Novorossia, see my article Two Ukraines.

Ukraine is indeed a smouldering tinderbox. For a look at what is going on, I recommend watching the English-subtittled Donetsk Republic’s Ministry of Defence Briefing: Jan. 29, 2016 Ceasefire Violations by Kiev, published at Lada Ray’s blog.

And finally, I disagree with the author’s conclusion in the last paragraph. Putin is not intimidated, but is rather trying to resolved the conflict and free Ukraine from the American occupation diplomatically and not militarily. There was also no homogeneous resistance in Donbass, but rather several groups with varying interests, which were united by not wishing to cow-tow to the coup government. This cost Donbass the loss of momentum. The situation is all to close to what Russia (an by that I also mean Ukraine) experienced after the coup d’etat of 1917 and the subsequent civil war and Western interventionism…

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Yes, Scythians Are Us

RTR Planet has recently aired a very thorough documentary, titled “Yes, Scythians Are Us”.

The documentary looks back through time, investigating who where Scythians, why they abruptly disappeared and Sarmatians turned in their stead, followed by Slavs. They come to the conclusion that both Scythians, Sarmatians (Samaritans?) and Slavs are one and the same people, called by different names at different periods in history.

I will at a later point write a complete translation of this documentary, but for now, here are some of the highlights of the arguments for this theory:

  • Greek and Western European chronicles list people from the same period interchangeably referring to the people living between Dnieper and Urals as both Scythians and Rus.
  • There are linguistic connection between the surviving Scythian names (in geographic name) and Old Russian.
  • Scythian burial customs are exactly the same as Slavic/Russian pre-Christian burial customs.
  • Scythians lead a semi-settle way of life, which allowed then to develop crafts like gold forging and iron forging of high quality. Scythians used the same types of weapons and armour as Rus vitjas (warrior).
  • “Scythians” seems to refer to a collection of tribes living between Dnieper and Urals, where each tribe was specialised in a certain craft and added to the value of the whole nation. This collection of tribes in their organisation seems to resemble a modern federation.
  • Depictions of Scythians on their own items of art, as well as the Greek artefacts, shows people with distinct Slavic facial features and body complexion, and nothing of the Asian look.
  • And the most significant argument comes from genetics. Scythians share the same Y-chromosome marker as majority of people living now on the territory of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine – the marker, which classifies them in the Slavic Rus group.

UPDATE: I have translated the film, and it can be viewed at Yes, Scythians Are Us! (Documentary with EngSubs).

And just as an off-topic reminder: Holland is still holding Scythian – Russian – gold from the Crimean museums hostage.

And what about the restoration of the territorial integrity of Russia..?

A few days ago, after having been insultingly absent from the memorial Parade in Moscow commemorating the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazism, Frau Merkel again started saying something about restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

With this in mind, I want to address in this article a large pink trumpeting elephant in the room, that all but a few Western politicians are studiously ignoring:

What about the restoration of the territorial integrity of Russia?

Ron Paul noticed in one of his articles that whenever forces are set in motion to split off a bit of Russia, these forces are hailed as democratic (like it happened in the 90’s with NATO-armed Islamic terrorist insurgency in Chechen Republic), and conversely, whenever peoples try to join Russia, they get vilified and demonised. As it happened with 2.4 million Crimeans, who for their democratic choice were put under sanctions, disconnected from international payment systems, and Apple and Google closed accounts of those that have some on-line data or development.

Over the last century, Russia’s territorial integrity was violated both illegally and illegitimately on many occasions – in the North, West and South of Russia. In this article I touch upon only three cases pertaining the state, still known today as Ukraine.

In 1917 a violent coup d’etat happened in Russia. It carried many of the characteristics of what later became known as “colour revolutions” – a small minority group, financed largely from the West, carried out a “red” revolution. As the result of this coup Russia became fragmented, large chunks of it being split off. Some, like Finland and Latvia had only lose affinity to Russia (and yet, Finland chose a Russian navy flag from the time of Peter the Great as a template for their own national flag). Other, like Georgia, joined Russia of their own accord to protect themselves and enjoyed centuries of such protection, while remaining largely self-governed. And then there were integral parts of Russia, part of its heartland – Belorussia, Malorossia, Novorossia, Crimea.

The state of Ukraine, as created by Lenin in 1917, was based on the Russian land, known as Malorossia. The Malorossian dialect – known colloquially as Surzhik – differs little from Russian. There are greater differences between, say Bavarian and High German or between Oslo and Trøndersk dialects. The Ukrainian language, as we know it today, was later built by incorporating Polish and German words and artificial changes to orthography. This was the first violation of Russia’s territorial integrity in that direction.

At about the same time everything Russian was being eradicated. Even the name of the country was erased for over 70 years, being hidden behind an abbreviation RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic). And it became a bad tone speaking about Russia in the USSR…

After the Civil War and Polish insurgency were subdued (we can see exactly the same events playing out today in Ukraine, as the ones happening 96 years ago), it became clear that Ukraine was not a viable state, capable of supporting itself, so Lenin ripped off additional Russian territories and transferred them to Ukraine in 1922. Novorossia had a rich industrial and agricultural potential, that fed the whole of Ukraine up until last year. These lands were collectively known as Novorossia, and consisted among other of Harkov, Donetsk, Lugansk, Nikolaev, Herson and Odessa regions. People living on these territories spoke Russian, and continue to do so till this day. This was the second violation of Russia’s territorial integrity in that direction.

Incidentally, when Soviet Union was broken up in a voluntaristic way on a handshake agreement between some unelected representatives of RSFSR, BSSR and UkSSR, those territories held a referendum, voting against the break-up of USSR. In reality they voted against the physical separation by a state border from Russia – up until that point the separation was largely symbolic.

Then, in 1954, in violation of the then Constitution of USSR and of the legislation of RSFSR, Hrushov transferred Crimea from RSFSR to UkSSR. This was also done against the wishes of Crimeans. The head of Crimean Communist Party lost his position, when he tried to object, voicing the popular opinion. Still, people continued to grumble in the privacy of their kitchens along the lines of “what was that idiot Khrushov thinking, transferring Crimea into Ukraine?” I personally heard such grumblings during my summer stays in Crimea in mid-80s. This was the third violation of Russia’s territorial integrity in that direction. Luckily this violation was rectified last year, in a contrastingly democratic process. Crimeans finally, for the first time after 60 years, got a chance to express their opinion about the forced transfer into Ukraine.

For Hrushov, Crimea was the largest personal bribe given in history. It is sometimes incorrectly stated that Hrushov was Ukrainian. However, Hrushov was connected to Ukraine through his party and repression work during the Stalin era. When he chose the line of exposing of Stalin’s deed as his election campaign line, he urgently needed his own transgressions in Ukraine to be forgotten. Ukrainian Communist Party was the most influential branch, surpassing the Russian one, so a really royal bribe was needed. Crimea became such bribe. (Can anyone imagine Obama giving one of the Hawaiian islands as a present to California so as to get political favours from the Californian rich men during an election campaign? No? Well, Crimea was such a case, and USA now vehemently defends this state of affairs.)

So, Frau Merkel, when you and your Washington masters speak about the restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity, you in fact speak of sustained and continued support for a series of illegal, violent, tyrannic, totalitarian violations of Russia’s territorial integrity. But what is new in this theatre of double standards?

More informative reading on this topic: