Nikolai Petrov. Russian Politics & Law. Volume 54, Issue 1, January-February 2016.
The accelerated integration of Crimea into Russia’s state system illuminates the overall sociopolitical process in Russia. The process was largely improved, with various agencies each pursuing its own course of action. Some were formed on the basis of existing Ukrainian institutions, while others were created de novo. In some cases, locals were given senior positions, while in others the top posts were assigned to appointees from other regions who had no previous ties to Crimea. Overall, Moscow was careful to take into account local factors, such as the role of the Crimean Tatar population. The situation remains fluid, with many state institutions still subject to modification.
A year and a half ago, the Russian Federation grew by three new subjects: the Republic of Crimea, the federal city of Sevastopol, and, encompassing them both, the Crimean Federal District. The Russian system of governance, which was already cumbersome and difficult to manage (as a result of excessive centralization and a lack of coordination among various agencies) met with a unique and difficult challenge. Crimea is being “embedded” into Russia during unfavorable economic conditions, which are aggravated by the confrontation with Kyiv and Western sanctions.
The need to integrate the peninsula poses an enormous and diverse range of challenges for both Crimea and Russia: there are infrastructure problems related to Crimea’s transition from the Ukrainian sphere toward greater self-sufficiency, as well as economic, sociocultural, and ethnic issues that must be resolved. Since even the model of governance has yet to be finalized, only the initial approaches and efforts can be assessed. This article will focus primarily on the transformation of Crimea’s sociopolitical space and its system of governance, resulting from being embedded into the Russian Federation.
As far as can be judged, the majority of Crimean residents are happy with recent events on the peninsula. This is according to an authoritative study conducted by [market research company] GfK Ukraine at the beginning of 2015, which showed that 82 percent of Crimean residents fully supported Russian annexation, 11 percent supported it, and only 4 percent were opposed to it. It is also significant that among the fifteen issues that most concerned residents, those associated with governance ranked last: 2 percent expressed concern with the work of law enforcement, 3 percent expressed concern with a crisis of governance and a lack of order, and 5 percent believed the authorities were indifferent to the problems of ordinary citizens. However, conflicts do periodically flare up in relation to disputes either between local elites (often in Sevastopol) or between federal and local governments (as in Simferopol).
The Crimean transformation from post-Soviet to Russian space that began on March 21, 2014 is interesting for several reasons. First, just as a developing embryo recapitulates the evolution of its species, Crimea’s accelerated integration has illuminated certain features of Russian space. Second, Russia continues to evolve as the inclusion of Crimea is changing the Russian regime. Its history and the history of Russia as a whole can be divided into two periods: the pre-Crimean period and the post-Crimean period. Third, substantial changes are taking place not only in Crimea and mainland Russia but also in their relations with one another. For Crimea, these relations are essentially altered by a shift from the Ukrainian model of external governance in a relatively decentralized system to the Russia model of external governance in a centralized system.
The Crimean Cadre
Significant resources were mobilized for the integration of Crimea. The government curator position was filled by Putin’s top crisis manager and deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozak, who successfully oversaw the completion of the Sochi Olympics. The most crucial part of the work was entrusted to vice admiral Oleg Belaventsev, a onetime foreign intelligence officer and a trusted ally of the defense minister Sergey Shoygu. Having played a key role in the annexation of Crimea), Belaventsev was awarded Russia’s highest honorary title, Hero of the Russian Federation, through a “closed” presidential decree in April 2014 and was appointed presidential envoy to the newly formed Crimean federal okrug (CFO). Andrei Yegorov (of the Federal Security Service [FSB]) was granted the title of chief federal inspector of Crimea, and joined Belaventev’s staff with deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Andrei Shishkin, who was put in charge of the city of Sevastopol. Development of the CFO is being conducted as a closed special operation. Already a part of Russia for over a year, the region still does not have an official government site. In an interview, Nikolai Vodozerev defined the objectives of the envoy and his embassy in Crimea as the following:
Oleg [Belaventsev] formulated our task as such: we are responsible for organizing the entire life of the Republic of Crimea. We are not the “sovereign’s eye” or the overseers, we are the organizers. The president asks the envoy: What is happening in the region? How are you developing Russian Crimea? How is the economy and the social life of the peninsula? The envoy’s task is to organize the people to address some specific issue, for instance, the need for political parties. This means that the process of political party building needs to be organized. The envoy does not form a political party himself, he organizes the legal and social resources needed for the creation of a functioning political process. Or consider the economy. The task is to make a pearl of Crimea…. We all want to quicken economic growth because Crimea is twenty-three years behind. That is why we have Savelyev and Kozak and Belavenetsev, who are here to organize the work and to oversee the orders of the president. Kozak has identified the necessary measures, Oleg Savelyev has been given certain tasks, and Oleg Belavenetsev oversees the process.
Oleg Savelyev was put in charge of a specially created Ministry of Crimean Affairs, which was designed to husband Crimea’s economic development and integration into the Russian Federation. Savelyev is a political strategist and economist who has worked for German Gref,the former minister of the Ministry of Economic Development (MED), and was responsible at the MED for regional policy, state programs, and special economic zones. Victor Palagin was taken out of retirement and appointed head of the FSB for the Republic of Crimea and city of Sevastopol. Palagin, former head of the FSB in Bashkortostan (2008–13), had proved himself effective at combating Islamic radicalism and calming national elites. The year prior to his appointment, he served as vice-president of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, associated with Igor Sechin and Gennady Timchenko.
Here, we already see a preference for people connected with the FSB and St. Petersburg, a preference that is also evident in the Russian government. Other “Crimea-makers” include many individuals from the group that Yevgeny Minchenko has dubbed “Putin’s Politburo.”
Patrons and Vassals
Having kept control of the “federal center—region” level, Moscow transferred the effort to care for the municipal level to sixteen strong Russian regions, who were assigned the job of assisting Crimea’s rural districts, the city of Sevastopol, and the city of Kerch. The city of Simferopol was not included on this list, but is being assisted by St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. Eighteen Crimean city councils (including the resort cities) were also excluded from the list.
There is a certain logic in which regions were chosen to support Crimea’s districts. Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, the patrons of the two Crimean districts with the largest Tatar populations (Bakhchysarai and Belogorsk), were selected along ethnic principles, as these are the two regions with the largest Islamic-Tatar populations. The Chernomorsky district with its oil and gas deposits was placed under the patronage of the Tyumen region because of that region’s industrial specialization. Based on the same principle the industrial city of Kerch went to the Tula region. Moscow took patronage of Sevastopol; in this case, a significant role was played by historical ties and the symbolic significance of the “city of Russian glory.” The amount of assistance from the patron regions is significant, amounting to tens and hundreds of millions of rubles a year for reconstruction, education, health, sociocultural projects, specialized machinery, medical equipment, and transportation.
After cutting Crimea from Ukraine, sewing it onto Russia is not unlike an organ transplant, where each vessel and nerve must be attached to its counterpart, and in many instances there is no clean correspondence.
Russian president Vladimir Putin gave his agency heads two weeks (starting March 29) to create a Crimean law enforcement system based on the Russian model. Some institutions (e.g., the Prosecutor’s Office or the Ministry of Internal Affairs [MVD]) had their own Ukrainian predecessors, while other institutions (e.g., the Investigative Committee of Russia [SKR] or the Federal Drug Control Service [FSKN]) had to be created from scratch.
Each Crimean law enforcement structure followed one of two models during its formation under the aegis of the Russian Federation: some were replaced/introduced, and others were adapted/co-opted. The latter was true for the MVD (the largest agency on the peninsula to retain its Ukrainian form) and the Prosecutor’s Office. Local resident, lieutenant colonel Sergei Abisov kept his position as head of the Crimean MVD (selected back on March 1, 2014, by the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian Parliament]). By the end of March 2014, he was already an employee of the Russian MVD—first, as interim, then a month later as a full minister of Crimea.
On March 11, the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea appointed Natalia Poklonskaya interim prosecutor general (after the post was abandoned by all four of the former Ukrainian deputy prosecutors). On March 25, the prosecutor general of the Russian Federation appointed her acting prosecutor, and on May 2 she was appointed to the full post of prosecutor general of Crimea. In March, two of Poklonskaya’s deputies were appointed—one from Tomsk and one from Tula—and August saw the appointment of two more deputies—one was local and the other was the former deputy prosecutor of the Yaroslavl region. From the beginning, all the MVD deputy ministers were local, although it is difficult to say how long this will last. Moscow has sent its own “commissars” to oversee the work and selection of local staff.
Having received a post exceeding her rank, Poklonskaya has rapidly advanced her career: two days after her initial appointment as interim prosecutor general, she was promoted to senior counselor of justice, and a year later (June 2015), she was again promoted, this time to state counselor of justice 3rd class (which corresponds to the rank of major general). Many considered Poklonskaya to be a temporary figure who would soon be replaced. These rumors have again resurfaced as Russia prepares for elections to the State Duma. Poklonskaya will appear on the ballot either as a United Russia candidate for Crimea, or as a single-mandate candidate.
SKR and the FSKN had no direct predecessors in Ukraine and were created from scratch. At the same time, many officials of the Crimean SKR are being brought in haphazardly. Among the hundreds of employees and representatives from many regions, there is a prevalent St. Petersburg contingent, while the Crimean branch of the FSKN was composed partiality from local personnel.
The SKR announced that it was starting to work in Crimea on March 25, 2014. Interim investigators and criminologists were sent from different regions to Crimea, with official appointments made in September. Mikhail Nazarov was appointed head of the SKR in Crimea by presidential decree in September. Nazarov is a native of Yaroslavl, and served as head of the Mordovian SKR for nearly a decade. Sergei Mikhailov was the former deputy to the head of the Ulyanovsk SKR and was appointed Nazarov’s first deputy. Two other deputy appointees were also not local: Andrei Anokhin was originally from Kurgan and had previously worked in the central SKR office, and Vladimir Arkhangelsky had previously worked in the Penza SKR office. Sergey Topilskiy (originally from the city of Shchyolkovo, Moscow region) was sent to head the SKR in Yalta, and arrived with two subordinates. As a result of a fight in a restaurant started by his staff (which Topilskiy tried to cover up) he was soon sent back. The Sevastopol SKR was given to Yuri Moroz, who headed the SKR in Kamchatka. One of his deputies is from the central office, the other is from Krasnodar.
The regional directorate of the FSKN became active in the Crimean Republic and the city of Sevastopol on April 10, 2014. It was headed by a local military retiree and former deputy chief of Crimea’s Department for Combating Organized Crime, Fahrudin Gadzhiahmedov (nicknamed the “black colonel”), who according to one source is a Crimean Tatar, born in Uzbekistan, and according to others (including the department’s Web site) is a native of Derbent, Dagestan. In 2010, the Ukrainian authorities forced Gadzhiahmedov to resign after the replacement of the head of the Crimean MVD. As deputies, he was given two specialists from Russia’s regions: Dmitry Kolozin, who was from Kaluga and became head of the service in Sevastopol, and Oleg Poskrebyshev, who was from Pskov. In addition, the FSKN sent Crimea forty-four narcotics officers from Krasnodar and twenty-six additional officers from FSKN’s central headquarters.
Two months after it was formed, the Crimean office had hired only a little under half of its allotted staff. By December 2014, six months later, the FSKN was operating in six Crimea cities: Yalta, Yevpatoria, Kerch, Dzhankoy, Krasnoperekopsk, and Feodosia.
A special place is reserved for the FSB. The aforementioned Victor Palagin became its unified chief in charge of both Crimea and Sevastopol. This structure is mirrored elsewhere in Russia (e.g., the head of the FSB in Moscow is also its head in the Moscow region, and the head of the St. Petersburg FSB is also its head in the Leningrad region). Allegedly, Palagin called on former colleagues from the FSB in Bashkiria, who, as it was noted by Mediakorset, included ethnic Tatars. In particular, Palagin’s first deputy became Colonel Rustem Ibragimov. By autumn 2014, at a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Crimean Republic, Palagin reported on the completion of the rotation of senior staff in all district and city agencies of the FSB. Among the cities that appointed leadership from outside Crimea are Alushta (from Krasnoyarsk), Yevpatoria (from Volgograd), and Yalta (from Sochi).
Judicial Power
In Crimea, there are approximately 500 judges of the general courts, including 83 judges of the Appeals Court, which became the region’s Supreme Court. The overwhelming majority of Crimean judges immediately applied for Russian citizenship, and on this basis (even before receiving passports) started working under Russian law. In conjunction with this process, the Crimean judges underwent accelerated retraining courses; while a group from the Supreme Court, headed by the first deputy chairman of the Supreme Court, assisted them in making the transition to the Russian system. Prior to May 1, new status was granted to some 1,500 Crimean lawyers and notaries who had passed a simplified version of the qualifying exam.
The highest post in the Crimean judiciary was given to Igor Radionov—a local who emphasized his Karaite roots. In his words, he was appointed chairman of the Appeals Court of the then Republic of Crimea by Sergey Aksyonov on March 17, the day after the referendum. Radionov’s predecessor was Valery Chernobuk, who worked as the chief judge of Crimea for three years. He was from Dnipropetrovsk to which he returned after realizing that the new government was not going to retain him. He did, however, manage to apply for Russian citizenship before returning to Ukraine and joining the militia. He was joined in his departure by three other judges from his team, including his deputy.
The Ministry of Crimean Affairs
On March 31, 2014, a decree was signed (see “Chronology”) on the establishment of a federal Ministry of Crimean Affairs: “in order to improve the effectiveness of federal executive bodies during the integration of the Republic of Crimea and city of Sevastopol into the economic, financial, credit, and legal systems of the Russian Federation.” Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to entrust this job to the Ministry of Regional Development, but its days were numbered. In September 2014, the Ministry of Regional Development was dissolved. However, it still played a role in the integration of Crimea by developing the above noted system of patronage of Russian regions over the districts of Crimea and Sevastopol.
The Ministry of Crimean Affairs became the third federal ministry specifically designed to address the problems of a particular region. It was preceded by the Ministry of the North Caucasus and the Ministry of the Far East. However, it was the first to be abolished, on July 15, 2015 (i.e., one year after its creation), “in connection with the completion of Crimea’s transitional period and its integration into the Russian Federation.” Some believe its termination was caused by the numerous cases of corruption in the first half of 2015, others believe it was the result of infighting between federal entities for power and money—a fight that was won by the envoy Belavenetsev who lobbied for the elimination of the ministry. In contrast to the two other regional ministries, Savelyev, the Minister of Crimean Affairs, was not a client of Belavenetsev, which inevitably led to a clash of interests over the territory entrusted to them both.
According to official figures, the Ministry of Crimea Affairs was to be staffed by 230 people located in Moscow, Simferopol, and Sevastopol. In fact, the number of staff did not reach this figure: at the time of its termination the ministry employed 150 people. The termination of the ministry went practically unnoticed. It had not had time to become a serious player or to attract public attention.
The initial objectives laid out by Savelyev were very ambitious and included not only immediate anticrisis measures but also the creation of a new compact and efficient government—”to turn over a new leaf and make things not just as in Russia, but much better than in Russia.” This latter ambition failed. The Russian government is multistructural, has evolved over many years, and contains elements from the corresponding stages of development of the country, while in Crimea the model attempted to reproduce the Russian government of 2014.
The creation of a special economic zone, suggested by Savelyev, did not spur significant investment or seriously boost the Crimean economy. It could not occur in a year riddled with legal confusion, property reparations, and Western sanctions. Having dissolved the Ministry of Crimean Affairs, the Kremlin admitted the failure of its experiment in new government, and significantly changed the system of governance in Crimea, making it less transparent, more primitive, and primarily organized according to vertical power. After it was dissolved, the ministry’s functions were passed on to the Ministry of Economic Development, and the Russian government decided to fill the governing bodies of Crimea and Sevastopol with federal officials, who were appointed as first deputy ministers in local government.
Until then, the government of Crimea consisted almost exclusively of local officials—made of “Aksyonov’s people,” and to a lesser extent those loyal to the speaker of the State Council Vladimir Konstantinov. The only outsider was vice-premier Yevgenia Bavykina, who was responsible for economic issues. A Muscovite, she like Belaventsev had worked for Sergey Shoygu, and is considered by local analysts as the eyes of the Kremlin within the Aksyonov team. The State Commission for Socioeconomic Development of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol was established to coordinate the actions of regional authorities with the federal government.
Political Parties
Political parties needed to urgently establish their Crimean offices in time for State Council elections in September. The constituent assemblies of the Crimea and Sevastopol branches of United Russia were held on April 7, and were attended by slightly more than two dozen newly minted party members. United Russia did not consider it necessary to change the usual model used in other Russian regions: the head of the regional parliament (the State Council), Vladimir Konstantinov, was concurrently appointed the leader of the party. He was the former leader of the local branch of the Party of Regions. The presidium of the United Russia political council also includes two of Vladimir Konstantinov’s deputies (Konstantin Bakharev and Andrei Kozenko), Peter Zaporozhets, the head of the State Council Committee on industry, transportation, and energy, and Sergey Tsekov, a senator and former head of the Supreme Council of Crimea. The constituent assembly of the Sevastopol branch of United Russia was held on April 7. At that time, membership cards were presented by Sergei Neverov (the party’s secretary) to the first twenty-three Sevastopol members who formed the new party branch. Victor Oganesyan (legislative assembly member and school principal) was elected the first secretary of the regional branch of United Russia.
The other three parties in the Duma were quick to establish branches in Crimea headed by State Duma deputies from other regions; after the elections, they were replaced by local functionaries.
The first of these was the People’s Front for Russia, which established its branch April 1. It was cochaired by Aksyonov (prime minister of Crimea), Vladimir Konstantinov (chairman of the Crimean State Council), and Rustem Kazakov (Olympic champion, vice-president of the Crimean Federation of Greco-Roman wrestling). If the figure of a famous athlete at the helm of the People’s Front for Russia is familiar for Russian regions, the other two titular leaders, one of whom would soon also be heading Crimea’s United Russia branch, is particular to Crimea.
The Crimean branch of the Liberal Democratic Party was created almost simultaneously with United Russia. Pavel Shperov was elected its leader. He joined the Liberal Democrats shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in March 1992, and worked in the Liberal Democratic central office in the mid-1990s. A mediocre businessman, he recently headed the “Taurida Cossack Division” and was deputy chairman of the “Russian Community of Crimea.”
A Just Russia held a general assembly of two dozen members in Crimea in mid-April, announcing the creation of a regional office and the formation of its governing bodies. As a kind of surrogate, it was initially headed by Alexander Terentyev, State Duma deputy and head of A Just Russia’s Altai regional branch. He was replaced in November by the local Alexander Yuriev, who until 2012 was a functionary of Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party, and later became a government official of little significance. In Sevastopol, A Just Russia’s representative in the State Duma, Mikhail Bryachak, (a controversial businessman from Pskov with the reputation of being “the king of the customs business”) has so far not been replaced.
The Communist Party formed its branch with more care. At the founding conference, held at the end of May, Nikolai Kolomeitsev was made leader of the Crimean Communists. A member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and first secretary of the Rostov Regional Committee of the Communist Party, Kolomeitsev has served four terms in the State Duma. During the plenary session, a bureau composed of fourteen people and a number of secretaries was elected. In December, Kolomeitsev was replaced by the local Oleg Solomakhin, former secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party regional office.
The Issue of the Crimean Tatars
The above political parties were easily reformatted from the Ukrainian to the Russian system as their function was essentially similar and equally illusive. However, the Crimean Tatar Mejlis (the only real, grassroots party in the Crimea) presented the Russian government with a serious problem, and forced it to resort to different methods, up to a takeover.
The Crimean Tatars are not merely 10–15 percent of the Crimean population. They are the most rooted, well-organized, and cohesive force mobilized for growth and resistance in a fairly aggressive environment. Their longtime vehicle has been the Milliy Mejlis.
At first, the Kremlin tried to enlist the support of the leadership of the Mejlis, but did not succeed. Several days before the March referendum, a long conversation was held between the leader of the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Dzhemilev, and the Kremlin’s representative Mintimer Shaimiev (ex-leader of Tatarstan); in the course of their conversation, they were connected by telephone with president Vladimir Putin. The attempt to co-opt the Mejlis leaders failed and they called on the Crimean Tatars to boycott the referendum. As a result, most Tatars did not participate in the referendum and its results were not recognized by Mejlis leaders.
After the boycott, the Kremlin turned to the tactics of isolating and extruding the antagonists, while developing loyalist cells both inside and outside the Mejlis. Thus on April 22, during a trip ouside of Crimea, Mustafa Dzhemilev was banned from entering the territory of the Russian Federation until 2019. Simultaneously, Putin signed the decree: “On Measures for the Rehabilitation of the Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, Crimean Tatar, and German Peoples, and the State Support for Their Revival and Development.” On the one hand, the decree proclaimed the need for historic restoration and reparations for the illegal deportations from the territory of Crimea, on the other, it equated Crimean Tatars (for whom Crimea is not only a place of residence, but a historical homeland) with representatives of other repressed peoples. Two months later, a five-year ban on entry into the territory of the Russian Federation was given to the head of Mejlis, Refat Chubarov. Between these two events, Simferopol authorities cited “security reasons” when they banned Crimean Tatars from holding a memorial gathering in the central square on May 18 to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of their deportation, and Putin held a meeting with Crimean Tatar representatives ready to enter into cooperation with the new government.
By the end of 2014, it became obvious that the Kremlin had failed to seize control of the rebellious Mejlis, and the government attempted to create an alternative social movement called Qirim. Remzi Ilyasov, a former Mejlis leader expelled for collaborationism and the vice-speaker of the State Council, became its leader. According to Vasvi Abduraimov, he represents the Milliy Firqa Party (est. 2006), “a segment of ‘servile’ Crimean Tatars who will cooperate with any authority in Crimea.” When in April 2015, the independent Crimean Tatar TV channel ART was forced to stop broadcasting as a result of pressure from Crimean authorities, Qirim announced his intention to sponsor the state-organized TV channel Millet and radio station Vetan.
The split within the Crimean Tatar community is fraught with the potential for radicalization and increased social tension. In recent years, the radical Islamic organization Hizb ut-Tahrir (banned in Russia) had gained strength in Ukrainian Crimea. According to various estimates, the group had anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 Crimean Tatar members, many of whom left Crimea after its accession to the Russian Federation. In addition, this represents a potential threat to relations with Turkey.
Crimean Tatars have also become a political card to be played by Ukrainian officials. Recall that Kyiv partly recognized the Mejlis (established in 1991) in 1999 in the decree of president Leonid Kuchma, which established the Council of Representatives of the Crimean Tatar People. The Mejlis became the council, which consisted of thirty-three people elected by the Kurultai. Similar councils were established at the local level with the participation of municipal and district Mejlis branches. In 2010, Viktor Yanukovych tried to place the Mejlis under Kyiv’s control through reorganization and the introduction of presidential appointees, but to no avail. During the Ukrainian elections in 2012, the Mejlis participated as a partner of Yulia Tymoshenko’s opposition Fatherland party. Only on March 20, 2014, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, did the Ukrainian parliament officially recognize the Crimean Tatars as “indigenous people of Ukraine” and the Mejlis as their official representative governing body. The political game continues. In May 2015, the Ukrainian parliament adopted the decision to rename the Simferopol airport after the hero-pilot Amet-Khan Sultan, while Poroshenko talked of the road map to providing Crimea national-territorial autonomy within the Ukrainian state.
In addition to political parties1, during the first few months after annexation, representatives of a variety of state and social structures began to form. Already in June, a Crimean branch of the Russian military-historical society emerged, led by Aksyonov. In August 2014 the regional office of the Fund Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies (ISEP) began operations—the third after its offices in Volgograd and Kaliningrad. It is headed by Alexander Formanchuk, perhaps the most famous Crimean government political analyst, having started his career back in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. His deputy became Ivan Kusov—head of the Sevastopol branch of ISEP and deputy director for the development of the Sevastopol branch of Moscow State University. The need to open an ISEP office quickly was connected to its role as one of the dispersers of government grants for civil organizations, which had to be taken into account in the upcoming budget cycle.
The Crimean Public Chamber was created very quickly, and on June 30, 2014, it held its first meeting. It consists of forty people, half of whom are appointed by the State Council, and the other half by the government. There are few actual public figures in the chamber, the majority are professors, museum employees, veterans, and other public sector employees. The chamber is headed by Grigory Ioffe, a prominent politician who at the time of its formation was the first deputy chairman of the Supreme Council. One of his two deputies became the aforementioned Alexander Formanchuk.
The creation of the Public Chamber of Sevastopol took place much less smoothly. The decision to establish “a legitimate authority of popular will” was made by the Sevastopol People’s Front in mid-April 2014. Note that in the Ukrainian Sevastopol, the Public Chamber as a public organization was created bottom-up starting in November 2011, but did not leave a noticeable trace. The Legislative Assembly of Sevastopol, with a solid majority behind Alexei Chaly, began to discuss the Public Chamber at the beginning of 2015, considering the Chamber as a possible means of combating the governor Sergei Menyailo. The relevant law was passed in March, but the governor vetoed it. He tried to make certain amendments related primarily to the abolition of the five-year residency (unsuccessfully) and the formation of three, not two parts of the chamber (successfully), one of which would be determined by the members of the chamber themselves according to the formula 8+8+8. As a result, the law creating the Sevastopol Public Chamber was signed by the governor on June 15, 2015. The chamber is yet to be formed, but according to Vladislav Grib, the representative of the Federal Public Chamber in Crimea, the chairman of the chamber will likely become Gregory Donets—a member of the Sevastopol People’s Front, and head of the organization for the preservation of cultural heritage “Citizens of Chersonesus.” As of May 2015, 325 nongovernmental organizations were registered in the city.
Reconfiguration of the elites
As a result of decisions made during the “Crimean Spring,” and the dramatic changes in the apparatuses of the political and socioeconomic sphere, the Crimean political elite was significantly reconfigured. Some observations on the subject can be made by comparing the ratings of Crimean politicians at the end of the Ukrainian year 2013 and the Russian 2014, published by the Regional Institute of Political Communications (RIPC). The institute’s data show that the Crimean political Olympus became steeper in 2014. In 2013, thirty-seven politicians received a rating of more than 10 out of 100 points, but in 2014 only thirty-one did. The composition of influential politicians was sharply revised. Only six politicians from 2013 retained their place in the new order (less than one-sixth), all of whom, with the exception of speaker Vladimir Konstantinov (who kept his second place), and Grigory Ioffe (eighth to ninth place) rose from the bottom half of the list. All those who survived are either current or former members of the State Council, including the head of state, Sergey Aksyonov, who rose from twentieth to first place; Sergei Tsekov, who became a member of the Federal Assembly, rose from twenty-seventh to fourth place; Grigory Ioffe, who left his position as deputy chairman of the State Council to be the chairman of the Public Chamber rose from ninth to eighth place; Constantine Bakharev, who rose from twenty-seventh to ninth place, became the first deputy chairman of the State Council; and deputy Yefim Fiks now heads the Committee on Legislation, Organizational Management of the Supreme Council, and Public Relations.
Unlike most Russian regions, where many influential politicians are representatives of executive authorities and federal officials, in Crimea of the thirty-one influential politicians, sixteen are members of representative government, including two at the federal level (members of the Federal Assembly, Sergei Tsekov (number four) and Olga Kovitidi (number six)), one on the local (deputy of the Simferopol City Council, communist Stepan Kiskin [number twenty-five]), and thirteen at the republic level. In addition to speaker Vladimir Konstantinov (number two), the latter included all three of his deputies Konstantin Baharev (number nine), Remzi Ilyasov (number ten), Andrew Kozenko (number seventeen), and nine of the twelve chairmen of committees.
From the municipal level, high positions were retained by the mayors of Simferopol (who dropped from seventeenth to twenty-ninth), Yevpatoria (who dropped from twenty-eighth to thirtieth), and Yalta (who rose from thirty-second to thirty-first). All of them took their posts after March 2014.
The representatives of executive authority and of municipalities, as well as representatives of the Crimean Tatars, were completely reconfigured. The feds are represented only by the envoy Oleg Belaventsev (number three) and the minister Oleg Savelyev (number seven). Military personnel and entrepreneurs are not represented on the list, which makes Crimea different from all other Russian regions.
Conclusion
The Russianization of Crimea was highly improvisational, with each federal agency undertaking its own approach. The formation of Crimea’s vertical power began in March–April 2014, and by November was nearly completed, even where a two-phase model was employed, that is, when individuals from the outside were first temporarily appointed and after proving themselves received permanent positions.
Despite the haste with which the peninsula was staffed, the upper echelons of the regional offices are remarkably stable. In the past year, only the head of the Federal Tax Service has been removed (under somewhat mysterious circumstances, having been accused of trying to bribe an FSB officer). In its approach to Crimea, Moscow has shown caution and sensitivity to ethnic issues, which it has demonstrated before in other ethnic republics. In most cases, Moscow co-opted local personnel and resources. As a result, the rootedness of regional “generals” in Crimea is more prevalent than in the vast majority of Russian regions. This likely means that the process of federalization in Crimea is not yet complete, and we can expect further extirpation of locals in the future. If like an embryo Crimea will recapitulate the political phases of the species, then the process of transition to the general model of other republics is unlikely to take much time.
In terms of middle-tier positions, including subregional heads, the placement of Russian officials was mostly completed by the end of 2014. In nearly all cases—except (for the time being) the Ministry of Internal Affairs—personnel were brought in from the outside by the “Crimean callup,” when agencies recruited internally for middle-management positions from individuals demonstrating the necessary desire and ability. They were sent to Crimea, where after two or three months they received permanent positions. Local personnel were also trained with the help of federal representatives, directed to the peninsula for this specific purpose. The municipal level was largely farmed out to other Russian regions, which were assigned as patrons for each administrative district of Crimea, Sevastopol, and Kerch. This form of patronage included both financial and material assistance, and the sharing of expertise.
The new executive power in Crimea was formed in many ways under revolutionary circumstances, without significant participation of the center. Along with the regional government, the composition of municipalities was also radically updated. Only a year after annexation, the federal government (particularly in the form of the FSB and Investigative Committee), began to crack down on corruption, arresting several major Crimean officials. With the elimination of the Ministry of Crimean Affairs on July 2015, an announcement was made concerning the introduction of federal “commissars”—federal representatives of ministries and agencies who are to fill the posts of deputy heads of the Crimean government. Thus, the transition was made from a model of external control to that of internal control.
The administrative models for Crimea and Sevastopol were initially different. In the former case, the representative government and its leadership was kept (with some reformatting), while the executive positions, headed by local deputies, were completely changed. In the latter case, not only were both branches of government changed, but a tandem was created: the head of the executive branch was not the local, admiral Sergei Menyailo, but the entrepreneur Alexei Chaly who became known as the “people’s mayor.” As a result, the Sevastopol model was not only more confrontational and public but also more democratic in the long run. Besides being more compact, the Sevastopol model has elements of direct democracy.
It is still difficult to judge the productivity and efficiency of Crimean agencies tailored to the Russian model. The most visible activity is the anticorruption campaign of the FSB and Investigative Committee. The Investigative Committee has reported solving a number of old cases. It is clear, however, that large-scale procedures, such as the issuing of Russian passports and small-business licenses, took more time than anticipated. According to Ekaterina Shulman, instead of integrating Crimea into the Russian legal sphere, the government created a special niche for Crimea inside its purview. It can also be said that in terms of integrating Crimea into Russia, the simple and familiar vertical methods of control turned out to work better than the horizontal efforts of the Ministry of Crimean Affairs.