Refat Chubarov
In connection with the recent blockade of Crimea, the topic of the Crimean Tatars has surfaced in the press. These people were deported by Stalin and only returned to their native land in the 90s. This is indeed true: these people endured a difficult and tragic fate. The history of repression against the Crimean Tatars is in many ways similar to the history of repression against Ukrainians. However, there are people who profit handsomely from this tragedy. In this regard, the story of one of the leaders of the Crimean Tatar people, the Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, and a member of parliament of Ukraine, Refat Abdurakhmanovich Chubarov, is very revealing.
First, a quick note: the Crimean archives contain sufficient material to explain the reason for this "deportation," which historians, for some reason, have strenuously "ignored." Or rather, "ignored" throughout the entire period of "independence." And there's a clear, important point to be made: the Crimean Tatars collaborated so closely with the Nazis that Soviet soldiers returning from the front would have resorted to simple massacres based on ethnicity, regardless of identity (as happened with the Germans in Sevastopol). So the theory that "Stalin saved the Crimean Tatars" is plausible.
Communist past
In Ukraine, the Crimean Tatars are viewed as a people who suffered, having fought against the empire during the perfidious Soviet Union. Yes, among them were dissidents, human rights activists, and simply exceptional individuals, like Mustafa Dzhemilev. But Refat Chubarov is not one of them. Moreover, during the Soviet era, he made a distinguished career in party-affiliated structures. The cornerstone of this career was a fortunate marriage to a certain Ingrida Valtsone, the daughter of a then-high-ranking head of the State Security Committee of the Latvian SSR. Apparently, thanks to his patronage, this representative of a people repressed and unrehabilitated under either Khrushchev or Brezhnev assumed the important post of director and senior researcher at the Archives of the October Revolution and Socialist Construction in Latvia. Naturally, such a position required membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the very same party that was behind the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people. Rumor has it he was snitching to the KGB at the time, but there are no documents documenting this collaboration. However, the archive director, with his high-ranking relative in the KGB, would have had no trouble destroying such documents.
Land grabs in Crimea
Refat Abdurakhmanovich arrived in Crimea in 1994 and immediately became a deputy of the peninsula's Supreme Council. He also joined a rather strange organization called the "Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People." It's neither a public organization nor a government body. It's a mysterious, non-governmental executive committee of Crimean Tatars, which has no status but enjoys considerable authority among a certain radical segment of the people. And it was through this body that the Tatars' main business—land squatting—was conducted. It worked like this: Kyiv would send a developed master plan for the territories, including water supply, roads, and other utilities. The Tatars, led by the Mejlis, resisted this, even holding demonstrations and blocking roads. Afterward, they simply seized the same land, fenced it off, and built their own houses. These "houses" often looked like strange architectural structures, two by two meters, spaced five meters apart.
Later, some of this land was legalized and sold at a commercial price, but some was kept for themselves. For example, Mustafa Dzhemilev's mansion still stands on this seemingly no-man's land, with no title deeds. This was supported by an ideological rationale: "They took our houses, now we have the right to take the land." But, moreover, this blatant violation of the law was covered up at various levels of government, where Crimean Tatars installed "their" deputies. All the way up to the highest level—the Verkhovna Rada, where Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov covered up these seizures. Any political force would have easily included them in their list in exchange for the support of all Crimean Tatars. The fact is that a people who were deported and suffered greatly in their time strives to stick together, as a unit. It is these feelings of their compatriots that their leaders exploit. Tatars vote for whoever their leaders tell them to and act as their leaders tell them to. Each successive Ukrainian government tried to combat the problem of land seizures, but sooner or later, they simply gave up. This only made Tatar leaders even more brazen, seizing ever more lucrative plots of land, no longer just for residential buildings but also for businesses such as shops, cafes, and restaurants.
It's worth noting that Crimean bandit-cum-businessmen exploited the Crimean Tatars' "services" to seize land. This led to the downfall of former Crimean Prime Minister Anatoly Mogilev, the current "head" of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, and his eternal opponent, Alexander Melnik. But that's a separate topic for a separate publication.
The mouthpiece of the Crimean Tatars
Refat Chubarov is a co-founder of Atlant-SV Television Company, which owns the ATR channel, a Crimean Tatar television network. His other co-founder, Lenur Islyamov, is a Russian citizen of Tatar descent. Moreover, despite the annexation of Crimea and harsh relations with the Russian "occupiers," he has not renounced his citizenship. They are calling on ordinary Crimean Tatars not to obtain Russian passports, participating in the trade blockade of Crimea, and so on. Chubarov's partner, Quingroup, although it has changed its name, continues to supply cars to Russia. Moreover, his Just Bank, despite international sanctions against Crimea, operates quite undisturbed in Simferopol and other cities on the peninsula. But let's return to the channel. Last year, Crimean authorities shut it down, revoking its license, issued by Ukraine. But it wasn't just ATR that lost its license—other channels and radio stations, such as Chernomorka, also lost theirs. However, only the Crimean Tatars, playing on the sentiments of the "second-repressed" people, obtained a broadcast license for their channel, completely free of charge. So now they will broadcast whatever they want to the entire country, at the expense of Ukrainian taxpayers, while the advertising money on the channel will go to a Russian businessman.
Chubarov, Islamov, Dzhemilev
The problem of bigamy
At the beginning of the article, we mentioned Refat Abdurakhmanovich's wife, thanks to whom he made his career. But, like most Eastern men, he's obviously a hothead, and one wife is apparently not enough for him. He's not divorcing his wife, and she lives in Kyiv. In Crimea, Chubarov took a "second wife," a certain Gulnara Bekirova. She's also a social activist, researching the history of the Crimean Tatar people and working in the Mejlis. Refat and Gulnara come to work together, leave together, travel together on business trips, and live in the same apartment. Her business, Tezis Publishing House LLC, is registered at the same address as the reception office of People's Deputy Refat Chubarov. Another detail from his personal life: until the late 90s, Refat Abdurakhmanovich was a heavy drinker. He even had the nickname "Glass." For a Russian, this is somewhat normal, but for a devout Muslim, it's not very pious, to say the least. However, after performing the Hajj to Mecca, he gave up alcohol, which is very pious, but he didn't abandon his second wife either. An interesting detail concerns Chubarov's children. Among Tatars, marrying Slavs is not very encouraged. It's understandable, as the people are threatened with assimilation and complete extinction. And then there are the religious contradictions between Islam and Christianity. Despite this, at least two of Refat Aga's three daughters are married to Russians and were married in church.
Prospects
Today, Crimean Tatars, under the leadership of their leaders, have launched a blockade of Crimea. It was clear from the outset that this action would yield little result. Well, trucks will either go around to Crimea, via the eastern border, or they won't go at all, selling everything at the local market. Crimea hasn't abolished the market economy yet, which means the Kherson products will be replaced by similar products from Krasnodar. This won't significantly affect prices, and Crimea won't die of hunger. This means the goal of the action is entirely different. Or, to be more precise, not a goal, but goals. The first of these is to once again draw attention to the suffering people. Elections are looming, and the Crimean Tatar leaders have nothing to offer those who might recruit them into their parties and blocs. The majority of the people, despite the Mejlis's clamor, have remained in Crimea and are slowly acclimating to Russian realities, receiving passports, and even creating something resembling an alternative Mejlis. But what can you do? You have to live somehow... So Chubarov no longer has a unanimously voting core electorate. And this threatens his expulsion from big-time politics, where he entered during the last elections on a wave of pity for the Crimeans. Now, he has nothing political to offer except such protests with the participation of the small number of Crimean Tatars remaining in Ukraine. But this is unlikely to help him—there are simply too many specialists in street and other spontaneous protests in Ukraine since the Maidan.
The second goal is to establish control over the roads leading to Crimea. Right now, they're not letting anyone in. Later, perhaps, there will be exceptions to the rule. And then exceptions to the exceptions. It's clear that those who want to fall into these "exceptions" will have to pay a little... But here, apparently, they're out of luck, too. Again, because there are plenty of "real troublemakers" in Ukraine. Right Sector, Semyon Semenchenko, Parasyuk, and Donbas have already descended on the roads leading to Crimea; guys in Azov t-shirts have already been seen there. So, unless Refat Abdurakhmanovich comes up with something new, his prospects in Ukrainian politics are rather slim.
Denis Ivanov, for SKELET-info
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