Kyiv activists restore Crimean Tatar flag painting on city’s embankment to honor International Day of Indigenous Peoples

On the occasion of the International Day of Indigenous Peoples, activists restored the Crimean Tatar flag on the slabs of the Obolon embankment in Ukraine's capital. 

Head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, Refat Chubarov, announced on his Facebook page that the activists purchased 150 kg of paint with their money and restored the flag of the Crimean Tatars on an area of 1,340 square meters.

What is the problem?

The Crimean Tatars are ingenious people of Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula who have suffered persecution and oppression, first by the Soviet regime and then by Russia following the 2014 occupation of Crimean.

The deportation of the Crimean Tatars carried out during May 18–21, 1944, and June 4, 1944, was a genocide of the Crimean Tatar people by the forcible eviction from their historical homeland — Crimea. Ethnic cleansing was carried out by the Department of State Security of the USSR on the order of Joseph Stalin, and the resolution of the State Defense Committee of the USSR dated May 11, 1944. According to official data, 191,044 Crimean Tatars were deported to remote regions of the Soviet Union — from the northern Peredural region to the republics of Central Asia. According to the self-census conducted by the National Movement of Crimean Tatars, 423,100 were evicted. According to official NKVD data, 27% to 46.2% of the deportees — a third to approximately half of the population — died in the first years after it. The deportation of the Crimean Tatars on May 18–20, 1944, is one of the most terrible examples of the crimes committed by the Soviet government during the Second World War. The planning of the deportation began even before the expulsion of the Nazis from Crimea.

Currently, the Crimean Tatars in Crimea are also oppressed by the Russians. At least 150 victims of politically motivated persecution in Crimea are behind bars. Some people are considered missing. There is no information, even about the place of their detention and the fact of the reported suspicion.

What is the solution?

Two flags were depicted on the sloping concrete slabs of the Embankment for the first time in 2015 — the state flag of Ukraine and the Crimean Tatar flag. They are occasionally restored. 

For the Crimean Tatars, this flag delineates the presence of Crimea and Crimean Tatars in Kyiv. Refat Chubarov announced the event on his social media.

"Let's renew our flags together so they can be seen even from space," urged Refat Chubarov.

How does it work?

According to Chubarov, people purchased 150 kg of paint with their own money and restored the flag of the Crimean Tatars on an area of 1,340 square meters. meters

Background

The International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples is celebrated annually on August 9. On July 1, 2021, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the law "On indigenous peoples of Ukraine," according to which the indigenous peoples of Ukraine are Crimean Tatars, Karaites, and Krymchaks.

Rubryka reported that Ukrainian volunteers created a free educational program about the past and present of Crimea and its indigenous people.

Eighty-five years have passed since the shooting of the Crimean Tatar intelligentsia in Simferopol.