Crimea's Tatars Clearing The Way For Islamic Extremism?Uneasy Relations With Russian Cossacks

Crimean Tatars traditionally practice a moderate form of Islam. But there are fears that ethnic tensions between Tatars and Russians in Crimea could provide fertile ground for fundamentalism to take root. RFE/RL looks at how the Crimean Tatars have tried to stop that from happening.

Sinferopol, Ukraine; 26 August 2004 (RFE/RL) -- The Crimean Tatars' main mosque on the peninsula is right in the heart of the old part of the Crimean capital, Simferopol.

It is the poorest section of the city. The houses are dilapidated and most of the area does not have a proper sewage system. Cars drive warily through streets riddled with potholes. Above the noise, the call to Friday prayer rings out through loudspeakers on the mosque's minaret.

In centuries past, when the peninsula was ruled by a Crimean Tatar khan loosely allied with the Turkish sultan, there were 21,000 mosques. After the Russian empire invaded and annexed Crimea in the 18th century, the number of mosques began to decline. By 1944 -- the year Stalin ordered the deportation of all Crimean Tatars to Central Asia -- the number of mosques had dropped to just 1,700.

Since then, under the influence of first the Soviet Union and then post-Soviet Ukraine, many of those remaining buildings have also been destroyed, or converted for other purposes, such as storage depots. Adzi Ablaev says only about 160 mosques are now functioning and many of those are in poor condition.

Since Ukrainian independence in 1991, around 260,000 survivors of the deportation and their descendants have returned from exile, mostly in Uzbekistan. The Ukrainian government pledged the returnees land, financial help and the return of cultural sites such as mosques. But local authorities, many of whom are ethnic Russians, have been slow to deliver on the promises.

Many ethnic Russians and their political leaders openly resent the return of the Tatars and accuse them of wanting more than their fair share. They also accuse the Tatars of seeking to eventually form an independent Islamic Crimean state. Brawls between Russian and Tatar youths are frequent. There have been tense standoffs between crowds of Tatar protesters and police. Earlier this year police opened fire above the heads of one such crowd.

Most of the Tatar men are officially unemployed. Among the younger men, there is a smoldering anger that has often been barely controlled by their elders.

Many of the ingredients here seem dangerously similar to the volatile cocktail of frustration and prejudice that turned into violence and civil war in former Yugoslavia or the Middle East.

And Muslim missionaries preaching a stricter form of Islam than the more liberal version traditionally practiced by Crimean Tatars have been visiting Crimea in the hope of winning converts. The missionaries, usually from rich Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, have ragged full beards and their wives and daughters are covered and veiled from head to toe. It is a distinct contrast to the Western look of most Crimean Tatar men and women.

Mustafa Dzhemilev heads the largest Crimean Tatar organization, the Mejlis. He said Crimean Tatar Islam is similar to the moderate brand practiced in Turkey where there is a separation between religion and the secular state. But he said that stricter forms, notably the Wahabbism of Saudi Arabia, is being preached by missionaries from the Middle East who have plenty of money to build mosques and set up religious education establishments.

Dzhemilev said such efforts have had only limited success in convincing Tatars to convert to a stricter form of Islam which, among other things, teaches adherence to Koranic law. "Concerning radical Islamic organizations, there have certainly been people appearing here who we would not call radicals, but who we would say are practicing a form of Islam that is not traditional for Crimean Tatars," he said.

A few years ago, around 30 small Tatar settlements that had received financial aid from Wahabbis accepted clergymen preaching the more radical form of Islam. Dzhemilev said the Mejlis was able to persuade many of the settlements to return to a more moderate form of Islam. But he warns that the longer young Crimean Tatars feel frustrated by their poverty, the more attractive radical Islam -- and possibly extremist violence -- will look.

"Brochures of a provocative nature have appeared which say things like Muslims don't have to obey laws if the head of the state is not a Muslim. So what does that mean? That I should not obey Ukrainian law? That is provocation designed to spark a conflict. Fortunately, we are able to keep such things under control for the moment," Dzhemilev said.

Mufti Emirali Adzi Ablaev, Crimea's senior Muslim clergyman, also said the Wahabbis have failed to make a significant impact in Crimea. He said he is confident that more extremist strains of Islam will not take root on the peninsula. "It [Wahabbism] was artificial. Our nation, our ancestors never had those trends, those sects and they won't have them now," he said. "I'm 100 percent certain that they will not take hold here. And if they do exist here, then we have the state and law-enforcement bodies whose task is to take care of such things. But in our system, among our people, such ideologies and ideas have never been present and never will be. That's why I'm not worried."

He said that the only effect the Wahabbis had was to cause temporary splits among Muslims in Crimea, and he blamed that for causing divisions in the broader Muslim world.

The mufti said Crimean Tatars have opened nine madrasahs, or religious schools, on the peninsula and their curriculum is open to inspection by the authorities to show there is no radical content.

Ethnic relations are uneasy between Crimean Tatars and Russians on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. A particularly ominous development has been the increase in activity by self-styled "Russian Cossacks" who are confronting the Tatars -- particularly over the sensitive issue of land.

Simferopol, Ukraine; 27 August 2004 (RFE/RL) -- At a beautiful sandy bay near southern Crimea's grape-growing Koktebel region, vacationers splash in the Black Sea or bake in the sunshine.

There, uniformed men gather at a camp of so-called Russian Cossacks to declare they are ready to fight to keep the local land from being handed over to Crimean Tatars. They listen to a service by a Russian Orthodox priest, Father Vladimir Melnyk, who has come to bless them.

The men's uniforms are partly modern, but reminiscent of military style from before the Bolshevik Revolution.

After the service, they listen to their officers or grab a bowl of barley kasha from the large tent where they have just prayed, and which also serves as a field kitchen and gathering point. It is surrounded by smaller tents for sleeping.

These men proudly call themselves Cossacks and believe it is their mission to defend Russian Orthodoxy. They claim as their opponent the Crimean Tatars, whom they accuse of wanting to grab land or seeking to build an independent Tatar state on the peninsula.

The potential battleground in this war: this kilometer of pretty beach and numerous hectares behind it. Authorities say the land will be transferred to Tatars, who want to build a cultural center and resort area there. The Cossacks have vowed to prevent this -- by force, if necessary.

Men loyal to the largest Crimean Tatar group, the Mejlis, have also set up a camp near the beach a half-kilometer from the Cossacks. Using binoculars, each side warily watches the other.

Around 260,000 Crimean Tatars, survivors of and descendents of those deported by Stalin in his 1944 ethnic cleansing of the peninsula, have returned since Ukrainian independence in 1991.

But the local Russian-ethnic authorities have made it difficult for them to get land on the southern Crimean shores where many traditionally lived.

The Cossacks are outraged that the authorities in the peninsula's capital, Simferopol, seem to have agreed to Tatar demands this time.

The Cossack leader in the Feodosia region that includes the beach area, Ataman Boris Stepanov, does not disguise his dislike for the Crimean Tatars, repeating Stalin's justification for their original expulsion.

"The Crimean Tatars who came from Uzbekistan, they were deported there because during the war they betrayed a lot of Slavs and went over to the German side," Stepanov said. "They wiped out whole families, entire streets of Orthodox Christian people, handed them over to the Germans. They tyrannized us."

Stepanov echoes the accusations and angry stories that can be heard from ethnic Russians all over the peninsula -- that the Tatars will eventually demand their own independent state and will attract Islamic fundamentalism to Crimea.

"Now they [Tatars] have returned here and they don't behave lawfully," Stepanov said. "They want to live well. Not just well, but they want their nation to be above all the others. They don't obey the laws of Ukraine or Crimea. They've created their own government, an illegal body which they call the Mejlis."

Mejlis leader Mustafa Dzhemilev said Tatars are angered by what they see as attempts by local authorities to obstruct the distribution of land to Tatars. Dzhemilev said that the Mejlis has mostly been able to prevent angry young Tatars from confronting the Cossacks in the past. But he warned that things could spin dangerously out of control if the Tatars' situation grows worse.

Dzhemilev said the close relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Cossacks is sending a negative signal to all Crimeans.

"Currently it has become very fashionable to talk about Muslim extremism and extremist and radical organizations," Dzhemilev said. "But the thing is that Islamic radicalism is no different from Christian radicalism, especially that among the [Russian] Orthodox."

He said that Tatars had previously camped on the land in Feodosia they were claiming, but had departed after the Crimean government promised to officially transfer the area to them.

Dzhemilev said he believes the Cossacks are being urged on by businessmen eager to get land for themselves.

"Most of them [Cossacks] are from Russia -- from Rostov, Krasnodar, there are some from Donetsk and Zaporizhya (in eastern Ukraine). There are different types of Cossacks," Dzhemilev said. "There are Ukrainian Cossacks, with whom we have good relations, and there are Russian Cossacks. But I must say that Cossacks in Crimea are clearly a provocation because there were never Cossacks here -- they are yesterday's Komsomol members [Communist youth organization] who have no links to real Cossacks."

Stepanov said that he personally comes from an old Cossack family but admits most of his men have no links to Cossacks. Many of the younger members look like skinheads. Stepanov said recruits swear an oath of loyalty to the Russian Orthodox Church.

He said all his men have undergone military training as conscripts and are ready to fight if necessary. Although the Tatars claim the Cossacks have access to weapons, Stepanov denies that and said they rely on long bullwhips tucked into their belts.

"We've got these whips and we can defend ourselves with these whips -- I mean, in those circumstances when our lives are threatened," Stepanov said. "And during the winter, most of the Cossack groups rent out sports facilities and we train in Russian-style unarmed combat."

M'kay, Mufti, sweetie. We never thought that Muslim Terrorists would hijack 4 planes either. Never say never.

At first glance I thought it said Taters.

Ping!

...Russian Cossacks to declare they are ready to fight to keep the local land from being handed over to Crimean Tatars.

More power to them!

It is the poorest section of the city. The houses are dilapidated and most of the area does not have a proper sewage system. Cars drive warily through streets riddled with potholes.

That could be anywhere in the Ukraine, but having been in Simferopol a few months ago, I'd say they are better off than 99% of the Ukraine.

Ukrainians mainly think the tatary - many of whom recently arrived from Russia and Kazakhstan - are just another chernozhopa looking for a free lunch. A friend of mine who is an ethnic Ukrainian and came to Kyiv from Barnaul, Siberia, ten years ago was very anti-Tatar. No one paid her a kopeck for the land her family lost in the 1920s; everything she had she worked for and earned on her own.

Besides, if you go back far enough, any of these so-called "Tatar" lands belonged to Slavs first. In the Crimea as recently as a thousand years ago it was all Greek.

"No one paid her a kopeck for the land her family lost in the 1920s; everything she had she worked for and earned on her own."

The same should be true for the Tatars. I believe they should have the right to return to the Crimea, but they should work, they shouldn't have a free lunch. No one should.

"Besides, if you go back far enough, any of these so-called "Tatar" lands belonged to Slavs first. In the Crimea as recently as a thousand years ago it was all Greek."

WHat do you mean? Are you referring to Tumortkan Rus? At most about hald of the Crimea was claimed by Syvatoslav, but it was never significantly settled. Anyone with a iota of knowledge aobut the situation knows that Crimea was originally Greek.

I belive that the Crimean Tatars should be allowed to return to the Crimea. However, they should have to work for their new homes...no one who's able to work should have a free ride. ALso, I would prohibit foreign (especially Saudi and other Wahhabi)Islamic proselytsing. ALso, I don't see what the fusst is. If all the Crimean Tatars return to the Crimea, their share of the population would only be about 20% of the Crimea's population.

I don' think these guys are real Cossacks. I think they're just a bunch of skinheads who call themselves Cossacks. Anyone can call themselves Cossacks, but that doesn't necessarily make them Cossacks.

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