Chunks of limestone, by the tens of thousands, are strewn in piles
on a waterside lot here where one of Europe’s largest mosques is
scheduled to rise. But the only soul around is a wizened caretaker in a
tent, watching over what seems like another grandiose project gone bust
with the financial crisis.
The trouble with the project, though, has nothing to do with money.
It is hinted at in the pieces of limestone themselves, many of which
have been brought to the lot in protest and etched with the names of
people who once lived here on the Crimean Peninsula, were deported by
Stalin and never returned.
The mosque was supposed to signify the revival of those expelled,
the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic ethnic group that suffered as wretched a
fate as any under Communism. But with work held up by local
authorities, the plan has instead stirred up a dispute involving
politics, communal grievances, international tensions and historic
traumas.
And so for the Crimean Tatars, the lot has become a site not for
construction but for pilgrimages — and another reminder that here, as
elsewhere across the former Soviet Union, the sins of the past will not
be easily addressed.
“From each Muslim, one stone,” Refat Chubarov, a Tatar leader, said
the other day as he offered an impromptu tour of the deserted lot.
Mr. Chubarov explained that for months, Tatars have been asked to
deposit pieces of limestone on the lot, each costing less than a
dollar, to demonstrate their displeasure. Thousands have done so, with
many creating mini-memorials by embellishing the limestone with the
names of long-dead relatives. The stones are generally 15 or 20 inches
square and 7 inches deep.
The mosque, which is to have space for a few thousand worshipers,
was approved in 2004 by local officials. They agreed on a prime
location at 22 Yaltinskaya Street in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea,
a peninsula in the Black Sea that is one of the most celebrated regions
of the former Soviet Union.
The mosque project was to cost more than $10 million, most of which
was to be paid by Turkish and other foreign donors, Mr. Chubarov said.
But in 2008, the Simferopol city council refused to grant final
approval for the project, voicing concerns about its environmental
impact because the site is near a reservoir. Officials said that
traffic would overwhelm neighborhood streets and that noise from the
mosque would bother patients at a nearby cancer hospital.
The city council, which is controlled by ethnic Russians, said its
stance was not influenced by ethnic or religious hostility. It
suggested other locations for the mosque.
“The mosque will be built, but only after taking into consideration
the views of the public,” said Simferopol’s mayor, Gennady Babenko.
But Tatar leaders said they did not believe that the city would
follow through on other sites. They said they doubted that the typical
not-in-my-backyard complaints were genuine, asserting that local
politicians simply did not want a prominent mosque in Simferopol.
“Everyone realizes that their opposition doesn’t make sense, because
they had already given us permission,” Mr. Chubarov said. “Behind the
scenes, they are saying: ‘Crimea is Russian Orthodox land. If they want to build a mosque, they should build it where no one can see it.’ “
The Tatars, who have inhabited Crimea for centuries, were deported
in May 1944 by Stalin, who accused them of collaborating with the Nazis
(some did, but most did not). The entire Tatar population, more than
200,000 people, was transported in brutal conditions thousands of miles
away to Uzbekistan and other locations. Many died along the way or soon
after arriving.
The Soviets confiscated their homes, destroying their mosques or
treating them like warehouses. One was converted into a Museum of
Atheism.
It was not until perestroika in the late 1980s that most of the Tatars were allowed back, a migration that continued after Ukraine
became independent with the Soviet collapse in 1991. More than 250,000
Tatars now live in Crimea, about 13 percent of its population of 2
million people.
The Tatars’ return has repeatedly touched off legal clashes over
restitution of land and property, much of which is now owned by ethnic
Russians. Some have turned violent.
The situation is complicated by the political status of Crimea, which would generally prefer to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. Crimea was transferred by Nikita S. Khrushchev,
then the Soviet leader, to Ukraine in 1954, a move then thought to be a
formality, since it remained in the Soviet Union and was populated
mostly by ethnic Russians.
Tatars have better ties with the Ukrainian government, and are often
seen by ethnic Russian nationalists in Crimea as Kiev’s proxies. The
three sides jockey for power on the peninsula, and the mosque has been
one focal point.
Tatar leaders maintain that the mosque is being blocked in part to
stoke anti-Muslim and anti-Ukrainian sentiment, especially in advance
of presidential elections in Ukraine, scheduled for January.
“There are many, many political forces that want the strains to
remain,” said Mustafa Dzhemilyov, chairman of the Tatar legislative
council. “I am referring to the Russian-speaking and Russian separatist
organizations, which are supported by and fed by the government of
Russia.”
Ethnic Russians in Crimea noted that Ukraine’s president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, has supported the mosque, accusing him of meddling in local affairs.
In the neighborhood around the project site, residents said the
local government had the right to insist that the mosque be erected
elsewhere — or not at all.
“Let’s remember that this is not Tatar land here, that the Russian
people have always lived here,” said Larisa Tsybulskaya, 45, a
beautician.
“My father built that house,” she said, gesturing to a nearby
cluster of homes. “They are squatting on our land. Why do they have to
cut all this land off and give it to one nationality for a mosque? It’s
just shameful.”
But Mr. Chubarov, who is 52 and was born in exile in Uzbekistan, said Tatars would not relent.
He said the conflict had so united his community that more pieces of
limestone had been brought to the lot than were needed for the mosque.
And so the extra material is to be used for homes for Tatars, in an effort to restore what was lost in Crimea 65 years ago.
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