Word: simferopol
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...designer retailers from the West, but the statues that grace their parks and squares make it clear which side of the line one is on. In Budapest, Lenin can only be found in the kitschy Statue Park outside the city, but he still stands in the center of Simferopol, the capital of the Autonomous Region of Crimea in Ukraine, and his name graces buildings and even the metro system in Moscow...
...Once back, though, the Tatars' troubles were hardly ended. The houses many had once owned or lived in were now occupied by Russian settlers. "I came and saw an old couple living in my parents' house," says Osmanov, standing in the old Tatar quarter of Simferopol, Crimea's capital. "I couldn't have tried to kick them out. What would have been the difference between me doing that and what happened...
...government land privatization schemes have failed to give the Tatars a fair share. Some have resorted to seizing land on which to build new homes. These often ramshackle settlements are scattered on barren land throughout Simferopol, immediately recognizable by their tiny stone houses on what look like permanent building sites. "We're not asking for favors," says Rustem Khalilov, who lives in Yani Qirim, a settlement built in Simferopol on land seized in 2006 and which now houses 80 families. "We just want somewhere to live. If we had been given land, we wouldn't need to seize...
...Some Tatars also see a religious element in their shoddy treatment: Muslim graves were desecrated in April last year, and for the past five years the Tatars have struggled unsuccessfully for an allocation of land to build a central mosque in Simferopol. The group of Tatars behind the mosque have twice spent two years meticulously collecting all the required bureaucratic permissions and even received some backing from the courts but still face a persistent refusal to give them a plot to build on. "They just don't want to give land to Muslims," says Jemil Bibishev, a member...
...unimaginable has since come to pass, and now the Crimea is at the center of a bitter territorial row between Russia and Ukraine that threatens to destroy the fragile Commonwealth of Independent States and make enemies out of two nuclear-armed nations. In the Crimean capital of Simferopol, ethnic Russians gather daily outside the local parliament building to accuse Ukrainian leaders of disregard for their right to self-determination. In the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, 400 miles away, thousands have converged in recent weeks to protest Moscow's "imperialist" designs on the Crimea, which is part of Ukraine...