Finally, the Ukrainian government got fed up and declared Luzhkov persona non grata in 2008. Ukrainian
President Viktor Yushchenko said the fleet will have to leave when its current lease expires in 2017. And
when several ships in the Black Sea fleet were used in the South Ossetia war against Ukrainian ally
Georgia, Yushchenko tightened the rules on Russian use of the port. Now Russian ships have to give 72
hours' notice before they leave the port.
Sevastopol doesn't feel as much like a living city as it does a museum to the heroic past. Entering the city,
visitors are greeted with a World War II-era train-mounted artillery piece painted with the slogan "Death
to Fascism." The central part of the city is full of handsome white alabaster neoclassical buildings from the
czarist era—or so it appears. The city was almost completely destroyed in World War II, but Stalin spared
it the fate of most ruined cities—to be rebuilt in soulless concrete—and allowed it to be reconstructed to
its former glory. There are 2,000 monuments around the city, including a massive World War II memorial
with an eternal flame that is guarded by high-school students in military-style uniforms, as well as
monuments to the dead of the Afghanistan war and Crimean War (in which Sevastopol also played a
critical and heroic role, defending Russian territory from a combined European-Turkish force). The city's
Lenin statue has an uncharacteristically out-of-the-way location, while the most prominently placed statue
is of Adm. Pavel Nakhimov, a Crimean War hero.
The streets are filled with Russian navy officers in dress uniforms. (You occasionally see Ukrainian sailors,
too—their much smaller Black Sea fleet is also based here.) Even at a punk show I attended, several of the
young men in the audience wore blue-and-white striped Russian navy shirts under their leather jackets or
Sex Pistols T-shirts. And its residents are proud. The first two people I met in the city called it "the most
beautiful city in the former Soviet Union" and "the most beautiful city in the world."
From a military perspective, Sevastopol isn't quite what it used to be. While the Black Sea fleet once
numbered as many as 635 ships, it's now down to about 60 operational vessels on the Russian side and a
half-dozen on the Ukrainian side, the rest reduced to scrap. In the days of the Soviet Union, there were
100,000 service members and military support staff based in Sevastopol; that is down to 40,000 now. The
agreement between Russia and Ukraine regulating the fleet's operation stipulates that ships can only be
repaired or replaced with an equivalent ship, so as the fleet ages, it is gradually becoming obsolete. The
Black Sea itself is not a particularly hot spot, and passage out of the sea is tightly governed by Turkey,
which controls the straits into the Mediterranean. Russia is reportedly considering moving the fleet to
Novorossiysk, the largest Russian port on the Black Sea, or even to Mediterranean ports in Libya or Syria.
But if Sevastopol's real strategic importance is on the wane, its symbolic importance remains. I met Adm.
Vladimir Solovyev, the former intelligence chief of the Black Sea fleet, who is now head of the local office
of the Institute of Countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Moscow-based think tank that
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promotes Russian influence in former Soviet republics. When I arrived, the front desk called to his office:
"Comrade Kucera and Comrade Gladenko [my translator] are here to see you." He greeted me wearing a
lapel pin featuring the flags of Russia and Abkhazia, the Russia-backed slice of Georgia that has broken
free and is recognized only by Russia and Nicaragua.
Solovyev said he still sees a future for the fleet in Sevastopol. The agreement that restricts new equipment
from coming in is open to interpretation, he said. "Russia doesn't take this seriously. Now it doesn't matter,
because we don't have any new ships, but when we get new ships, they will try to solve this." Besides, he
added, Novorossiysk isn't as good a port as Sevastopol, and Libya or Syria was unlikely. "Russia doesn't
base ships abroad," he said. "Our goal is not to conquer countries, but to free them."
The important thing in dealing with Sevastopol, he said, is not strategic military interests but "the human
factor." People in Sevastopol don't have a problem being part of Ukraine, as long as the Russian character
of the city is acknowledged. He said when there are joint military parades featuring both Russian and
Ukrainian forces, "everything is positive. But when the Ukrainian government tries to have events that
show only their side, no one shows up. When Russia organizes parades, the whole harbor is full of people."
"The people here want to be with Russia," he said. "I don't know what would happen if the fleet had to
leave in 2017. I think what happened in South Ossetia would look mild in comparison."
From: Joshua Kucera
Subject: Language Wars
Posted Friday, Feb. 27, 2009, at 6:55 AM ET
SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine—I went to Sevastopol to talk to people about the Black Sea fleet, but once I
arrived, I found that there was another topic that was much more controversial: language. The Ukrainian
government, as is typical with newly independent countries, is attempting to strengthen its citizens' sense
of national identity, and that includes promoting use of the Ukrainian language at the expense of Russian.
While Russian was heavily favored during the Soviet era, these days, TV and radio commercials must be in
Ukrainian, and the government just forced several of the biggest Russian TV channels off the air. More
and more schools teach in Ukrainian, and foreign movies have to be dubbed into Ukrainian.
In Crimea, where 97 percent of the population speaks Russian at home, the new rules are a bit looser.
School, for example, is still conducted mainly in Russian, and the Ukrainian government is using the carrot
as much as the stick—for example, it opened an elite new high school in Simferopol that boasts the only
two indoor swimming pools in the city. The language of instruction is Ukrainian. While signs for businesses
in the rest of Ukraine have to be in Ukrainian, in Crimea, local businesses can post signs in Russian; only
national or international companies must run their ads in Ukrainian.
Still, the creep of Ukrainianization into Crimea has alarmed Russians. I met Raisa Teliatnikova, head of the
local office of the Russian Community of Crimea, an organization funded by Moscow Mayor Yuri
Luzhkov that pushes for more rights for Russian-speaking Crimeans. "It can be a case of life or death—an
elderly woman gets drugs from the pharmacy and the instructions are in Ukrainian, and she could die,"
Teliatnikova claimed. "In court, every trial is in Ukrainian. In schools, everything is in Ukrainian." Here I
interrupted. I thought almost all schools in Crimea taught in Russian. "Next year, all education will be in
Ukrainian," she said. "And the history textbooks have perverted history, they talk about Russia like it was
Ukraine's enemy. It's complete nonsense."