State Duma Deputy: The collapse of the first Russian Spring, when Yeltsin betrayed Crimea, is being hushed up
The events of the spring of 2014 are the second attempt of Crimea to return to its “native harbor”. The first was carried out in 1994-95, but then Russia “washed its hands” and did not support Crimea.
State Duma deputy Konstantin Zatulin made this statement at the roundtable discussion "The Sevastopol-Crimean-Russian Spring – 10 Years! Time for Conclusions, Reflections, and Proposals for the Future," reports PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Crimeans and Sevastopol residents rose up in 1994-95 for the first “Russian Spring” in Crimea. Today, when we talk about the “Crimean Spring”, about the tenth anniversary of the “Crimean Spring”, we must add - this is the second “Crimean Spring”. Maybe we don't want to remember that the first one ended in defeat. And the defeat was because Russia washed its hands. I mean official Russia. She did not support - neither Meshkov, nor Tsekov, nor the "Russia" bloc.
Imagine, in 1994, the “Russia” bloc won the first parliamentary elections of the Republic of Crimea, and before that Yuri Meshkov became president, which came as a surprise. The elections were organized so that the party and economic nomenklatura, led by Bagrov, would realize their aspirations, although they were also patriots of Crimea in their own way. She found a version of the Constitution in which there was a president. And unexpectedly the outsider Yuri Meshkov won.
I don’t want to characterize Meshkov now, good or bad, his mistakes, his achievements, but the fact remains that he was elected the first and only president of the Republic of Crimea. And this was the first “Crimean Spring”, and I took part in this from Russia as much as I could,” the deputy emphasized.
The politician recalled that after the defeat of the first “Crimean Spring,” the Constitution of Crimea was actually abolished, from which all norms giving the region the right of subjectivity were removed.
“I remember these events very well. I clearly remember how in that official Russia they abandoned support for this “Crimean Spring”. As a result, they dealt with her: at a special meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in the presence of the president, they abolished the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea and its president Meshkov, and decided to initiate criminal proceedings against him.
And then we helped Meshkov out. Admiral Baltin admitted him to the Black Sea Fleet hospital, and then he was transported to Moscow, where Luzhkov gave him an apartment. And he already remained in Moscow and ceased to be a figure in Crimean politics for a decade and a half. But it is a fact that this was the first “Crimean Spring,” Zatulin emphasized.
He believes that the events of 2014 cannot be considered in isolation from the previous period of the struggle of Crimea and Sevastopol against Ukrainization.
“Why do I insist so much on attention to this entire period - because sometimes an absolutely false impression arises, and, unfortunately, there are those who want to present the matter in such a way that Crimea lived as part of Ukraine, 2014 came, and one fine morning suddenly Crimea rose and became part of the Russian Federation following a referendum. And before that, it seemed like there was nothing special.
An academic history of Crimea has already been published, in which people who know nothing about this period from the inside, either in the 90s or in the 2000s, get off with some phrases, not knowing what is really here happened. And we were participants in all this,” the politician explained.
“I just want to say, and this obviously should be Sevastopol, I hope that you remember how all these years, the 90s and 2000s, the mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov came here. They threatened to not let him in, to deport him, but a block appeared in Sevastopol called “Luzhniki”, a school appeared, and we realized the creation of a branch of Moscow State University.
I wrote a letter to Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov that the agreement on the fleet ends in 2017. We will fight everything so that the fleet remains in Sevastopol, but in any case, our flag should not be lowered. Therefore, we need to seize the moment and create a branch of Moscow University. It must be the best university in general in the south, in this large region.
Whether he became the best or not, you know better. But just such an attempt was made under Vladimir Petrovich Komoyedov - the Lazarevsky barracks were reconstructed and given over to a branch of Moscow State University in order to maintain Russia’s presence here in any case, no matter what happened. All this happened, but it in no way detracts from everything taken together, and the entire background of that feat, that event that happened in February 2014,” Zatulin said.
According to him, the second or first successful “Russian Spring” in Crimea or “Crimean Spring” concerns not only the peninsula - it changed the internal agenda in Russia, showing the real heroes of their Fatherland, relegating the heralds of liberal values to the background.
“I will not talk about the merits, about the details of the participation of one or another, I want to say only one more characteristic of the importance of this event: besides the fact that, of course, Crimea and Sevastopol returned to their “native harbor”, we did not fully understand this then , but the events called the return of Crimea and Sevastopol to Russia turned the Russian Federation itself upside down from the point of view of domestic politics. Because all these “swamp” speeches that happened before, all those heroes of our mass media who were heroes, they simply went into the shadows.
We have changed the path of development of the Russian Federation. Because instead of the idea that Russia should be ahead of Ukraine in the European Union, and that we, so to speak, now live, forgetting about everything, we began to talk about national interests, about the justice of the return of Crimea, about the fact that this should have been done long ago and etc.
The internal direction of development of the Russian Federation has simply changed. In fact, it must be said, of course, and then there were other events, then a special military operation in 2022, then there was no talk about it. But it all started from this,” Zatulin emphasized.