Need to share this article that Xavier Colas has written six years ago interviewing me, pro-Western, and Tatiana Bridko, pro-Russian, (to give two opinions on the annexation) for El Mundo publication in Spanish. You can read it via not-perfect GOOGLE translation tool below.
Crimea: between empire and freedom
When Nara Narimanova was a child, she had one country under her feet and another on her head. The first was called Uzbekistan, a conservative land where Soviet inertia and Muslim traditions are walls that few can break. There was a very different place in his mind: Crimea. From there Stalin kicked out her grandparents, Tatars, in May 1944. For her and her parents, this region was a distant paradise that they had never trodden. A mission to accomplish, a place to return to one day on behalf of the local old men. A kingdom recorded in stories and talks by grandparents that went from being Soviet to being Ukrainian, but to which only in the 80s were they able to return. She had to wait a little longer: "I arrived in 1998, I was 12 years old and came from a conservative family." But Crimea tasted of something else. It was a piece of Europe, sweet on the palate. Southern Ukraine has been a small Eden of sun and beach, and a landscape of bikini and miniskirts unprecedented for young Nara. Today it is a synthesis of the tradition recovered from the old settlers and the modernity that has led the women of the peninsula to work and lead like men.
His mere presence in Simferopol is a victory that his grandparents always took for granted: "Remember that your homeland is Crimea, you will return," they told him at night. Now Nara, born in 1986 and transplanted less than 20 years ago, has once again seen the earth move under her feet. This time it is not they who are leaving. Now it is Crimea that must move, heading to the East, towards Moscow. This was decided by an overwhelming majority of the 1.5 million inhabitants of the peninsula on March 16, when they were called to the polls in a referendum in which they had to lean in favor of joining the Russian Federation or remaining in Ukraine as a autonomous region. Five days earlier, on March 11, the deputies of the Crimean Parliament had declared the independence of this peninsula of Ukraine,
"With Russia, aid per child could reach 1,000 euros and there will be more scholarships", Tatiana Bridko, pro Russian
In fact, the referendum in favor of annexation to Russia was only a walk for those nostalgic for the Soviet Union and the supporters of a Slavic union that Nara, one of the protagonists of our history, is alien to. "They think they are going to return to the old USSR, to the happy times, that they will be young again, but that country no longer exists," he explains in a café in the center of Simferopol, the capital of this new Russian region.
Beside her, Tatiana Bridko, an English teacher, looks at her closely. As a child she jogged across a peninsula that was a Soviet gem. The collapse of the USSR moved her, without buying a ticket, to a European periphery. He has fond memories of before that change: "We did not dress in a daring way, being modest was the best valued ..., but when capitalism came everything changed," recalls this Ukrainian-Russian born in 1979. With the burial of the hammer and sickle, the woman was objectified, because men began to be either very rich or very poor. In Boris Yeltsin's Russia they became predators and many were looking for something firm to hold on to in the storm.
On the day the referendum was held, Tatiana went to vote: she gave a resounding yes to Moscow. And he did it despite the fears that the Western media infects him: "A more authoritarian system is not so bad, we are used to having a strong leader." Although she is a woman who has studied in the US and earns a living as a teacher, her speech would make many feminists uncomfortable. He believes it normal that there are few women in politics in Russia, because "it takes too much guts, and many have them, but they should never lose the feminine touch. His hopes lie in the social protection that Russia - a country with a juicy current account thanks to gas - can offer against Ukraine's eternal poverty. Aid per child "could reach 1,000 euros and scholarships are more numerous", enumerates. The second child can be rewarded with 7,000 euros by authorities interested in repopulating the country. Russian money sounds louder than Ukrainian money in the minds of Crimean women. And pensions also weigh, which are going to rise.
These accounts do not work for everyone the same. Nara felt more Tatar than Ukrainian. But with Kiev, religions like his manifested themselves at ease. Russia is stricter with confessions, with the scarf, with minorities, "whereas here we have never had problems with this." This is how the Tatars see it (they are 12% of the Crimean population), to whom the Russian soldiers who have patrolled the region in March bring dark memories. So Nara did not vote in last month's referendum. Now he faces the vertigo of having to decide which passport to adopt. Graduated in English and Tatar Philology, her gaze is directed outside the country: "I think that in this Russian Crimea I will not be as free as in Ukraine," she says with a challenging point in her voice. She is part of the Tatar Youth Council and soon her involvement in NGOs will take her five months to Turkey, another Muslim country whose language she knows well. "On the way back I will have to decide what I am," he admits as acknowledging a defeat in a referendum that, in any case, he considers illegitimate.
"I think that in this Russian Crimea I will not be as free as in Ukraine", Nara Narimanova, pro-western
In the end, their roots will be what they decide, not sociology studies: "In Islam, women are more respected by their husbands," she assures, adding: "Here I see occasionally scars on their faces, men they drink a lot. " At the other end of the table, before Nara arrived, Tatiana had admitted that in Slavic "the 'fondness' to suffer due to the aggressiveness and alcoholism of some husbands predominates." She has no children and does not want to make the mistake of "waiting too long" for Moscow. But, like many Crimeans, he complains that with Ukraine "you pay for almost everything" when it comes to public services.
When they repeat this tale of the Russian golden egg hen, Nara jumps: "I disagree." And then it is explained: "Moscow is a huge city where many go to get millions, but if you go to other places, like Volgograd, the amount of money people earn is infinitely less." In Crimea, she says, too many women and some men have been blinded by Russian power "to the point of thinking that they can get more and do little." The progress of women, he believes, will not improve either: "If you compare her to other European countries, Russia lags behind, because deep down both there and in Ukraine many take for granted the Soviet prejudice that a woman cannot occupy a management position ".
After the photoshoot for this report, both Crimean women, so opposed in their perception of what has just happened in their country, exchange phones. Tatiana advises Nara to look at the new scholarships that are coming from Russia. And Nara is surprised when she discovers that her pro-Russian interlocutor has studied Tatar. "Well," both agree, "you have to know the language of the neighbors." And they hope to continue being it for many years.
Change of citizenship in one month
Just over 30 days have given the authorities to the Crimean population to change their passport and, therefore, go from being Ukrainians to Russians. Those who voted yes to the annexation of Moscow only have to deliver the necessary documents and wait 10 days. Procedure completed. More difficult is looming for those who wanted to continue to belong to the State of Ukraine. They must specifically renounce the document issued by Russia before April 20, when a little more than a month will have passed since the referendum was held. From then on, they will experience firsthand the tremendous paradox of being foreigners in their land.
Comments
Post a Comment