The ongoing Russian occupation of Crimea has utterly destroyed their once thriving tourist industry (who in their right mind would want to visit this Russian gulag "pradise"?
Since their invasion, Russia has placed thousands of land mines across the only land bridge and rail way corridor that connects Crimea to Ukraine and has heavily armed Russian troops, along with gangs of heavily armed Russian mafia thugs are preventing people from leaving or entering Crimea unless they are Russians or have "paid" their Russian overlords to enter or leave. They have been and continue "shaking down"/stealing much if not all of the personal possessions of tourists and residents who try to leave Crimea, while threatening them to "never come back to Crimea", after they have robbed them. This takes place on the road several miles from the border crossing.
For the Russian sympathizers on FRIDAY who doubt the veracity of the above, I will provide the following first-hand account related to me by a Ukrainian pastor who had been one of my former under graduate students:
"Dear Dr. Jerry, After Russia annexed the Crimea a number of young men from our congregation, including my son decided to go to Crimea for their usual summer holiday retreat. They have been going to Crimea every summer for years and since a long time had passed since Russia had occupied Crimea, fighting had ceased and things had settled down they didn't believe there would be any problems. This was especially true since the Russian government and the Russian controlled press was assuring the public that "nothing was wrong" and the Crimean tourist industry was "open for business as usual".
After assembling everything they needed for their usual three week vacation in Crimea they loaded up several of their cars and drove to the Crimea border. At the border they were met by Russian troops/"border gards" who proceeded to verify their identification and check the contents of their cars and luggage for "contraband". After successfully completing the process they were allowed back into their cars and granted permission to cross the "border" and enter Crimea.
Although they enjoyed their three week vacation. Things in Crimea were anything but 'normal'. The popular tourist destinations were empty of tourist (except for a few Russian servicemen). The usual food and goods and services were mostly unavailable. And the non-Russian/Russian speaking residents of Crimea were very sad.
After the three weeks were up the young men packed their cars and drove back to the border. While driving on the one road that leads to the border, about two miles from the border they noticed that a number of cars in front of them had stopped. When they get closer they saw a large number of heavily armed men, along with some heavily armed "little green men" (men dressed in full army military gear and uniforms with all insignia removed) blocking the only road out of Crimea!
Everyone was ordered out of their cars. The "little green men" proceeded to ask everyone who had been stopped: "Whose car is this?" When the owners answered 'it is mine', they were ordered to give these armed men their car keys. The armed men then went on to search all of the tourists/people they had stopped and proceeded to steal all of the money and things of value they were still carrying.
After everyone had been robbed of everything of value, all of their possessions in the cars, along with the cars themselves, the armed "little green men" and armed thugs gave every person they had robbed, just enough train fair to pay for the lowest class train ticket out of Crimea. The armed gunmen then warned everyone not to go to the police or they would kill them. They then told everyone to "go directly to the train station, get out of Crimea and never come back!" The armed men then got into the cars they had stolen and drove away!
Fortunately all of our young men were not hurt and they made it home safely but this is what has become of the once beautiful Crimea since Russia has stolen it."
Having taught and lived in Crimea for quite some time before Russia occupied and annexed Crimea; it broke my heart to read the above account of events and to read other accounts, stories and descriptions of what has been and is taking place throughout Crimea since the oppressive Russian occupation has occurred.
Again, thank you for telling the truth about the stuation.
FRIDAY = FR (Free Republic). Blasted SAMSUNG Galaxy “auto spell check” function tends to always MALFUNCTION!