in August, I was writing a research paper on the oppression of the Crimean Tatars. spoiler alert: it’s not just about the 1944 deportation. it started more than a century and a half earlier.
and for some reason, right from the very first sentence, the tears just poured down. I thought they’d never stop.
I decided to work through it because, honestly, I couldn’t figure out where it all was coming from.
many people had grandmothers in the countryside. mine ived in Kyiv. to this day, I look at villages with curiosity and wonder, as amere spectator, having never truly been to one. I’m, you know, that city-bred, nature-distant urban girl who can’t imagine spending more than a month without a sphalt. but I had Crimea. I had mountains that overlook the sea (!) and the sea that looks back at the mountains (!).
I had friends with sun-kissed faces, my uncle, my cousin, and my niece. they still live in S*****opol and hate russia, but they’ve never managed to leave. we talk on Skype once every few years, and it always hurts. I have a nephew now, whom I’ve never met.
on my keychain, there’s a little metal calendar from Yalta, showing dates up to the year 2064. when I bought it under the Swallow’s Nest in 2013, I thought I’d take a photo with it the following year, because surely, we’d come again. we never did.
I still keep the locations where I’ll definitely shoot a film. though they’re now on the land bordering Crimea. now those territories are also occupied.
I still remember the trails to my favourite places and will definitely give you a tour when we go there together.
every time I eat melon, I remember how we used to stop somewhere in the Kherson region on our way to Saky. right there, in the middle of the steppe, we’d buy those juicy melons and watermelons and bite into them, happy and content.
whenever I have to stay in some creepy roadside motels while travelling, I recall the time we decided to spend the night in one on the way to Crimea because… I don’t even remember why… maybe Dad was tired, and we decided to stop until morning? that night, windows were smashed in both our rooms, and someone tried to rob us while we slept. every time I’m hugged by a plump person, I remember how my godmother shielded me with her body, and how that primal fear washed over us both in… (no longer remember the name of that town).
and every time I smell pine, I know we’re about to take Lord (my beautiful big doggy) and run into the forest to spend the whole day wandering through those woods together.
I was a child, and my parents almost never took me to KaZantip (and how wrong that ‘z’ feels now), so I stayed with my buddies and roamed around till we were dead tired and fell asleep in a treehouse (how many treehouses there were in Feodosiia!). but later they started taking me along, and oh, that was something. years later, I even went to the Vietnamese‘ kazantip’, but it wasn’t the same. and too many ruscists.
and I still don’t eat jelly. because once, in Sudak, while swimming, I swallowed a jellyfish. a tiny, slimy jellyfish. and now any jelly reminds me of that.
Have you heard of those magical white worlds on the beaches of Asia and Africa? we have them too. that’s when the sky turns completely white, the sea turns completely white, and the sand turns completely white. and you’re inside the matrix. many years later I found such a place on the unoccupied territory (the Odesa Estuary). however, it is now unsuitable for visiting for about 10 years. and there’s one in Zaliznyi Port too. also occupied.
when I see inflatable things, I think of my dad’s heatgun, which he always used to patch up inflatable mattresses, castles, chairs, drink trays, and boats. in our family, I’m the main dinosaur. and dad, now well into his seventies, sends me AI news every single day. back then, he always hadsome fancy gadgets for any level of extreme recreation.
I scream at the sight of cockroaches, but I’m not afraid of heights, speed, or spinning rides. the peninsula taught me to bewild. Dad and I are devastated that my first parachute jump didn’t happen in Crimea. it’s insanely beautiful there, and that’s where Dad did his first twenty jumps.
my first kiss happened in Crimea, by the way.
when I was ten, in Alupka, I ran away from Grandma fora few hours. well, that’s what she thinks. she’s still mad about it because I scared her half to death. in fact, my friends and I found a hidden [bay? cave?]and had a lot of fun there.
my first art photo was taken in Crimea too. it was a tan airport (probably Zavodske?). li’l me discovered negatives on a 1.3-megapixel camera. coincidentally, that turned out to be my last photo from the peninsula.
in the final years of a free Crimea, I stopped taking pictures altogether, as my rebellious teenage phase kicked in, and I avoided being photographed.
I was working on that research paper and couldn’t figure out why I was crying. until I felt a huge, Crimea-shaped wound in my heart.
and whenever I see maps on apple music, mts, the olympics, textbooks, or French television with Crimea missing, I know exactly where it is. right here 🫀, you get it, right?
I will never be able to understand the grief of those from the east who lost their homes. I can’t comprehend the pain of those from the south who can no longer return home.
but since 2014, I haven’t had a single relative left in russia because they decided that Crimea was theirs. they took away my safe place, the one that always felt amazing, and where I always had friends, unlike in Kyiv. only half a year ago, I discovered this Crimea-shaped void inside methat makes me cry at the slightest memory. and this makes me sick.
I will never grasp the pain of Ukrainians who lost their homes and/or loved ones to russian hands.
I will never grasp why yermak still sits in his chair.
but only now do I know what it’s like to feel even afraction of the pain of losing home.
and now I’ve uncovered that homeless emptiness inside me, small, half-hidden... and I’m terrified, realising that some people hear those hollows much louder.
