The Reunion

It must have been about twenty-five years ago when I was first in Simferopol and in Kiev. In those days, the Crimea was still very much part of the Ukraine and it was the era of perestroika, or maybe just after that difficult time. What I saw then made a big impression on me. Those who are so quick to criticize Putin's "illegal occupation" of the Crimea should do a bit of research and find out how dreadful things really were back then. 

I remember that in the summer it was 18,000 Ukrainian kuponi to the pound; by Christmas, 24,000. I remember having to pay to use the beach at Yalta. Then there were valutni magazini, the well-stocked shops for those with foreign currency. These valutni shops had almost no customers at all and all of the prices were in US dollars. The local shops, by way of contrast, were full of empty shelves or there were maybe just a few jars with some mysterious brown liquid in them. A strange object could sometimes be made out, floating in the murky depths. Was it an alien life form? An anatomical specimen? "Pickled carrots," was my wife's reply.

Back then, the drab streets of Kiev held some sad and desperate sights: a young man holding a pair of trainers for sale, an old woman selling a homemade cake at the kerbside, and an old man sitting patiently next to a small pile of potatoes. Irena and I would walk past and then come back an hour or two later. The pathetic street hawkers would still be there, trying to find buyers for their humble goods. These impressions are still in my memory after twenty-five years.

Simferopol in 2018 is a very different sight. A swanky new airport, loads of new petrol stations, restaurants and cafes, well-stocked supermarkets everywhere and a generous sprinkling of cash machines. The streets of the city are clogged with traffic, so a big ring road is already under construction. And who gets the credit for the transformation? Or the blame, if you are a western politician? Vladimir Putin, of course. His face is found on the coffee mugs for sale in the market stalls. The Russian flag flaps proudly all over Simferopol and those worthless kuponi are a thing of the past. The citizens of Simferopol happily use the more stable roubles, like the rest of Russia.

During my short stay in the Crimea, I never had the impression that it was an "occupied" country and that everyone was unhappy, like France under the Nazis.

We flew in after midnight and it must have been about half past two when we arrived at Pervomaiskiya, the apartment block where Irena's family have lived for many years. The lights were on in their 5th floor flat, but my brother-in-law, Yevgenny, had fallen asleep. Irena could not remember the combination that unlocked the downstairs main door, so it looked as though we would be sleeping on the doorstep. Eventually a neighbour opened the door and so we wearily climbed the stairs to the fifth floor.

Yevgenny, Mamulichka, Blogger, Papa

It was quite emotional, meeting Irena's family again after so many years. Yevgenny no longer looked like a muscular teenager and a lot of his hair was now flecked with grey. Mamulichka, my mother-in-law, had been a strong and sprightly sixty tear old when she came to see us in Bulgaria. I remember her going for long country walks and mixing concrete with a shovel. Now the years have taken their toll, with the accompanying aches and pains.

  
Irena comes back to the Crimea every summer, but I had not seen Mamulichka and Yevgenny since their trip to Bulgaria, as they came to stay with us a year or two after we bought the house in Kalotina. That was while I was teaching at the British School of Bucharest, before we went to Qatar and then to China, eleven or maybe years ago.

The next day Irena's father came for lunch. In the morning, Yevgenny, Irena and I went into Simferopol, to go to the market to buy some food. Simferopol was quite different to my memories: bustling, full of traffic and with modern shops.

After lunch, a friend of Yevgenny's drove us to the datcha, but my description of the datcha will have to wait until my next post.