ISSUE №1 | JULY 2020 CRIMEAN DIGEST Publisher: Business and Cultural Center of the Republic of Crimea IN THIS ISSUE: Why does the UN not esteem the inhuman actions of Ukraine against the Crimeans Is Simferopol airport ready for the influx of tourists after the quarantine How the opening of a freight rail link across the Crimean bridge will help the peninsula What influenced the popularity of the Italian restaurateur in Sevastopol Dear Sirs! The integration of Crimea into Russia in 2014 based We offer you our new information product — on the results of the democratic referendum the monthly-published "Crimean Digest". It is has become an important event in world politics. prepared on the basis of materials from Russian, It has significantly changed the field of international including Crimean, foreign media and Internet relations and existing international "game rules", resources. The purpose of the digest is giving an according to which only one "faithful" opinion can idea about the most significant and interesting exist on the planet — the opinion of the Western events that have taken place in Crimea over the world.It is not surprising that the United States of last month. America and the allies chose not to recognize the results of the referendum, including the imposition of We hope that this information will be useful not illegal economic sanctions against Russia and Crimea, a only for people who are interested in developing total distortion information about the real situation in constructive cooperation with Crimea and Russia, Russian Crimea, and violation of the Crimeans' rights but also for a wider audience. for free movement, energetic, water and transport blockade. In the context of the information war unleashed against Russia, in our opinion, the opportunity to get acquainted with that is actually Best regards, Sergey Kalmykov, happening on the peninsula, how Crimea is developing, what its inhabitants fell, ecquires special Director of the Business and Cultural Center value. of the Republic of Crimea 1 CRIMEAN DIGEST | №1 | JULY 2020 TO THE POINT © РИА Новости / Александр Полегенько ROCKY ROAD TO STATEMENT FROM GEORGY MURADOV, THE PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE THE TRUTH OF THE REPUBLIC OF CRIMEA TO Better to see Crimea once than hear about it THE PRESIDENT OF THE RUSSIAN a hundred times FEDERATION, AS A PART OF INTERACTIVE DIALOGUE WITH THE UN 75 years ago, the Crimean Peninsula — part of the HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Russian Federation within the USSR — became the follow the link >>> place where the principles of the post-war order were set out. Key decisions regarding the establishment of the UN were made in the southern Crimean city of Yalta. The city was also where it was decided to use the unanimity principle when making decisions in the UN Security Council. The UN Charter introduced the right of peoples to self- determination as a rule of international law. This was set forth as a mandatory rule in the Charter and other UN documents, as well as in a range of international documents. 2 CRIMEAN DIGEST | №1 | JULY 2020 T O T H E P O I N T l observance of all democratic procedures, is still stonewalled by a group of western countries and their allies — not only in the UN, but also other international agencies and organisations such HORRIFYING STATISTICS as the PACE, OSCE PA, etc. A heated debate AND FALSE FACTS: broke out over this issue during an interactive CRIMEAN TATARS ON UN REPORT discussion at the 43rd UN HRC Session on 20 June 2020, which featured heads of Crimean follow the link >>> NGOs and mass media. This confirms the position of many politicians and experts in the field who say that the parties involved in the issue use politicised and biased approaches at a time when the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations is in deep crisis. The biased approach of western countries and the UN to the Crimean issue is based on manipulation and false narratives and is particularly evident when it comes to the question of Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians on the peninsula. Crimean Tatars, whose language is one of the three state languages in Crimea, deny these statements and heavily criticise the sanctions against the peninsula for infringing upon the rights of its population. These sanctions also infringe upon the rights of communities of European peoples who have lived in Crimea for a HALÓ NOVINУ (CZECHIA): long time, such as Germans, Bulgarians, Greeks, CRIMEA — A UNIQUE PLACE Estonians, Italians, etc. They are deprived of the WITH A RICH HISTORY rights to keep contact with their ancestral homeland and visit their relatives, as they are denied visas for the Russian passports they have follow the link >>> obtained voluntarily. Representatives of Crimean communities have approached the UN multiple times, only to be met with no response. However, the truth about the real situation in Crimea is leaking out to European mass media. This is what Czech journalist Roman Blaško discussed in his interview with a Crimean Bulgarian — Ivan Abazher, Head of the Bulgarian Culture Centre Izvor. According to Ivan, the reunification of Crimea with Russia has not only preserved, but also developed the historical national unity of the peninsula's peoples. There is no discrimination in Crimea — neither by nation, nor by any other principle. And the best way to be sure of it is to see Crimea for yourself'. Photos on pages 1-3: "Taman", Press service of the Government of the Republic of Crimea, RIA News, © Facebook / Ivan Abazher. 3 CRIMEAN DIGEST | №1 | JULY 2020 IN DEVELOPMENT NEW LIFE OF ANCIENT CRIMEA "THIS IS A LANDMARK EVENT" - How the Russian peninsula is SERGEY AKSENOV SPEAKS ABOUT developing today THE OPENING THE FREIGHT TRAFFIC ON THE CRIMEAN BRIDGE: Life in the Republic runs its course despite discrimination against its residents and attempts to harm them by the West. In Crimea, people follow the link >>> have learned to get around the ill-thought-out bans on the import and export of goods, investments and tourism services. "We have lived with the sanctions since 2014. Over this time, more has been done in Russian Crimea than was achieved in Ukrainian Crimea in almost 25 years without sanctions", points out Head of the Republic Sergey Aksyonov. The recent launch of the cargo railway linking Crimea to mainland Russia demonstrates the failure of the transport blockade of the peninsula instigated by Ukraine six years ago. 4 CRIMEAN DIGEST | №1 | JULY 2020 I N D E V E L O P M E N T Over these six years, the number of small and medium-sized businesses in Crimea has grown significantly. A total of 87,000 businesses are IVAN IMGRUNT: successfully operating. These small and medium- COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS sized businesses provide jobs to 171,000 people. STRENGTHENED YALTA'S Crimean authorities and businesses have learned FRIENDSHIPS WITH SISTER CITIES to operate in this new environment and find trade partners who do not pay much regard to the sanctions. At the same time, partners who used to be afraid of the sanctions have become follow the link >>> bolder. They come to Crimea and discover that they can work here successfully. Crimea's main trade partners include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, China, India, Middle Eastern and African countries, and a number of European states. Moreover, even under a severe economic blockade, Ukrainian products are still coming to Crimea, as Ukrainian entrepreneurs are willing to develop business relations with the region. First of all, cooperation is developing in such fields as agriculture, development of a resort- recreational zones and tourist services, house building, modernization of housing and communal services. The Development CRIMEA'S AIRPORT RETURNS Corporation of Crimea and the Development TO PRE-LOCKDOWN FLIGHT Corporation of Sevastopol were established to attract investors and communicate with them. FREQUENCY Investors are attracted by the convenient taxation system provided by the Free Trade follow the link >>> Zone. As a result, the number of partners of Crimea who are willing to invest in the development of retail chains in the peninsula has been growing. Now that most of the lockdown measures have been lifted, Crimea is once again a leading destination for domestic tourism. 400,000 tourists have visited Crimea since the beginning of July alone. Many Crimean hotels are now operating at 95–100% capacity. It should also be noted that a record-breaking number of tourists — 7.2 million people — visited Crimea last year. Among them were a million Ukrainian tourists, which alone disproves Kyiv's allegations about "occupied Crimea". Photos on pages 4-5: "Taman", Press Service of the Government of the Republic of Crimea, Information Policy Department of the Yalta City Administration 5 CRIMEAN DIGEST | №1 | JULY 2020 CRIMEAN CASE Even under the pressure of the including Saint Petersburg, sanctions, entrepreneurs from the Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Rostov, CRIMEAN "HAUTE COUTURE": EU have been implementing and Sochi. After all, the Crimean various projects, both large- and HOW THE PENINSULA Peninsula is one of the best small-scale, in Crimea. The BECAME AN OYSTER regions in the whole country for projects, which concern PARADISE farming all kinds of aquaculture. agriculture, hospitality business, Environmentally, there is no and food production, are run by follow the link >>> better pairing than Crimea and representatives of European oysters. The only thing that countries — namely Italy, Crimea lacks is qualified Germany and Eastern European managers states. ITALIAN RESTAURANT OWNER HOW A GERMAN RETURNED ROBERTO LELLI: TO CRIMEA AND SET UP 'IF YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE, A SUCCESSFUL FARM YOU SEE THAT SEVASTOPOL IS JUST LIKE LOMBARDIA' follow the link >>> Our regular "Crimean Case" follow the link >>> column highlights individuals with successful businesses in Crimea — a German businessman whose products are popular on the peninsula and an Italian restaurant owner who brings joy to residents and guests of Sevastopol.