Tykha Bukhta (Quiet Bay), near the famous Crimean resort area of Koktebel, has once again made headlines with a controversy surrounding plot allocations to Crimean Tatars, which has been brewing since June. The Crimean parliament has postponed the Tykha Bukhta issue for the third time, while the place remains divided into camps; one marked by round-the-clock Tatar pickets demanding the construction of a 80- hectare “ethnographic village,” and the other consisting of Russian Cossacks, who are blocking the project. The picketers began construction work about a month ago, bringing in several temporary structures and digging trenches for the foundations of future buildings.
Koktebel Town Council Chairman Oleksiy Bulyha told journalists recently that another “conflict situation” developed with the arrival at the protest camp of two truckloads of Crimean Tatars bringing crushed granite for the construction work. The trucks were stopped by militia patrols alerted by the Cossacks. Militia officers proceeded to check the drivers’ papers and then said no such truckloads of construction materials and equipment were allowed. Then some forty Crimean Tatars blocked the highway from Simferopol to Feodosiya. This traffic obstruction lasted for about twenty minutes, and the highway was cleared after talks with local law enforcement authorities. Finally, the picketers returned to their camp, where they have been continuing the unauthorized construction projects for almost a month.
Apparently, the picketers’ action served a certain purpose. During the last session of the Crimean Parliament a decision was made finally to discuss the Tykha Bukhta issue during the October session. A group of Crimean MPs has proposed turning Tykha Bukhta into a nature preserve, which automatically puts paid to the planned ethnographic village, since all construction work is banned in nature preserves. Other Crimean MPs oppose this idea. Crimean Vice-Speaker Ilmi Umerov said there are no ecological or geographic grounds for granting nature preserve status to an ordinary, almost barren territory, and that if it is passed, the proposed resolution will only prolong the problem. He accused the Crimean Parliament’s leadership of anti-Tatar sentiment. Crimean Speaker Borys Deich, however, insists that this is the only correct solution to the problem from the standpoint of the region’s prospects, adding that the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea should declare Tykha Bukhta a nature preserve, instead of discussing construction projects on its territory, in order to protect this unique ecosystem from any rash projects. On the other hand, according to Ilmi Umerov, further delays of construction projects at Tykha Bukhta might “aggravate the interethnic situation,” an example of which was the highway that was blocked the following day.
It is also true, however, that both parties in the conflict have their reasons. Borys Deich believes that no construction projects should be allowed at Tykha Bukhta, and cites several reasons. The Crimea already has more than 300 “compact Tatar settlements” that have given rise to a variety of social problems, with electricity and gas supplies scarcely meeting their needs. In fact, many places have none, and also lack asphalt roads, central heating in elementary schools, medical institutions, and communications facilities. At present, according to Borys Deich, “neither the state nor the Crimean region has any funds to create another new place for the compact settlement of Crimean Tatars in this wilderness. We are giving repatriants 150 hectares in Koktebel, which is closer to communication lines, but they refuse to build anything there. There are a number of abandoned projects in the Crimea, so we don’t need another one,” he said with an air of confidence. Although the Crimean Speaker did not rule out the possibility that the Crimean Parliament would return to the Tykha Bukhta issue “once the other Crimean Tatar settlements have been put in order, and once we can afford the money.” Mr. Deich believes that Tykha Bukhta should be turned into a local nature preserve: “We are enforcing a moratorium on Tykha Bukhta for the time being.” Crimean Premier Serhiy Kunitsyn also believes that the Tykha Bukhta construction projects are stillborn children because no one will be allowed any private housing construction projects there: “I am convinced that all those Tykha Bukhta squatters have no future, and that any new construction projects would be a waste of time and money. This bay is far away from communication lines; there is no electricity, and no sewers or fresh water supplies; at present, neither the Crimean Tatar squatters nor the Slavic populace have the resources to start an adequate settlement there.”
Tykha Bukhta, meanwhile, appears to have attracted a number of political forces and ambitions. Over 1,200 families of repatriants from the Crimean steppe territories want to have plots here. They have rejected the authorities’ proposal to accept 150-hectare parcels of land in the vicinity of Koktebel, because these plots are located far-three kilometers-from the Black Sea coast, and this does not fit into the ethnographic village project. According to the leaders of the Kirov Mejlis, who initiated the development project, repatriants need these plots in order to develop a “national tourist business.” Experts, however, estimate that creating an infrastructure at Tykha Bukhta (e.g., roads, water supply, sewer pipelines, and power lines) would cost millions of dollars, and that this expensive construction would become another interminable project that will spoil rather than enhance the charming local environs. Archaeologists are also opposed to settling this area because the natural boundary contains remnants of early medieval settlements. The expatriates, in turn, accuse the authorities of leaving the bay untouched for decades, arguing that no one needed or cared about the place, that there were no development projects, but now they have adopted a resolute no-Tatars-allowed stand. Until recently, only tourists and vacationers preferring nature to resort accommodations favored the bay. With the arrival of the fall rainy season, the only road leading to the natural boundary becomes impenetrable even for cross-country vehicles. The Crimean Parliament has postponed discussions of the project three times (in May, June, and September). Borys Deich explains this postponement by the fact that the bill has to be revised and that there are certain aspects that must be clarified. But the Crimean Tatars believe that the Crimean government is simply afraid of mass Crimean Tatar protest actions in response to the creation of the nature preserve on the eve of the elections.
However, it was proposed to add the issue of the Tykha Bukhta local nature reserve to the agenda of the Crimean Parliament’s plenary sessions scheduled for October 20. Some MPs suggested that the issue be postponed to a later date, while others proposed setting up an ad hoc committee to study the situation. But the speaker prevailed and a resolution was passed. “Let’s not act like a bunch of clowns,” declared Borys Deich. “We’ve been planning for the past few months to resolve this question. On twenty different occasions various committees have visited the place. Enough is enough!” The Crimean speaker also said he was convinced that Tykha Bukhta is truly a local nature reserve: “We have designated it this way and are enforcing a moratorium.”
Vadym Mordashov, Deputy Chairman of the Crimean Historical Heritage Protection Committee, says that the Tykha Bukhta problem remains to be investigated, regardless of the Crimean Tatar plot-allocation issue; this is a truly unique place that borders on Maksymilian Voloshyn’s Cimmerian Reserve, which includes the poet’s burial mound.
A memorandum specially prepared for the Republican Committee for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage by the Crimean branch of the Institute of Archaeology at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine states that an important archaeological site — a medieval settlement — is located at Tykha Bukhta. “The settlement in the Kuchuk-Yanysharsk Valley is located at the western edge of Tykha Bukhta. Three-quarters of the settlement’s territory, which has yielded precious archaeological material, are occupied by the farmlands of the Koktebel State Farm and Plant; there is a dirt road from Koktebel to Tykha Bukhta, traversing the settlement’s south sector. This settlement was unearthed in the late 1950s. In 2000 the National Academy’s south Crimean expedition carried out scouting excavations at Tykha Bukhta and discovered some 500 ceramic fragments dating from the 14th-15th centuries. Archaeologists believe that the settlement is a “site that Venetian sources call an anchorage near the Cape of Saint John (currently known as Cape Kyik-Atlama).
On the other hand, according to the Crimean Tatars, the land in the natural boundary, to which they are laying claim, is required not for settlement, but for “national business.” Of course, the Crimea needs this kind of business, but it is also true that the ethnographic village project remains a mystery; it is not being mentioned by the media, and no one knows whether it has passed muster in terms of ecological and other kinds of authorizations; no one knows whether it is economically feasible, what it would require from the Crimean budget, and who would be willing to invest in it. This project has been discussed as a general possibility, and it is anyone’s guess whether any plans exist for this construction. What are the Crimean Tatars going to build at Tykha Bukhta — a copy of a Crimean Tatar village from the first half of the twentieth century? Fashionable hotels, illegal private boarding homes to relieve vacationers of their money? If so, how are they going to provide all those things that are known as civilized recreational facilities? What is this ethnographic village all about? Is this project good for the environment? Who will benefit from it and how? These questions remain unanswered, and the Crimean MPs will be hard put to answer the big one: Will Tykha Bukhta be proclaimed a nature Reserve?
