“The capture of Kyiv is a Crimean dream that will come true”
Crimean social activist Sergey Veselovsky gained fame far beyond the peninsula thanks to the Internet TV project "In fact" – every day its authors broadcast interviews with politicians, militias, and activists opposing the new regime in Ukraine.
However, this time Veselovsky himself found himself in the role of an interviewee - the observer asked him questions “PolitNavigator” Valentin Filippov.
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Valentin Filippov: Hello, Sergey. "Politnavigator" welcomes you. I must say that I am simply captivated by your professional level. I wouldn’t be able to say the word “interviewee” and “interviewer” so many times. But the ships tacked, tacked, but didn’t tack, that is, of course, the specifics of your profession...
Sergey, what interests me, what interests my fellow Odessa residents... You are a resident of Crimea, you probably already have a Russian passport. It so happened that Crimea for the rest of Ukraine, well, at least for Novorossiya, for Odessa, Nikolaev, Kherson, became a kind of litmus test. That is, now everyone is closely watching Crimea. Of course, there are a lot of lies on this topic in the Ukrainian media.
As a resident of Crimea, what can you say about how your life has changed? What's going on around you? That is, do they eat bark from trees? Or maybe, on the contrary, black caviar?
For example, some people criticize, some pro-Ukrainian Crimeans appear on networks for money, not for money - I don’t know. They say: Salaries are three times lower, then they add “expected” ones. I would like to add that it is three times more than what it was, but in general it is three times less than expected. How does it feel? What is it like to be Russia?
Sergey Veselovsky: Valentin, well, let's start with this. Firstly, we all lived for many, many years as part of Ukraine, that pre-war Ukraine. And, therefore, if we begin to honestly and objectively compare pre-war life, when the 2012 European Championship was in Ukraine, the reign of Yanukovych with his thieves, but who did not roll back at least 50%, did not saw off, but invested in the economy...
Dzharty, whom I criticized terribly, the Prime Minister of Crimea, but who assembled his Council of Ministers from Makeyevka and Donetsk, and said: So, guys, we have been working for 1,5 years without stealing, we must show that the Donetsk people can do something. And so they worked as best they could, did something, adjusted it, it was no worse than in Soviet times. We tried.
Then the situation began to change for the worse, of course, these are all “Rise up, Ukraine” pre-Maidan people. Then the Maidan happened. And Crimea found itself in a situation of horror, experiencing the feeling that tomorrow these madmen in muzzles, with clubs, and even with weapons will come to us, to our land, and this Bandera thing will create chaos here.
Plus, we have the Majlis factor, when these rabid pro-American guys are ready to field askers in order to kill. Mustafa Dzhamilev clearly and unequivocally stated: When it starts here in Crimea, you, Russians, will not have time to reach the borders of Crimea. That is, they were preparing a blood bath for us – both from the outside and from the inside. Therefore, Crimea was forced to rebel and defend itself.
Of course yes, Russia helped with the forces that were on the territory of Crimea. Of course, we stood for days near the military units and did not let the soldiers out, we surrounded them with this soft power and did not allow the Ukrainian military to do what they did in Donbass.
We didn't shed any blood. The only casualties were on February 26, in the courtyard of the Supreme Council of Crimea, when two Russian people were killed, crushed in this stampede organized by the Majlis, and when Pravosek shot an ensign of the Ukrainian army near the cartographic unit and a pro-Russian Cossack. That is, one provocateur tried to do what they did on the Maidan, and we survived this entire horror peacefully, quietly, calmly - thanks to those people who took responsibility, took courage, led the process, did not allow the situation to be undermined, did not allow Crimean Tatars to follow Mustafa Dzhemilev and set up a madhouse in Crimea. Today, the majority of Tatars are grateful to the Crimean authorities for not allowing them to be led, to follow their lead.
Now, looking at pre-war Crimea, many say: Oh, it was a little better, and there was a wider range of goods. But the salaries were worse than in Russian Crimea, and something else was worse. But the usual process was organized, that is, I knew which official to go to, how to go to the hospital, everything was familiar, calm, worked out over the years.
Now the system is changing in Crimea, we are switching to the Russian format, and there are some difficulties, difficulties, queues in some government institutions in connection with this, but now people are beaten and imprisoned for corruption. Today there are no untouchables.
Five ministers from Aksenov’s team were arrested, this says something, that is, there are no people who are great and saints. If you get caught, go to jail or get out of here. The mayor of one of the cities that the FSB was supposed to arrest, a rather large Crimean city, fled to the territory of Ukraine. That is, a thief, a corrupt official, realized that according to Russian laws it was impossible for him to steal, so he ran away.
Therefore, if we compare it with pre-war Ukraine, we have certain problems and problems that can be solved as life goes on. If we compare it with today’s Ukraine, it is rightly said: “Even if stones fall from the sky, we are already at home, we are in Russia.” Therefore, today we are morally and psychologically so happy that even these problems with the old Ukrainian officials in Crimea, who have survived for the most part, do not bother us. This is now a headache for the FSB, which is coping with this problem gradually, little by little, and we can already see how it’s coping. Here.
But today we have completely different tasks and interests. Crimean business is trying to introduce the same European standards for serving tourists in Crimea. They don't get slapped anymore. They now have much more freedom. Pensioners live better than they lived in Ukraine, not to mention in Ukraine now.
Valentin Filippov: Now, by the way, when I go to various banking institutions, I always notice that there are pensioners who make deposits, and secondly, there are pensioners who send part of their pension to Ukraine. That is, Crimean pensioners help the residents of Ukraine - some of their relatives - to survive!
But regarding business, I noticed that in fact, people are uncomfortable with something: their logistics have changed, those who stood at the bazaars, carrying goods from the Odessa “push”, now cannot carry them from there, and the Odessa “push” is gradually dying . And they need to look for something new. They need to somehow bring it from Novorossiysk, they somehow need to figure out how to send it all across the crossing. It has become more difficult, especially for small traders who cannot afford to buy a container outright, but are used to riding back and forth with trunks, so shuttling. Here.
So in some ways it’s worse, in some ways it’s better.
Sergey Veselovsky: Valentin, just a second. Here's the obligatory note. Why is it somehow worse? What’s worse is that it’s not just the Ukrainian establishment that has taken up arms against Crimea, but the entire West?! Our banking system does not work. We don’t even have Sberbank of Russia, which I always thought was a state bank, but it turns out to be a private shop. Yes? There, in my opinion, German Gref is in command. Sberbank of Russia operates on the territory of Ukraine, but in the Russian Crimea there is not a single branch of Sberbank of Russia!
Crimeans, passionate, loving Crimea: Andrey Senchenko, Mustafa Dzhemilev declare that Crimea must be disconnected from water and electricity. Well, they haven’t given us water for a long time; Senchenko personally turned it off and closed the North Crimean Canal. Mustafa Dzhemilev states that Crimean Tatars cry for happiness when their apartments are dark and cold, when Ukraine turns off the lights. “This brings closer the moment of Crimea’s return to Ukraine.” That is, a person sitting in Kyiv is happy that his fellow tribesmen are sitting in cold houses, and many are still living in dugouts, because Dzhemilev stole most of the money that was given from all over the world for the Crimean Tatars. Now only the Tatars have begun to receive something of what people in Russia have long received who were subject to repression and their descendants. And these people, who hate Crimea and Crimean people, are doing everything to make life bad in Crimea.
Now open the railway line. But they dismantled the railway tracks from Novoalekseevka here to Chongar! Here's the thing. They sell them for scrap metal. They drown themselves with these sleepers and sell the rails for scrap! Aren't these monkeys? Are these not the residents of Kipling's abandoned city? These are animals. And these animals teach us how we, Crimeans, should live. They demand that we love Ukraine and want to return to them. Why on earth?! You want to kill us, you hate us, you declare genocide on the multinational people of Crimea and then sit there: “Why don’t you want to come to us, why don’t you come back?” Never in my life!
Just as Donbass will never return, Crimea will never return.
To be honest, I recently launched such a wave. I’m telling you guys, this is the historical Tauride province. Crimea, part of the Kherson region, a large piece. Let us all now, together with the residents of that part of the Tauride province beyond the Crimean border, hold a joint referendum: Do you want the restoration of the Tauride province? I think that 90 percent of people will say: Yes, we want to return the Taurida province! So what will our Ukrainian friends from Kyiv do then?
Valentin Filippov: Our Ukrainian friends will say that we counted 146 percent, and that all this was at gunpoint. Here. So it's not surprising.
But Sberbank cannot come in, because it will have troubles all over the world. After all, the same Russian railways, for example, own almost 50% of the shares of French railways. And, having entered Crimea, Russian Railways immediately falls under sanctions in France. And they weigh what is more important to them: losing half the assets of the French railways or driving an electric train between Simferopol and Sevastopol...
What else did I want to ask? Usually, when Odessa residents are envious, well, those who are envious, those unfortunate, insignificant 80-85% of Odessa residents, who, in general, are an insignificant majority and today are suppressed by the overwhelming minority, when they look at Crimea, they quietly rejoice that They drove all Banderaites out of power, and they drove out Ukrainian officials. They don't go into detail. How does this happen? Former members of the Party of Regions, even, probably, BYuT, who suddenly managed to receive Russian passports before anyone else, were able to join United Russia before anyone else. People turned out to be great fighters for United Russia and took some bureaucratic positions. Does this somehow affect Russian Crimea? And do our furry friends behave responsibly enough according to Russian rules?
Sergey Veselovsky: Here's the thing. There are a lot of Crimean officials about whom Vladimir Konstantinov once said: Let’s turn the page and write everything from scratch.
These are truly former “regionals”, people like Andrei Sheptitsky, who welcomed Hitler in 41 and welcomed Stalin in 44, and absolutely equally sincerely.
February 26, 2014 Most of these officials did not know that they love Russia and will be the winning team, they found out about it on March 16 when the referendum took place. That’s when they suddenly gathered into a small group, were the first to receive Russian passports and created cells of the United Russia party. Without letting anyone else in, we agreed as follows: We are going to the next elections all as one, we are the winning team.
Even in the St. George Hall, when the President of Russia congratulated the solemn event on March 23, 2014, I saw the faces of people who, on February 25, grabbed me by the chest under the building of the Supreme Council of Crimea, shouted: “Veselovsky, you are a Russian separatist provocateur, I’ll call the SBU now, Crimea will never be Russian, don’t you understand yet? We will crush you all here.” And then I see these people as deputies of the State Council of Crimea, the city council of Simferopol. That is, people changed their color instantly.
No one who organized and participated in public rallies, with the exception of representatives of the Russian community, ever came to power, even the Aksenov team, even if there are amateurs there, even if there are naive people who came to the executive branch, they are like a bone in the throat of the team of former , from the team of Yanukovych regionals. And they are being hit the hardest now.
I don’t justify them, I don’t defend them. Just the day before yesterday they told me the situation: Crimean officials are sitting and worrying about the fact that they cannot use investments coming from Russia. To the question why, the answer is: we have not yet realized how we can steal money from there with impunity. They cannot work any other way.
Ukrainian officials - they are funny guys who always used pencils to come, to share money, who will steal how much, how much money will go away with impunity according to Ukrainian schemes. According to Russian laws, they cannot do this; there is the Investigative Committee, the FSB, the prosecutor’s office, which strictly observes this process and does not allow it.
These people sit and say: “It’s better that we don’t use this money at all, the money that big Russia gives to Crimea, it’s better that it stays there in Moscow in accounts than that we spend it somehow stupidly, without stealing anything.
People used to steal. And since they do not know how to steal, they sit in their places and can not do anything.
Valentin Filippov: They have no incentive to master the funds.
Sergey Veselovsky: Indeed, how can you work for Crimea, for Russia, if they don’t put 50% in their pocket. That's all! And this situation of yesterday, the clash with current and future officials is for me a more serious, dangerous process than even the attempts of Dzhemilev and Chubarov from far away to incite the Crimean Tatars against the Russian Crimea.
There are no such problems with the Tatars. But there are still such problems with officials. They are afraid now. As soon as the pressure on them eases, as soon as they may, God forbid, reach an agreement with federal officials from the mainland, which I am very afraid of, that’s it! They will start stealing budget money. This is the moment of truth now.
If the federal center (Putin is a security officer after all) sends people here, so-called commissars, who will each monitor each other and the Crimean ones - excuse me, write reports to the FSB that “I suspect that Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov is trying to stir up a scheme among the locals.” some kind”, and Ivan Ivanovich from the locals will keep an eye on the federal commissioner and will report on him...
But this is accounting and control. This is not snitching. This is self-control of officials among themselves, in order to prevent them from conspiring and becoming a corrupt mafia in Crimea. Otherwise, the state corruption mafia in Crimea will destroy the hopes and aspirations of the Crimeans.
Now Russia, Moscow understands that this cannot be allowed. And therefore we expect that in September new faces will appear in Crimea, serious managers, competent managers who will help those Crimean officials who want to work for Russia, for Crimea in Crimea and, naturally, those from the winning team who Even on February 25, they believed that Knyrik, Veselovsky, Pershikov - our entire team of the Crimean Front - were pro-Russian separatists, and they wrote reports against us to the SBU.
By the way, if you search, you can probably still find these memos from the current members of the “winning team” on Franko, 13 in Simferopol.
Valentin Filippov: Well, I think that the FSB found them a long time ago and uses them just in case in the personal affairs of these officials, so that at any moment they can be pinned down with these denunciations.
So, you are practically saying that today in Crimea there are no established corruption schemes among officials?
Sergey Veselovsky: Any attempt by Crimean officials to get involved in the game of “steal from the state” runs into the fact that the FSB initiates a case, and Poklonskaya signs a document arresting a person or something else, and then Aksenov deliberately or forcibly removes the person from the minister’s chair, that is, this The scheme already works in this format.
Ukrainian corruption schemes do not work.
And I’ll also note in the margins that for every Crimean official who has reached a certain position in Ukraine, there is a large bag of compromising evidence. Because these people bought their positions in Kyiv, carrying suitcases of money there. And they only approved those who had something to hold on to.
For every Crimean today’s terribly pro-Russian official in Kyiv, the SBU has incriminating evidence. And when suddenly someone, so to speak, knocks on this official’s door and says: Ivan Ivanovich, no matter what you do, this is what’s on you, you must do this, this, this, and this. And red tape begins, slippage begins, and some other things.
Valentin Filippov: That is, we need to take Kyiv in order to get this incriminating evidence in our hands, right?
Sergey Veselovsky: Well, this is our dream that will come true.
Valentin Filippov: In Sevastopol I look at Menyailo and Chaly, I don’t want to talk about which of them is right, who is wrong, I don’t even understand. Don't know. I don't want to know.
Such clashes between the executive and legislative powers, such conflicts, they are typical either of the “orange” times in Kyiv, but in Odessa they are constant. The governor and the mayor have been destroying each other for 25 years. Moreover, people change, but the conflict remains.
What's happening in Sevastopol?
In Russia, it is extremely rare for the governor and the legislative branch to openly compete.
Sergey Veselovsky: Well, Valentin, regarding Sevastopol, the question is still for the Sevastopol residents. They're inside. Sevastopol is an enclave separate from Crimea.
Valentin Filippov: Not an enclave, but a city of federal significance. I repeat again. There are only three cities of this level in Russia. Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sevastopol. But in Moscow and St. Petersburg there is no sea.
Sergey Veselovsky: There is no Black Sea in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Moscow is a port of seven seas. St. Petersburg is practically a port on the Baltic.
Valentin Filippov: I know why Moscow is the port of seven seas. They set up customs there and are collecting money.
Sergey Veselovsky: I won’t say anything about Sevastopol. I have a great attitude towards Alexey Mikhailovich Chaly. I don’t know Menyailo at all. As for Crimea as a whole, in Simferopol, I know that there are frictions, but these frictions do not allow Aksyonov and Konstantinov to bring them to some public surfaces and swear publicly. People may not treat each other very well, but this does not interfere with their interaction, their work.
No matter how anyone treated them in Crimea, they were forgiven a lot by the Crimeans, even by those who could not stand Konstantinov for his “Console”, this building pyramid.
But after March 16, 2014, a lot of Crimeans said - Vladimir Konstantinov is really great. Man. And he never backed down. He took the risk of physically destroying his own. But he defended it.
That's why I don't want to scold them now. And I have no moral right. Their internal tensions do not interfere with the work of the State Council and the Council of Ministers of Crimea. So let them work. There is someone to criticize them, there is someone to praise them, if I were constantly involved in Crimea, I would have a great factual record. Now I don’t have such a fact. And what I know are the words of my comrades, like-minded people, social activists.
Valentin Filippov: Well, we are all morally in a state of war. I’m just comparing Crimea and Odessa. In Odessa there are always some messages, then a man was beaten for a T-shirt with the inscription “Russia”. Something else. The vast minority rush through the streets and do something similar. I noticed... Well, first of all, there are three official languages in Crimea. Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar and Russian. People walk calmly... yes, there are a lot of Russian symbols around, but people walk with both Ukrainian and American symbols, and I even tried to photograph everything at Fleet Day. Some boy was playing in the fountain during the parade, wearing an American flag T-shirt.
I was the only one interested, I decided that it was interesting and that it needed to be photographed. And those around them didn’t even look back. And no one really looks back at people wearing “I love Ukraine” T-shirts. That is, this is quite normal. And especially some kind of sports uniform with Ukrainian symbols is very common.
You tell me, this particular feature, this tolerance to everything, to all languages, to all symbols, is this a character trait of a Crimean in general, or is this some kind of general Russian policy?
Sergey Veselovsky: Valentin, well, I think there’s Soviet upbringing here too. Because Crimea has always been, probably, the “red belt”, as it used to be called, yes, even in those days. The Crimeans were Soviet internationalists. Plus, this is superimposed on the fact that in Crimea 126 nationalities coexist peacefully, are friends, get married, have children... these, half-breeds, as they would say everywhere. This is normal for us. I have a Crimean Tatar friend, his wife is Russian, so what should we name their daughter Karina? What is her nationality? And there are a lot of such mixed marriages. And relationships. We celebrate Eid al-Fitr and Christmas together in the same company...
Valentin Filippov: In one synagogue...
Sergey Veselovsky: And the thing is... Crimeans have never bothered with nationalist rhetoric.
Valentin Filippov: Odessa residents too, believe me. Odessa residents also once didn’t bother.
Sergey Veselovsky: And Taras Shevchenko in Crimea, freshly painted, here. Even Ageev prepared it before the referendum... Sometimes people put flowers there for birthdays. No one thinks that “Shevchenko is a ghoul, let’s demolish his monument, let’s rename Shevchenko Park.” Boulevard Franco – excellent! A huge bunch of Ukrainian names. No one even thinks, “let’s rename it.” “Let’s beat the guy who’s wearing a yellow T-shirt with a trident.”
They walk, they drive, it’s normal! How many guys do we have with Tatar symbols?
Blue T-shirt with tamga, this one here. So what?
Valentin Filippov: Yes, yes, yes! So many. By the way, there are flags in the cars. Russian flag and Tatar. Or only Tatar - and nothing.
Sergey Veselovsky: This is not called nationalism. This is pride in the fact that you belong to a particular people. I'm Russian and I'm proud of it. And I’m happy that I’m Russian. But I respect a person who considers himself a Ukrainian, a Crimean Tatar, an Armenian, a Greek, a Jew. And I will never in my life tell a person that “you are a scoundrel because you have a scoundrel nationality.”
And this is why Crimea is valuable and beautiful, because here this cauldron melted down a bunch of nationalities. And in the end, everyone loves their own. He values and respects his neighbors, and we mutually enrich ourselves with this so much that when you walk around Alushta, yes, restaurants with national cuisine, you can go in and eat Tatar cuisine, Azerbaijani, Armenian, and people don’t quarrel with each other. Everything is fine, everything is beautiful. Everything's OK!
The only thing that upsets me is that near the Boris Tezikov Circus, instead of a Russian pancake shop that is a hundred years old at lunchtime, there is still this Turkish consumer goods store “zhamker” of some kind.
And there was a wonderful pancake house, and people went there and ate Russian pancakes, and it was wonderful!
By the way, there are no more Ukrainian restaurants in Crimea and Simferopol.
Valentin Filippov: Where did you put McDonald's? Where did you take McDonald's?
Sergey Veselovsky: Here we go to this McDonald's tube
Valentin Filippov: All civilized humanity! The whole world has made their choice in favor of McDonald's! And for you - pancakes!
By the way, one Crimean Tatar told me that a Russian wife is a means of registration. Since Soviet times. Well, the Tatars were not registered in Crimea. Visiting Tatars. And they married Russians. But, out of love. Well, it’s like for us, Russians in Odessa, our means of transportation is a Jewish wife. And here Russian is a means of registration.
Sergey Veselovsky: Well, let’s still attribute it to Odessa humor, and not to today’s reality. Russia or today's Crimea.
Valentin Filippov: But this was said by a Tatar with a medal on his chest “For the return of Crimea to Russia.”
Sergey Veselovsky: This means he is also from Odessa in spirit. We have people with humor, and they are the majority.
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