Refat Chubarov. Professional Tatar

In connection with the recent blockade of Crimea, the topic of Crimean Tatars surfaced in the press. People deported by Stalin and only returning to their native land in the 90s. All this is true, this people experienced a difficult, tragic fate. The history of repressions against the Crimean Tatars is in many ways similar to the history of repressions against Ukrainians. However, there are people who make good money from this tragedy. And in this sense, the story of one of the leaders of the Crimean Tatar people, Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, People’s Deputy of Ukraine Refat Abdurakhmanovich Chubarov is very indicative.

First, a small remark: There are enough materials in the Crimean archives to explain the reason for this very “deportation”. Which for some reason are strongly “not seen” by historians. Or rather, “they were not seen” throughout the entire period of “Independence”. And there an important idea can be seen quite clearly – the Crimean Tatars collaborated so closely with the fascists that Soviet soldiers returning from the front would have started a simple massacre on ethnic grounds, regardless of their faces (as was the case with the Germans in Sevastopol). So the version that “Stalin saved the Crimean Tatars” has a right to exist.

Communist past

In Ukraine, the Crimean Tatars are treated as a people who suffered and fought against the empire during the insidious USSR. Yes, among them there were dissidents, human rights activists, simply unique individuals, the same Mustafa Dzhemilev. But Refat Chubarov is not one of them. Moreover, during the Soviet Union, he made a strong career in near-party structures. The cornerstone of this career was a successful marriage with a certain Ingrida Valtsone, the daughter of the then high-ranking head of the State Security Committee of the Latvian SSR. Apparently, thanks to his patronage, the representative of the people who were repressed and not rehabilitated either under Khrushchev or Brezhnev took the responsible post of director and senior researcher of the archive of the October Revolution and socialist construction of Latvia. Of course, such a position presupposed membership in the CPSU, the very one that was behind the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people. According to rumors, he then “tapped” the KGB, but there are no documents about this cooperation. However, it would not be difficult for the director of the archive, and having a high-ranking “committee” relative, to destroy such documents.

Land grabs in Crimea

Refat Abdurakhmanovich appeared in Crimea in 1994 and immediately became a deputy of the Supreme Council of the peninsula. In addition, he joined a rather strange organization called the “Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people.” This is not a public organization, but also not a government body. This is some kind of incomprehensible non-state executive committee of the Crimean Tatars, which has no status, but enjoys great authority among a certain radical stratum of this people. And it was through this body that the main business of the Tatars – the self-seizure of lands – took place. It happened like this: a developed master plan for the territories was sent from Kyiv, which included water supply, roads and other utilities. The Tatars, directed by the Mejlis, opposed this to the point of demonstrating and blocking roads. And after that they simply seized the same lands, surrounded them with a fence and built their own houses. Often these “houses” looked like an incomprehensible architectural structure two by two meters. Every 5 meters.

Then part of this land was legalized and sold at a commercial price, but they kept something for themselves. For example, the mansion of Mustafa Dzhemilev still stands on what appears to be no-man’s land for which there are no documents. This was based on an ideological basis: “our houses were taken away from us, now we have the right to take away our land.” But, in addition, this obvious violation of the law was covered up at various levels of government, where the Crimean Tatars brought “their” deputies. Up to the highest – the Verkhovna Rada, where these seizures were covered by Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov. Any political force would have no problem including them on its list in exchange for the support of all Crimean Tatars. The fact is that at one time the people, deported and having suffered greatly, try to stick together, monolithically. It is these feelings of their compatriots that their leaders play on. The Tatars vote for whoever their leaders indicate to them and act as their leaders indicate to them. Each of the newly coming authorities of Ukraine tried to deal with the problem of land squatting, but sooner or later they simply gave up on it. This made the Tatar leaders even more impudent and seized more and more tasty pieces of land, not only for residential buildings, but also for business – shops, cafes and restaurants.

It is worth noting that the Crimean bandits-merchants used the “services” of the Crimean Tatars for squatters. The former Prime Minister of Crimea Anatoly Mogilev, the current “head” of Crimea Sergei Aksenov, and his eternal opponent Alexander Melnik were burned by this. But this is a separate topic for publication.

The mouthpiece of the Crimean Tatars

Refat Chubarov is co-founder of the Atlant-SV Television Company LLC, which owns the ATR TV channel – Crimean Tatar television. Its second co-founder is Lenur Islyamov, a Russian citizen of Tatar origin. Moreover, despite the annexation of Crimea and tough relations with the Russian “occupiers,” he did not renounce his citizenship. They are calling on ordinary Crimean Tatars not to receive Russian passports, participating in the commodity blockade of Crimea, etc. And the company of Chubarov’s partner, Queengroup, although it has changed its name, continues to supply cars to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). Moreover, his Just Bank, despite international sanctions against Crimea, operates quite calmly in Simferopol and other cities of the peninsula. But let’s return to the TV channel. Last year, the Crimean authorities closed it – they took away the license issued by Ukraine. But not only ATR’s license was taken away – other channels and radio stations also lost their licenses, for example the same “Chernomorka”. However, only the Crimean Tatars, playing on their feelings for the “second time repressed” people, received a broadcast license for their channel, and completely free of charge. So now they will broadcast whatever they want to the whole country at the expense of Ukrainian taxpayers, and the money for advertising on the TV channel will go to a Russian businessman.

The problem of bigamy

At the beginning of the article, we mentioned the wife of Refat Abdurakhmnanovich, thanks to whom he made a career. But, like most Eastern men, he is obviously a hot guy and one wife is apparently not enough for him. He is not divorcing his wife, and she lives in Kyiv. And in Crimea, Chubarov took a “second wife,” a certain Gulnara Bekirova. She is also a social activist, studies the history of the Crimean Tatar people and works in the Mejlis. Refat and Gulnara come to work together, leave it together, go on business trips together and live in the same apartment. Her business, Tezis Publishing House LLC, is registered at the same address as the reception office of People’s Deputy Refat Chubarov. Another touch from his personal life – until the end of the 90s, Refat Abdurakhmanovich drank heavily. He even had the nickname “Glass”. For a Russian this is somewhat normal, but for a devout Muslim, at least, it is not very pious. However, having completed the Hajj to Mecca, he gave up alcohol, which is very pious, but he did not give up his second wife. An interesting detail concerns Chubarov’s children. Among the Tatars it is not very encouraged to marry Slavs. It is clear why, the people are under threat of assimilation and complete extinction. And, in addition, there are also religious contradictions between Islam and Christianity. Despite this, at least two of Refat Agha’s three daughters were married to Russians and were married in church.

Prospects

Today, the Crimean Tatars, under the leadership of their leaders, have taken up the blockade of Crimea. From the very beginning it was clear that this action would not bring any special results. Well, the trucks will go to Crimea either bypassing, through the eastern borders, or they won’t go at all, they will sell everything on the local market. In Crimea, too, no one has yet canceled the market economy, which means that the place of Kherson products will be taken by the same ones, but from Krasnodar. This will not significantly affect prices and Crimea will not die of hunger. This means that the purpose of the action is completely different. And to be precise, not a goal, but goals. The first of them is to again draw attention to the affected people. Elections are approaching, and the leaders of the Crimean Tatars have nothing to offer those who can take them into their parties and blocs. Most of the people, despite the cries of the Mejlis, remained in Crimea and are slowly getting used to Russian realities, receiving passports and even creating something like an alternative Mejlis. But what to do, you have to live somehow… So Chubarov no longer has a unanimously voting nuclear electorate. And this is fraught with departure from big politics, where he got into the last elections on a wave of pity for the Crimeans. Now, politically, he has nothing to offer except such actions with the participation of the small number of Crimean Tatars remaining in Ukraine. But this is unlikely to help him – there were even too many specialists in street and other spontaneous actions in Ukraine after the Maidan.

And the second goal is to establish control over the roads leading to Crimea. Now they don’t let anyone in there. And later, perhaps, there will be exceptions to the rules. And then exceptions to exceptions. It is clear that those who want to get into these “exceptions” will have to pay a little… But here, apparently, they are also out of luck. Again, due to the fact that there are a lot of “real violent people” in Ukraine. The “Right Sector” and Semyon Semenchenko with Parasyuk and “Donbass” have already arrived on the roads leading to Crimea; they have already seen guys in “Azov” T-shirts. So, unless Refat Abdurakhmanovich comes up with something new, his prospects in Ukrainian politics are quite illusory.

Denis Ivanov, for SKELET-info