Historical Background - Crimea

Crimea is one of the most fascinating and important places in European history, with great significance in trade and military tactics. Its strategic location has made it an attractive target, drawing the attention of multiple empires and countries and resulting in a seemingly constant shift in control throughout its rich history.

Origins of the Crimean Tatars

The Crimean Tatar ethnicity developed over thousands of years. Numerous factors shaped their anthropological type, language, character, traditions, religion, and way of life. This complex process involved many peoples and tribal unions that inhabited Northern Prychornomoria and the Crimean Peninsula over time. The Tauri, Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Hellenes, Goths, Huns, Khazars, Pechenegs, Kipchaks, Mongols, and many other tribes can be considered ancestors of the modern Crimean Tatars. Together, these groups laid the foundation for the Crimean Tatar nation.

Today, the three main sub-ethnic groups of Crimean Tatars—highlanders and foothill residents, steppe dwellers, and the population of the southern coast—reflect a blend of characteristics from other sub-ethnic groups who historically inhabited Crimea.

The Crimean Khanate: an independent Crimean Tatar state

By the mid-15th century, the Crimean Tatars had become the dominant ethnic group in Crimea. In 1441, they established the Crimean Khanate, an independent state. The Crimean Khanate encompassed the Crimean Peninsula and the lands of Northern Prychornomoria. Hacı I Geray founded the state, uniting the powerful and influential families of the Crimean nobility and establishing the ruling dynasty that would govern for centuries.

Hacı I Giray promoted agriculture, crafts, and trade to meet the population’s economic needs. He also launched a series of administrative, economic, and cultural reforms that enabled the state to develop peacefully. The Crimean Khanate harmoniously blended Turkic, Mongol, Islamic, and European traditions.

In 1768, the Crimean Khanate, allied with the Ottoman Empire, began a war with the Russian Empire. The war formally ended with a peace treaty signed in 1774. However, the Russian Empire violated the terms of the armistice by failing to withdraw its troops from Crimean Khanate territory. Three years later, it provoked a popular uprising against the ruling Crimean Khan, Şahin Geray, and sent additional troops to the peninsula under the pretext of helping suppress it. The Russian Empire occupied Crimea shortly afterward.

The First Russian Occupation

On April 19, 1783, the date the Crimean Khanate is generally considered to have officially ceased to exist, Russia, the occupying power, signed a manifesto stating that “the Crimean peninsula, Taman, and the entire Kuban side are accepted into the Russian state.”

The Russian manifesto highlights the colonial, expansionist nature of the Russian Empire’s policy toward the neighboring state, revealing its reliance on force, distorted facts, and outright lies. One example is the alleged abdication of the throne by Şahin Geray. No abdication occurred, and the last Crimean Khan certainly did not transfer Crimea to the Russians. Similarly, the Khanate’s people did not swear allegiance to the new Russian authorities. Moreover, news of the manifesto reached Crimea months after it was signed.

Crimea mattered to the Russian Empire economically, politically, geopolitically, militarily, and ideologically; it symbolized the empire’s expansion. The Russian Empire had planned its annexation for several years. The empire used every available tool, from propaganda to physical destruction, to achieve this goal.

The Crimean Tatars themselves called the annexation period “the black century.” The people lost their state, land, privileges, and right to freedom, yet they had no intention of submitting to the occupiers. Armed uprisings against the annexation of Crimea continued afterward. Prince Grigory Potemkin, a Russian military leader who played a key role in the expansion of the Russian Empire in the late 18th century and under whose control the lands of the former Crimean Khanate fell, ordered the destruction of all who opposed the new authorities.

Punitive killing squads were deployed to the peninsula. Repressions targeted not only rebels but also their entire families — women and children were killed. Those suspected of working against the empire or sympathizing with members of the Geray dynasty were sentenced to death. Officially, over 30,000 Crimean Tatars were killed in 1783, though the actual death toll was believed to be much higher.

At the end of the eighteenth century, Russian empress Catherine II tasked imperial scholars with justifying the 1783 occupation of the Crimean Khanate and proving that the Crimean Tatars had no grounds to claim special rights in Crimea. In the Russian Empire, historical science, which should have remained impartial and objective, was largely used as an ideological tool. Historians of the time produced a pseudo-historical, manipulated account of the Crimean Tatars’ origins, deeply embedded in the empire’s imperial worldview. They claimed the Crimean Tatars were descendants of the Mongols who had come to conquer Crimea in the first half of the thirteenth century and therefore were not indigenous to the peninsula.

The Deportation of Crimean Tatars

The Russian Empire sought to create conditions that would lead Crimean Tatars to leave their homeland voluntarily. Russian officials were authorized to interfere in the activities of Muslim communities by strictly regulating the application of their religious rules and norms. If officials disapproved of something, they accused religious leaders of treason. They also forcibly closed mosques: while Crimea had about 1,500 mosques at the end of the eighteenth century, that number was halved by the nineteenth century.

At the same time, the Crimean Tatars faced another problem: the massive theft of their land. Prince Potemkin personally oversaw this process, granting himself 85,000 hectares. The Russian nobility, landowners, dignitaries, officers, and even retired soldiers acquired the other major landholdings of the former Crimean Khanate. Each was required to settle at least 13 peasant families on their lands, which is how serfdom spread across the peninsula.

Between 1783 and 1854, almost 46,000 Russian serfs were relocated. Potemkin encouraged this practice because his primary goal was to populate the occupied lands with as many Russian subjects as possible. In addition to Russians, the empire invited foreign colonists to Crimea, who made up 11% of all immigrants. In exchange for citizenship in the empire, foreign immigrants received large plots of land, were exempt from conscription and taxes for 30 years, and were granted the right to engage in trade. The Russian authorities continued to distribute Crimean lands until the second half of the nineteenth century, when they became scarce and, as a result, a commodity.

Serfdom

Serfdom, a feudal practice that gave the lord partial ownership of peasants, existed in Russia from the mid-17th century until its abolition in 1861. Serfs did not own their homes and were obligated to work for their lord for life. Due to the massive theft and redistribution of land, Crimean Tatars found themselves as landless tenants. In just ten years of occupation, they lost over 350,000 hectares, or about 865,000 acres, of fertile land. The local population was forbidden to use the forests and was charged for using mountain gardens, water, pastures, firewood, and hay.

Before the 1783 Russian occupation, Crimeans could use this land freely because it belonged to the jamaat, or local Muslim community. These discriminatory practices, along with other conditions of the occupation, led to several waves of mass emigration of Crimean Tatars to the neighboring Ottoman Empire, creating a real demographic crisis for the Crimean Tatar people.

The first wave of emigration intensified in the second half of 1783, when approximately 50,000 Crimean Tatars fled, according to Crimean Tatar political activist Amet Özenbaşl. The following year, migration significantly depopulated the historical provinces of the Crimean Khanate outside the Crimean Peninsula, including Taman (present-day Russia). As soon as the Crimean Tatars began to leave their homeland, a decree was issued to confiscate the homes of those deemed “non-peaceful” Tatars — those who “refused to endure the benefits of Russian rule”.

The Russian “Greek Project,” a plan by Empress Catherine the Great to destroy the Ottoman Empire and revive the Byzantine Empire centered in Constantinople, sparked a new war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia in 1787. The war gave the Crimean Tatars hope of restoring their statehood, but they lost that opportunity. Military operations were slow and culminated in the Treaty of Jassy, which further solidified Russian control over Northern Prychornomoria and Crimea. Following this, the Crimean Tatars continued their mass migration to the Ottoman Empire.

The Russian government facilitated the Crimeans' resettlement. In 1803, Russian Interior Minister Count Kochubei officially ordered the mass issuance of exit passports to Crimean Tatars. Even those who had no intention of leaving their homeland were forced to sell their property and prepare to leave Crimea. However, this disaster was averted by the arrival of the Duke of Richelieu from Odesa, where he served as governor. Richelieu compiled a detailed report for the government that portrayed the Crimean Tatars in a positive light – not out of empathy for them, but because of their essential role and the skills they had gained through centuries of farming the land. The following year, the government suspended the issuance of exit passports. However, the Crimean Tatars who hadn’t left remained under the total supervision of Russian officials. Additionally, the Russians implemented harsh measures against the indigenous Crimeans. In 1827, a decree was issued to Russian landowners, granting them the right to impose unlimited fees on the Crimean Tatars living on their land. In 1833, the Russian Minister of the Interior ordered the confiscation of all books and manuscripts from mosque libraries, primary schools, madrasas (educational institutions), private collections, and the homes of ordinary Crimean Tatars. Authorities branded books, ranging from simple accounting records to valuable historical manuscripts, as banned literature and burned them.

Authorities also destroyed Crimean art and architectural monuments and renamed cities and large towns. Kezlev became Yevpatoria, Aqmescit became Simferopol, Kefe became Feodosia, Karasubazar became Belogorsk, and the large village of Aqyar became Sevastopol. The Russian conquerors systematically dismantled Crimean Tatar culture, sparking mounting anger that nearly escalated into open rebellion.

In 1853, the Crimean War broke out — a struggle for dominance in the Middle East and the Balkans between the Russian Empire and the allied forces of the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain, the French Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. Amid these tensions, Russian authorities grew increasingly anxious that the Crimean Tatars might side with the allied forces. The Russians planned to relocate the peninsula’s inhabitants from the coast to remote provinces of the empire. However, they ran out of time; by September 1854, the allied forces had landed in Yevpatoria, placing the Crimean Tatars at the heart of events that would shape their homeland’s fate.

During this war, Crimean Tatars sided with the Ottoman Empire and its allies. Although the allied forces’ policies did not fully align with the Crimean Tatars’ interests, the Russians’ conduct was far worse. Russian paramilitary units ravaged Crimean villages and killed civilians. In February 1855, irregular Crimean Tatar units joined the allies in battles near Yevpatoria and successfully pushed back Russian troops. The French command expressed deep respect for the Crimean Tatars’ courage on the battlefield.

Russia lost the Crimean War, and under the peace treaty, Russia was forbidden to maintain a navy or arsenals on the Black Sea. However, to the Crimean Tatars' great regret, Crimea remained part of the Russian Empire. This led to their second mass exodus from Crimea and emigration to the Ottoman Empire, which continued until the late 1870s.

During that period, the Battle of Balaklava took place when the British and French allied with Turkey and invaded Crimea's southwest coast in an attempt to push back the Russian invaders. The battle was memorialized and made famous in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem, “Charge of the Light Brigade,” in which 600 English cavalry soldiers rode into the Balaklava valley under Russian cannon fire. Over 450 soldiers and their horses were killed or wounded. Florence Nightingale, a British nurse, helped support the wounded soldiers.

Subsequently, according to Amet Özenbashli, about 1.8 million Crimean Tatars emigrated to the Ottoman Empire between 1783 and 1920.

However, some Crimean Tatars actively sought to slow this mass migration. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a group of young Crimean Tatar intellectuals emerged, urging their fellow countrymen to remain on the peninsula or, at the very least, to consider their decisions carefully before leaving. Prominent educator, writer, and publisher Ismail bey Gasprinsky spoke out against emigration in his newspaper, Terciman, urging Crimean Tatars not to sell their homes and property cheaply or to leave for a foreign country without first gathering information about where they would settle. As a result of the group’s educational initiatives, the wave of emigration subsided. Their efforts also contributed to a spiritual revival among the Crimean Tatars, the growth of their national consciousness, and changes in Crimea’s socio-political landscape following the Russian Revolution of 1905-1907.

Repressions against Crimean Tatars after the 1917 October Revolution

After the February Revolution in Russia and the overthrow of the monarchy in 1917, Crimean Tatars gained greater freedom as the collapse of the tsarist regime enabled more political and cultural expression. In Crimea, the Temporary Crimean Muslim Executive Committee was elected and led by Noman Çelebicihan. The first political party, Milliy Fırqa (People’s Party in Crimean Tatar), was founded, and the first representative body, the Qurultay (national assembly for addressing important issues), was established. The Qurultay approved the national anthem, coat of arms, and constitution. After the Qurultay concluded, the Crimean People’s Republic was proclaimed, with Çelebicihan as president.

Unfortunately, Crimean Tatars' hopes of establishing an independent state amid the collapse of the Russian Empire were short-lived. After the fall of the tsarist regime, the empire’s territory became a battleground for competing powers, and the Bolsheviks (a radical communist group led by Vladimir Lenin, who seized power in 1917 and established the Soviet Union) emerged victorious. In January 1918, just a month after the Qurultay, Bolshevik forces conquered Crimea and launched the Red Terror on the peninsula. The new president, Noman Çelebicihan, was arrested and executed.

The Bolsheviks’ ‘Communist’ victory led to the formation of the USSR. In 1921, the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (CSSR) was established within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, with Russian and Crimean Tatar as the official languages. However, the brief upsurge in national life after the republic's creation, which included the opening of national schools, theaters, and newspapers, was followed by Stalin’s 1937 repressions, which affected most Crimean Tatar intellectuals.

On April 17, 1938, the NKVD, the Soviet secret police responsible for carrying out purges, executed dozens of leading Crimean Tatar figures, including public activists, scientists, and political elites. Before their executions, “trials” were held, each lasting no more than 20 minutes. Formally, they were all accused of involvement with the banned Crimean Tatar nationalist party Milliy Fırqa, of espionage on behalf of Germany, Britain, and other countries, and of Crimean nationalism. The executions were intended to eliminate the most influential Crimean Tatars: the politicians, teachers, writers, scientists, journalists, and artists — all those who shaped public opinion.

The 1944 Deportation of Crimean Tatars

The dire conditions of the Crimean Tatars in the newly established USSR worsened during the 1921-1923 famine, caused by drought, post-war devastation, forced grain confiscations, and excessive bread exports from Ukraine by Soviet Russia.

The mass repressions of the 1930s claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars. Despite this, the Soviet government remained intent on carrying out its plan for a “Crimea without Crimean Tatars.” This idea soon became possible with the outbreak of the war between the USSR and Germany during World War II.

The defense of Crimea at the very start of the war was, famously, a disaster. By autumn 1941, only three months after the Nazi invasion of the USSR, the Germans had completely occupied the Crimean peninsula, and the Crimean Tatars were blamed for the partisan movement’s failure. To cover up their own mistakes, the leaders of the partisan movement in Crimea, Alexei Mokrousov and Serafim Martynov, spread the false claim that the Crimean Tatars had collaborated with the occupiers. In July 1942, they sent a report to Moscow, full of disinformation, stating that “the majority of Crimean Tatars in the highlands and foothill regions followed the Nazis.”

It’s still unclear who first proposed deporting the indigenous people from Crimea, but it is known that preparations for the operation took several years, as evidenced by the Soviet State Defense Committee’s resolution of May 29, 1942. 

On April 13, 1944, NKVD chiefs Lavrentiy Beria and Vsevolod Merkulov signed a top-secret order titled “On Measures to Cleanse the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic from anti-Soviet elements,” authorizing the deportation of the Crimean Tatars. The plan had been prepared for several years. The document ordered, “to clear the territory of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of German and Romanian intelligence and counterintelligence spies and agencies, traitors to the motherland and active accomplices, protégés of the Nazi occupiers, and members of anti-Soviet organizations.”

To ensure the success of this large-scale operation, NKVD troops were sent to Crimea under the leadership of Fokin, the head of state security in Crimea, and Sergienko, the head of internal affairs in Crimea. Their deputies, Kobulov and Serov, also helped, and they were key figures in Soviet security services.

Meanwhile, from April 11 to May 10, 1944, the 4th Ukrainian Front successfully liberated the Crimean Peninsula from German occupation during the Crimean Operation. The local population warmly welcomed the Soviet Red Army soldiers. Among the celebrants were many Crimean Tatars who had served on various fronts and had been granted leave to reunite with relatives who had survived the harsh years of Nazi occupation.

The Crimean Tatars celebrated the liberation of the peninsula from the Nazis, unaware that the Soviet government was preparing a crime of deportation against them. On May 10, 1944, Beria sent Stalin a draft decision to expel all Crimean Tatars from Crimea “in view of the treasonous actions of the Crimean Tatars against the Soviet people and based on the undesirability of further residence of Crimean Tatars in the borderlands of the Soviet Union.” Simply put, the entire Crimean Tatar people — from newborns to the elderly — were accused of collaboration.

There is still no clear answer to what personally motivated Stalin to destroy an entire nation, but certain conclusions can be drawn. It is possible that the decision to remove the Crimean Tatars from their homeland was driven by the whims and self-interest of the Soviet leadership, particularly their desire to militarize the Crimean Peninsula and gain access to the Black Sea ports. The only obstacle in their path was the people who had long inhabited the region. It was easier for the Soviets to accuse the entire Crimean Tatar nation of collaborating with the Germans and to use the false 1942 report as a pretext to justify this. (NOTE: Similar tactics were used when Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 by claiming the need to “denazify and demilitarize” the country, accusing the entire nation of neo-Nazism.)

The resolution, which became the official justification for the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, was signed on May 11, 1944. It presented detailed “facts” — entirely fabricated — accusing the Crimean Tatars of espionage and sabotage against the Red Army.

The deportation was scheduled for the second half of May and planned in the usual Kremlin style: with complete secrecy, since the Soviets could not risk any information leaking out.

NKVD troops were deployed to Crimea, and a population census began, counting only Crimean Tatars. Officials verified the addresses of Crimean Tatar families in cities and towns with mixed populations, while sending military units to villages inhabited solely by Crimean Tatars. Because World War II had not yet ended, civilians continued to celebrate the de-occupation and paid little attention to soldiers in uniform. In fact, there is evidence that local people invited these NKVD officers into their homes and offered them food, as they didn’t understand the difference between the types of military units. To them, Red Army soldiers and NKVD officers looked the same.

According to the schedule, the deportation was set to begin early on May 18, 1944. However, in some areas, the operation began on the evening of May 17. For instance, residents of the village of Simeiz were expelled from their homes around midnight, and in some parts of Crimea, deportations began even earlier, at 7 pm.

At 4 a.m. on May 18th, groups of NKVD sergeants, officers, and operatives simultaneously raided Crimean Tatar homes across Crimea, announcing: “In the name of Soviet power! For treason against the Motherland, you are being evicted to other regions of the Soviet Union.” On average, Crimean Tatars were given 15 minutes to pack, but each NKVD group leader set the time limit at their discretion, often giving them less time.

The resolution stated that deportees could take up to 500 kg of personal belongings, clothing, household items, utensils, and food. However, NKVD soldiers ignored this provision. Most witnesses to that day's tragic events reported that they weren’t even allowed to take 5 kg. (11 lbs.) of food. Some soldiers confiscated all their food and prevented deportees from taking valuables, utensils, or equipment.

Dilaver Ennanov, who survived the deportation as a child, recalled that day. He wrote: “In the evening of May 17th, 1944, many trucks arrived in Simferopol, and many soldiers appeared in the city. We young boys ran around the streets, counting and losing count. If we could have imagined what they were there for… The city had not canceled the curfew, so my mother and I went to bed early. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, there was a loud knock on the door. I woke up and saw an officer angrily reading something from a piece of paper to my mother, who had just opened the door. Two soldiers were standing in front of her. They were in a hurry and said we had 10 minutes to pack. They took us out of the house and into the yard. Our neighbors, also Crimean Tatars, were sitting with their belongings in the rain, surrounded by Soviet troops. We sat with them until dawn. Lorries arrived, and they took us to the outskirts of the city, to the railway station. I remember being put in lorry # 44. Tears, moans, and screams filled the air— then the train set off. When we crossed the border and left Crimea, everyone on the train was singing. We were singing and crying as we looked back.”

The deportees were terrified and bewildered. They had no idea what they were accused of or why they were being evicted from their homes. Older Crimean Tatars didn’t speak Russian. Some managed to take valuables, while others, in their confusion, grabbed only small trinkets. They were herded into the square, loaded into trucks, and weren’t allowed to leave until dawn. They were then taken to the nearest railway station, where cattle cars were waiting for them.

The History of the Crimean Tatars by Valerii Vozgrin includes testimony from Alexei Vesnin, one of the NKVD soldiers who carried out the operation, regarding the events of that night.

“On May 9th, 1944, our unit arrived in Crimea on a direct ‘letter’ train. On the night of May 18th, we were awakened and walked for several hours across the endless steppe. At 3:30 a.m., we reached the steppe village of Oisul. Only then were we told the purpose of our operation: to evict the Tatars. The operation was brilliantly prepared: so many brand-new American Fords and Studebakers were in the village that they could take the entire population to the nearest railway station in one trip. A disabled man with no legs, who had recently returned home from the hospital, was dragged to a car and thrown into the back like a sack of flour. People had 20 minutes to pack and load whatever they could carry. A competition was also organized between the groups to see who would finish their section first.”

Brand-new American Fords and Studebakers, provided to the USSR under the Lend-Lease program to fight the Nazis, were used to deport the entire Crimean nation.

Midat Yusunov, another eyewitness to this tragic day, described the initial stage of the deportation: “People were driven to a cemetery surrounded by machine guns on all sides. Children were taken from their parents and told that the older children would be shot and the others would be sent to orphanages. They were held separately for about three hours. During this time, some mothers were driven to madness.”

In some areas, people were killed. In the village of Qapsihor, the residents were gathered in a shed, and one of the soldiers decided to see how people would collapse after being hit by machine-gun fire. Four people were killed in this way.

Witnesses also reported physical abuse. Soldiers would beat people and throw them into trucks. They mocked the Crimean Tatars’ faith by confiscating Qurans and flushing them down toilets.

Zera Batalova, a Crimean Tatar, described the horrific conditions during the deportation and the forced placement in freight cars: “On May 18th, 1944, my mother, Nuriie; her parents, Medzhit and Fatma; her sisters, Biyan and Emina; and her cousin and the cousin’s daughter were taken away. My brother Enver was at war at the time. He only began searching for his relatives in 1946, when he returned home. All of them, except for his mother’s older sister, ended up in the Urals, the mountain range in Russia, considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia. My mother was miraculously reunited with her family. But her sister Biyan was sent to Uzbekistan, a Soviet country in Central Asia, which was a major destination for the 1944 deportations.”

Zera’s mother recalled that their journey to the Urals took at least three weeks. The train stopped only in forested areas, sometimes remaining stationary for days, but they weren’t allowed to leave the carriages, so they lost track of time. By the time they reached the Urals, they were starving and gnawing on tree bark to survive. When they learned that potatoes had been planted there the previous year, they searched for frozen potatoes from the previous harvest.

According to testimonies gathered by historian Valerii Vozgrin, severely ill Crimean Tatars deemed “non-transportable” were left behind and executed. This occurred simultaneously across Crimea. Those who resisted deportation were also shot. The brutality escalated to the point that entire villages near Simferopol, the administrative center of Crimea, were told they would be killed. People began saying their goodbyes.

On the way to the trains, NKVD soldiers deliberately mixed up families, separating relatives and even neighbors into different railroad cars. Being placed on the trains often meant being torn apart from loved ones, perhaps never to see them again. The trains could be reorganized en route, with carriages detached and sent to different stations.

The deportation was scheduled to last until the end of May, but by 4 p.m. on May 20, 1944, all 67 trains, packed with Crimean Tatars, had already departed eastward for Uzbekistan, Central Asia, and the Urals.

Paragraph 2d of the May 11, 1944, resolution required trains carrying Crimean deportees to provide “hot meals and boiling water every day” and to be staffed by a doctor and two nurses. None of these provisions were met. As Vozgrin recounts, up to 200 people were crammed into each rail car, in complete disregard for sanitary standards. Many had to take turns sitting and standing. The rail cars, previously used to transport cattle or prisoners of war, were filthy, with straw mixed with horse manure covering the floors. The May 1944 heat made matters worse, as the iron roofs of the rail cars became scorching under the relentless sun.

People succumbed to stress, suffocation, and appalling sanitary conditions, including a lack of water and toilets. The food they brought from home was quickly exhausted, leaving them to starve. The journey could last anywhere from three weeks to forty days. In some instances, soldiers sold food and water to the Crimean Tatars, but when deaths began to occur, they forbade families from burying their loved ones. At best, the bodies were buried along the railway tracks; at worst, soldiers simply discarded them from the rail cars.

When the deportees finally reached their destinations, they were met with hostility rather than assistance. Local residents had been warned that “traitors” were arriving. The Crimean Tatars were assigned to dugouts, sheds, or barracks that were barely fit for human habitation. The very next day, starving and exhausted from the journey, they were sent to forced labor camps — cotton fields in Uzbekistan and logging sites in the Urals. They had to report daily to the commandant’s office and were forbidden to leave, under threat of execution.

In the months after the deportation, looting became rampant among Soviet soldiers in Crimea. The Russian military, once regarded as the region’s defenders, pillaged homes and shipped “trophy” items back to their families. NOTE: Even today, Russian soldiers continue this tradition, sending looted goods from the war against Ukraine back to their homes in Russia.

Crimean Tatar property was redistributed to immigrants from other parts of the USSR, who began arriving on the peninsula in the autumn of 1944 under the pretext of restoring a peaceful way of life disrupted by the war. During the deportation, Soviet authorities seized 80,350 houses, 34,000 plots of land, around 50,000 head of cattle, as well as vineyards, orchards, equipment, vehicles, and other assets. The NKVD handed these assets over to migrants from the Russian hinterland.

The NKVD leadership reported to Stalin on the success of their special operation to “cleanse Crimea of Crimean Tatar traitors and Hitler’s accomplices,” earning new stars on their shoulder straps as a reward. The names of abandoned villages were all that remained of the peninsula’s indigenous people.

Yet life quietly continued on the Arabat Spit, a narrow strip of land running parallel to Crimea’s northeastern coast. Its small population of Crimean Tatars had been overlooked because the spit was mistakenly considered uninhabited. Historian Valerii Vozgrin recounts how, in September 1945, local authorities stumbled upon this “oversight” by accident. At first, they were bewildered, unsure how to proceed, since the deportation had already been officially declared complete. Yet several small Crimean Tatar villages lived peacefully, oblivious to the fate of their fellow countrymen, who had long since been sent to Central Asia.

This oversight was reported to Bogdan Kobulov, the deputy head of Soviet intelligence and one of the architects of the Crimean Tatar deportation. Knowing the mistake could not be ignored, he ordered the Arabat Spit cleared within two hours but gave no specific instructions on how. One local official devised a solution: several dozen Crimean Tatars were rounded up at a marina, locked in the hold of an old barge, and towed to the open sea. Once there, officials opened the Kingston valves in the hull designed to let water in — and sealed the upper hatches. The barge slowly sank to the bottom of the sea. Convoy boats patrolled the surface for hours afterward to ensure no one escaped.

According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 238,500 Crimean Tatars were deported from Crimea, of whom 205,900 (86.4%) were women and children. The National Movement of Crimean Tatars estimates the number could have reached 423,100. Those who were seriously ill or resisted were executed on the spot. As a result of the deportation and years of exile, up to 46% of the Crimean Tatars perished, as noted by historian Gulnara Bekirova in her book Half a Century of Resistance: Crimean Tatars from Exile to Return.

Historian Vladlen Maraiev notes that despite Soviet propaganda branding the Crimean Tatars as traitors, more than 5,000 were drafted into the Red Army before the German-Soviet war, and another 16,000 were mobilized between 1941 and 1945. At least five were awarded the title of Hero of the USSR, the highest honor in the Soviet Union. Among them was pilot Amet-Khan Sultan, who shot down 30 enemy aircraft and became a two-time Hero of the Soviet Union. Despite their service, Soviet authorities did not spare these Crimean Tatars. When they returned home as victorious soldiers, they were given only 24 hours to leave for Central Asia.

Some officers, such as Amet-Khan Sultan, were not officially deported but were banned from living in Crimea. In 1944, the NKVD accused his brother, Imran, of “aiding the occupiers” and arrested him. They also planned to arrest his mother, but Amet-Khan Sultan intervened to protect her. Ultimately, his parents were sent to the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Soviet Republic, where they remained until the end of World War II.

The Deportation of other peoples of Crimea

The Crimean Tatars were the only indigenous people of Crimea deported in 1944, but other non-indigenous groups living on the peninsula also faced deportation. The first were the Crimean Germans, foreign Mennonite colonists who had lived in Crimea since 1803. By the onset of World War II, more than 51,000 Germans lived in the region. On August 14, 1941, a directive from the Supreme Command Staff ordered the 51st Army to “immediately clear the territory of the peninsula of local Germans and other anti-Soviet elements.”

The deportation of the Crimean Germans began in August 1941. By the end of the year, 2,233 had been deported. Due to the rapid advance of German troops, a mass deportation was not possible, so men of military age were deported first. According to eyewitnesses, on the day of the deportation, residents of the villages of Neizac and Friedenthal were ordered to gather at a collection point by 4 a.m., with a day’s worth of food and a change of undergarments. A small number of Germans were evicted from the Kerch Peninsula in March 1942, followed by several hundred more in June 1944. The majority of the Crimean Germans were deported to Kazakhstan (then a Soviet republic in Central Asia – ed.).

About a thousand Italians lived in Crimea, including descendants of Italians who had established trading posts on the southern coast in the 14th century. Before the German invasion of the USSR, most lived on the Kerch Peninsula. The first wave of deportations occurred on January 28-29, 1942, when more than 600 Crimean Italians were sent to Kazakhstan under NKVD orders. A second wave took place on February 8th, deporting another 70 people. The last remaining Crimean Italians were deported alongside Armenians, Bulgarians, and Greeks in June 1944. They were given only two hours to pack, with a strict limit of 8 kg (17.5 lbs.) of luggage per person.

At the beginning of World War II, more than 13,000 Armenians lived in Crimea. According to the State Defense Committee’s Resolution No. 5984 of June 2, 1944, they were also to be deported from Crimea. As a result of forced evictions on June 27 and later, 9,821 people were expelled.

Like the Crimean Germans, Crimean Bulgarians had lived in Crimea since the early nineteenth century as colonists generally supportive of the Russian Empire. At the outbreak of World War II, just over 15,000 Bulgarians lived on the peninsula. The same resolution of June 2, 1944, formalized their deportation. As a result, authorities deported 12,628 Crimean Bulgarians.

More than 20,000 Greeks lived in Crimea before 1941, slightly outnumbering the Bulgarians. The forced evictions of the Greeks primarily occurred on June 27-28, 1944, with a total of 16,006 deportees. These Greeks were descendants of those who, after 1775, had been relocated to Crimea by Grigory Potemkin, who established a Greek battalion in the imperial army.

Most of these non-indigenous peoples deported from Crimea ended up in Northern Kazakhstan and in the Mari region of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic. Their property was confiscated and subsequently occupied by others. Unfortunately, this crime against humanity remains unpunished.

Consequences of the Deportation of Crimean Tatars

The deportation marks the darkest chapter in the history of the Crimean Tatars. While the nation's sons were fighting and dying on the front lines of World War II, its elderly, women, and children were being transported in cattle cars to Central Asia and the Urals.

For decades, speaking about the horrific events of 1944 was forbidden. The Crimean Tatar nation was effectively erased for 80 years, with the Soviet Union banning the use of the word “Crimean” and referring to them simply as “Tatars.” As a result, the Crimean Tatars were deliberately grouped with other Tatar groups in the USSR, such as the Kazan, Qasim, Bashkir, and Siberian Tatars. Despite this, the Crimean Tatars never forgot their roots.

In 1945, a decree of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, of which Crimea was part at the time, ordered the renaming of 1,062 Crimean settlements, the demolition of historical monuments, the destruction of more than 1,500 libraries and private book collections, the obliteration of cemeteries and tombstones inscribed in the Crimean Tatar language, and the closure of 861 Crimean Tatar schools, museums, research institutes, and cultural centers. In addition to losing their homeland, the Crimean Tatars were dispersed across various regions of the USSR, effectively condemning their nation to extinction. This is why the May 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars is considered genocide.

The deportation also devastated Crimea itself. Following the sudden mass deportation of the indigenous population, who had deep ties to the land, a new, artificially created society was introduced to replace them. Immediately after the 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars, the governing body of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union instructed the Soviet authorities on the peninsula to “create a new Crimea, with its Russian way of life.” To do so, they sought to demolish the jewel of Crimean history and culture—the Khan’s Palace in Bakhchysarai, which symbolized the former statehood of the Crimean Tatars. Fortunately, the palace was miraculously saved by its then-director, Maria Kustova.

The Khan’s Palace

A historic residence of the rulers of the Crimean Khanate, serving as a political and cultural center for the Crimean Tatars from its founding in the 16th century until Crimea’s annexation by the Russian Empire in the late 18th century.

By the summer of 1944, Secret Decree No. 6372 of the Soviet State’s Commissariat of Defense was already in effect, authorizing the relocation of thousands of peasants—and even some urban residents—from various regions of the USSR. The incentivized and forced resettlement of peasants into Crimea began, with large groups of settlers directed toward previously densely populated areas, in particular:

– Yalta (1,000 families from the Rostov region of modern Russia);
– Alushta (2,500 families from the Krasnodar Territory of modern Russia);
– Sudak (2,500 families from the Stavropol and Krasnodar territories of modern Russia);
– Karasubazar (2,700 families from the Tambov and Kursk regions of modern Russia);
– Staryi Krym (1,300 families from the Rostov and Kursk regions of modern Russia);
– Balaklava (2,000 families from the Voronezh region of modern Russia);
– Bakhchysarai (2,000 families from the Oryol and Bryansk regions of modern Russia).

The new settlers were largely disconnected from the region’s historical context, a hidden objective of the Soviet government: to erase the historical memory of these areas. Post-war immigrants began settling in traditionally Crimean Tatar regions, where many homes were left vacant. “They all came with a strong desire to restore Crimea’s agriculture and settle permanently in this fertile southern region,” Soviet journalists wrote at the time. In reality, however, the “new Crimean residents” faced unfamiliar working conditions and an entirely new climate.

In the first few years, they established about 170 collective farms. However, rather than restoring Crimea, the settlers only caused further harm. They devastated the natural and cultural landscape, chopping down fruit trees and vineyards for firewood. Their attempts to manage the traditional Crimean Tatar water supply system were even more disastrous. Lacking the necessary knowledge, they failed to maintain or clean it properly. As a result, of the hundreds of small fountains once found in every town and village, only a few remained, and ancient wells and springs in the foothills and mountains were left polluted.

One of the most striking examples of the destruction of the water supply system occurred in the Crimean village of Dehirmenkoi, renamed Zaprudne after the 1944 deportations. This large, ancient settlement was once rich in water, with 165 well-maintained springs, each lined with stone and named. Dehirmenkoi supplied water to the Artek children’s camp (a famous international children’s camp and a symbol of Soviet youth culture) and to the surrounding settlements. However, after 1944, the new residents destroyed almost all of these springs, leaving only one.

Another well-known spring in Inkerman was renowned for its healing waters. Once the home of an Aziz known as Inkerman-baba, it was often visited by pilgrims. After the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, the Aziz’s grave was demolished during the construction of a local quarry. The water supply to the healing spring was disrupted, and its waters were diverted into the quarry, where they disappeared forever.

Muslim cemeteries were the next to be destroyed. Settlers used rectangular stone headstones to build houses, sheds, and fences. Some tombstones, inscribed with Arabic script, were even repurposed to build sidewalks.

Crimean Aziz

A holy site associated with the activities of Islamic righteous figures (sheiks), such as a grave, spring, tree, stone, cave, or other natural or man-made object.

A little later, new immigrants — often called the Soviet elite — arrived in Crimea. Retired NKVD officers, party workers, and many others were granted land plots for life and built new cottages and recreational areas. These settlers and their descendants were later wrongly labeled “indigenous Crimean residents” and advocated for their interests in Moscow after Crimea officially came under Kyiv’s jurisdiction in 1954. For the most part, they also opposed the return of Crimean Tatars to their historic homeland.

After the deportation, the Soviet authorities deliberately replaced Crimea's population. However, the settlers could not restore the region’s economy; in fact, they largely destroyed what little remained. By the 1950s, it was clear that urgent action was needed, as Crimea was gradually becoming a waterless desert. The only solution was to build the North Crimean Canal and bring farmers from southern Ukraine, skilled in cultivating black soil, to the peninsula. After the peninsula's transfer to Soviet Ukraine in 1954, Crimea’s economy began to improve.

Ten years after the deportation, Crimean Tatars began persistently seeking the restoration of their rights. During this period, the Crimean Tatar national movement for a return to their homeland emerged. In 1956, they were removed from the register of special settlers and released from administrative supervision. However, this did not absolve them of the false charges or grant them the right to return to Crimea. As a result, they launched an active struggle to restore their rights.

In 1967, Soviet authorities issued a decree partially annulling the deportation of Crimean Tatars, but it did not allow them to return to their homeland. In response, Crimean Tatars launched mass protests, which were brutally suppressed. On May 17, 1968, about 800 Crimean Tatars from different regions gathered in Moscow for a demonstration marking the anniversary of the deportation. As with other protests, it ended in violence, with participants beaten and arrested by KGB officers. Beyond mass protests, Crimean Tatars submitted petitions and appeals to the country’s leadership, collected signatures for protest letters, and highlighted the deportation in self-published works.

Between 1967 and 1970, despite evictions and trials for violating the passport regime, 3,026 Crimean Tatars resettled in Crimea, including some who had been exiled multiple times. In June 1978, Crimean Tatar activist Musa Mamut set himself on fire in protest against the persecution of Crimean Tatars in Crimea. His self-immolation became a symbol of the Crimean Tatar movement for the return to their homeland. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, authorities arrested and sentenced several key figures in the movement, including Mustafa Dzhemilev, Reshat Dzhemilev, Rollan Kadiiev, Eldar Shabanov, Yurii Osmanov, and others.

In the 1980s, the Crimean Tatar movement re-entered the political arena. In 1983, the Musa Mamut Initiative Group of Crimean Tatars published a newsletter in Crimea. Only in 1989, during the liberalization of the Soviet regime known as “perestroika,” did the Supreme Soviet of the USSR condemn the deportation and recognize it as illegal and criminal.

The Crimean Tatars needed a homeland, a native language, and material and spiritual culture. The Crimean Tatar national movement chose nonviolent struggle and broke through the Soviet system, eventually succeeding in returning its people to their homeland. Although the journey was difficult, most Crimean Tatars began returning to Crimea en masse from exile in the early 1990s.

Soon after returning to their Crimean homeland, Crimean Tatars began restoring their right to self-determination by convening the second Qurultay. The Qurultay began its work in Simferopol on June 26, 1991, shortly before Ukraine proclaimed its independence from the USSR. The Qurultay adopted the Declaration of National Sovereignty of the Crimean Tatar People and, by secret ballot, elected the Mejlis, the highest representative body of the Crimean Tatars. At this point, the Crimean Tatars decided to join an independent Ukraine.

Unfortunately, in 2014, just over 20 years later, Crimea suffered another tragedy — another Russian occupation. Today, we are witnessing history repeat itself, as Russia continues to use the same methods.

Russian crimes against Crimean Tatars after the 2014 occupation of Crimea

The Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014 marked the beginning of a new chapter of oppression in the history of Ukraine and the Crimean Tatars. Repressions against those who openly resisted the invaders began in the very first days of the occupation.

The occupying authorities moved swiftly to suppress the Crimean Tatars' distinct culture and identity. All NGOs, media outlets, and religious associations were required to re-register. Most refused to comply and were forcibly shut down. ATR, the first and only Crimean Tatar TV channel, was forced to relocate to mainland Ukraine and continue broadcasting from Kyiv.

The Russian authorities gradually pushed the Crimean Tatar language out of the education system and public life. The Kremlin has declared the Mejlis an “extremist organization,” banned it, forced its leaders to flee Crimea, and “nationalized” its building.

Following the 2014 occupation, between 60,000 and 100,000 people were forced to leave Crimea because they either refused to accept the new conditions or were in danger. At least 30,000 of them were Crimean Tatars. Those who remained and resisted the idea of “Russian Crimea” continued to face repression.

According to the Crimean Human Rights Group, the first victim of Russian terror was Crimean Tatar Reshat Ametov. In March 2014, while holding a solitary picket sign in Simferopol, he was detained by individuals who identified themselves as the “self-defense of Crimea.” He was later found dead, with signs of torture. After Reshat’s murder, abductions, arrests, and searches of other activists intensified.

In May 2014, Crimean Tatar activists Timur Shaimardanov and Seyran Zinedinov were reported missing. Later that year, in September, the son of Crimean Tatar human rights activist Islyam Dzhepparov and his nephew, Dzhevdet Islyamov, also disappeared. In May 2016, Erwin Ibragimov, a public activist and member of the World Congress of Crimean Tatars, went missing as well.

In 2016, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution stating that the cumulative oppression by the Russian occupation authorities threatened the very existence of the Crimean Tatars as an ethnic, cultural, and religious community.

Criminal proceedings were initiated against most of the detained Crimean Tatars, primarily for alleged membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir (an international pan-Islamic organization banned in Russia) and, in some cases, for suspected involvement with the Noman Çelebicihan Battalion. In some instances, even the accused's relatives and neighbors were persecuted. Later, members of Crimean Solidarity – an association of activists and relatives of accused and convicted Crimean Tatars – also became targets of persecution.

As of February 2025, many Crimean Tatars remain imprisoned in Russian jails, including activists Aasan and Aziz Akhtemov. In June 2024, Crimean Tatar politician, lecturer, political scientist, and journalist Nariman Dzhelyal was released from Russian captivity. From the outset of Crimea’s occupation, he stayed and fought for the peninsula’s freedom, fully aware that the occupying authorities would never forgive his pro-Ukrainian stance. Yet he refused to leave Crimea and continued to support those who had become hostages of the occupiers.

After attending the Crimea Platform summit in Kyiv in September 2021, his home was raided early in the morning, and he was taken to an unknown location. It was later revealed that he and the Akhtemov brothers had been absurdly accused of sabotaging a gas pipeline in the village of Perevalne near Simferopol. Of course, they had nothing to do with the explosion, but the occupiers needed a high-profile case to justify their repression.

Since the outbreak of full-scale war on 24 February 2022, repression and terror in Crimea have escalated, quickly spreading to newly occupied territories. The Russian Federation passed a law imposing sentences of up to 15 years in prison for spreading “false information about the actions of the Russian military,” making dissent in Crimea even more perilous. According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, between February and September 2022 alone, Russian security forces conducted 25 searches, detained 108 people, and carried out 124 interrogations in Crimea. In the first nine months of 2022, 138 people were arrested on the peninsula, 104 of whom were Crimean Tatars opposing the Russian occupation and military aggression.

With the start of the full-scale war and the occupation of southern territories, where Crimean Tatar communities also live, the persecution of Crimean Tatars expanded beyond the peninsula. Despite this, Crimea continues to actively resist the occupiers.

One of the key aspects of Russia’s repressive policy toward the Crimean Tatars is forced mobilization. Tamila Tasheva, the Ukrainian President’s representative in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (until December 2024), said that in the first few days of mobilization alone, Crimean Tatars received about 1,500 summonses from Russian authorities. This has triggered another wave of Crimean Tatars fleeing the peninsula. Mobilization in occupied territories is a serious breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and, under international law, constitutes a war crime.

The Russian occupation authorities in Crimea continue to display a blatant disregard for Crimean Tatar cultural heritage, identity, and memorials.

The occupiers desecrate and destroy memorial sites dedicated to Crimean Tatars, including monuments and tombstones in cemeteries, plaques commemorating Crimean Tatars who perished during World War II, and monuments bearing Crimean Tatar symbols. In the first six years of occupation, authorities recorded 23 such incidents. Acts of vandalism tend to spike around significant dates commemorating the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars. Activists try to document the damage to these cultural landmarks and draw the attention of occupational law enforcement, but their efforts have thus far been futile.

“Throughout the occupation, the Russian administration has dismantled established economic ties, established its own judicial and law enforcement systems, imposed Russian standards in education and social welfare, and seized private property and land from Ukrainian citizens under various pretexts,” says Tamila Tasheva.

Crimes against the indigenous people of Crimea continue to this day. The Russian authorities are using the same methods of terror and destruction they employed centuries ago to erase nations. Specifically, since 2014, Russia has resumed its policy of deporting Ukrainians from the occupied territories.

Present-day deportations of Ukrainians by Russians

According to human rights activist Onysiia Syniuk, the Russians had planned the forced deportation of Ukrainians even before the full-scale invasion began.

“As of 20 February 2022, the government of Russia’s Rostov region reported that 188 permanent accommodation centers were being prepared for ‘Donbas residents.’ By October 2022, 807 such centers were operating in Russia.”

Syniuk emphasized that the Russians had no justification for deporting people and described how they subjected Ukrainian citizens to inhumane treatment. They forcibly took Ukrainians to Russia without informing them of their destination, denied them tickets to other countries, and deprived them of food and water for several days. Russian authorities also held them in appalling conditions and subjected them to psychological pressure.

This is how 19-year-old Andrii and his mother were deported from Mariupol: First, the Russians took them to temporarily occupied territory, where they held them in a filtration camp for several days, checked their phones, and confiscated their documents. The family had no choice but to stay there or go to Russia. Andrii decided to go to Russia with his mother and then escape to Estonia. However, their captors transported them, along with 60 other people, to Taganrog (a city in southern Russia, 2,000 km from the Estonian border – ed.) and forced them to wait three months to receive Russian passports. Thanks to volunteers, Andrii reached Norway, but his mother refused to go, saying she couldn’t bear it mentally.

Another story is that of Yuliia and her two sons, 11-year-old Matvii and 5-year-old Ivan, who were deported from Rubizhne. They had been hiding in a basement to escape Russian shelling because volunteers could not evacuate them amid the fighting in the city. When Russian forces occupied Rubizhne, a Kadyrovite (the informal name for paramilitary groups loyal to Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic in Russia – ed.) found the family and ordered them to pack their belongings in minutes, much as the NKVD officers had done to the Crimean Tatars in 1944. Yuliia and her sons were taken to a checkpoint between Ukraine and Russia, where they were forced to walk seven kilometers to the border and were interrogated for several hours. They were then deported to the Rostov region and later to Saint Petersburg, a journey that took 36 hours. During another interrogation, Yuliia said she would stay with relatives in the city to prevent further deportation. After enduring several filtration camps and interrogations, the family finally reached Estonia.

The Russians have even deported people with disabilities. Among them is 35-year-old Bohdan, who uses a wheelchair. He had been living with 200 seniors and 40 other individuals with disabilities at a facility in Kakhovka, a city in southern Ukraine, which was occupied by Russian forces in 2022. When the Russians occupied the city, the staff continued their work, but later, the invaders “appointed” new employees who immediately decided to deport the residents. First, they were taken to Dzhankoy in Crimea, then to Voronezh, Russia, where they were dispersed across various institutions. The Russians held Bohdan in appalling conditions, cut off his internet and cellphone service, and attempted to force him to change his citizenship to Russian, a choice he rejected. Bohdan endured repeated torture simply for being Ukrainian. Fortunately, he contacted volunteers who helped him navigate the difficult journey to the Russian border and eventually reach Norway, where he now resides.

During the Soviet era, the Kremlin carried out over 100 deportations aimed at destroying entire peoples and altering the ethnic composition of regions. Most of the deported individuals were never allowed to return home, and even if their descendants managed to do so, they returned to societies that had been artificially reshaped by Soviet authorities. Russia is now attempting to replicate this strategy in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Only Ukraine’s victory and the defeat of the aggressor will allow the deported Ukrainians to return home and the Crimean Tatars to restore their lives in Crimea.

The article was generally prepared by the following contributors:

Founder of the publication “Ukraїner”: Bogdan Logvynenko

Editor-in-Chief of Ukraїner International, Author of the idea: Anastasiia Marushevska

Director: Mykola Nosok

Producer: Kseniia Bovkun

Expert: Rustem Skybin, Martin-Oleksandr Kyslyi, Mykola Skyba, Vladyslav Havrylov

Author, Subject researcher: Gulnara Abdulaieva

Author: Maryna Kulinich

Editor: Kateryna Lehka

Editor-in-chief: Natalia Ponedilok

Translator: Maryna Bakalo

Translation editor: Solomiia Ostapyk

Editor-in-chief (English): Oksana Ostapchuk

Content manager: Kateryna Yuzefyk

Copywriter: Sofiia Kotovych

Archivist: Anastasiia Savchuk

Additional writing contributions and editing were made by:

Peter J. Marzano, Author, Durham, Connecticut, USA

Michael DeCicco, a Monsignor Farrell High School student, Staten Island, New York, USA

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Note: Credit to “Wikipedia” for access to information; credit to the publication and staff of “Ukraїner.”