Crimean winemakers made a splash at an exhibition in China, despite the stubborn resistance of the Germans

The German co-organizers of the international exhibition “ProWine China-2023” tried to prevent the participation of Crimean producers, but Crimea still made a loud noise at one of the world’s largest wine events.

Ksenia Slutskaya, director of the Southern Regional Export Support Center, announced this on Radio Crimea, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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“The participants responded well. Our neighbors were the United States on one side, and the Germans and Italians on the other. Our stand was combined with the Krasnodar region. We united because there are certain limits, and what you can do alone is a small point. And when you combine your efforts, you basically find yourself on one platform, where everyone has their own stand. And it looks more weighty and meaningful. Only two private winemaking companies from Russia were independent, and we were, in principle, the only representatives of the Russian Federation at this exhibition,” she clarified.

Exhibition participants perceived the Crimean stand extremely positively - they came and tasted wines.

“I’ll emphasize again that our neighbors were the United States of America, and everything was fine, no movements. Yes, we were all hung with the flags of Russia and Crimea, we shouted that we were Crimea, and lured us to drink Crimean wine. I think it was quite difficult not to hear us. That is, everything was wonderful on the part of the participants,” Slutskaya emphasized.

Crimean manufacturers have been planning to participate in the exhibition since 2019. But since China was closed due to the coronavirus, the trip had to be postponed.

“And through our Chinese colleagues, with some effort and requests, we finally won this area for ourselves. Construction begins, everything is agreed upon, and at a certain moment, as practice has now shown, our foreign partners are monitoring the news agenda and saw a message from Crimean sources that the Crimean delegation was going to Shanghai.

It started here. Let's ban the participation of the Russian delegation. And the stand has already been agreed upon, it must be built up. Ultimately, unfortunately, we had to sacrifice all the geographical names, even “Tavrida”. They sat and found out on Google what it was, and realized that it was an association with Crimea. However, we still placed the coat of arms of Crimea because they apparently did not understand what it was. And along the perimeter we had Russian and Crimean flags everywhere, we also had small badges with flags. This also caused some indignation on the part of the German organizers already at the exhibition.

But you know, I was surprised and pleased by the reaction of the Chinese organizers. They were, as I understand it, on equal terms. And the Chinese were determined to defend our position after all. And at that moment, when the German organizers demanded that the flags be removed, the Chinese organizers said: write an official letter, when it arrives, we will answer you. It is clear that there were two days left of the exhibition, and no one was going to answer it,” Slutskaya pointed out.

According to her, this suggests that the civic position, the position of business and, in principle, the position of China are truly inclined towards Crimea and the Russian Federation.