guilfanr

It's not about Stalin being of Georgian, it's about the state which did all those atrocities. Current Russian leadership proudly carries the Soviet heritage, Putin himself describes Stalin positively, and again - today's Russia acts and behaves as Soviet Union in many cases, see promotion of anti-Western sentiments, imperial aspirations, intimidation of dissent, minorities, new wave of Rusification. So the fears are well grounded.

They supported Maydan, knowing that Yanukovich did little to help Tatars to repatriate in homeland and to be integrated with political life there. Previously they had some quota in regional parliament to be represented but it was canceled as Yanukovich appointed its supporters from Donetsk region to lead Crimea. Tatar organizations think pro-European orientation of Ukraine will help more to guarantee their ethnic, cultural, linguistic rights.

Majority of Crimean Tatars will just boycott the referendum, the very idea of going back in Russia revives their bad historical experience with government in Moscow, regardless it was Tsarist, or Soviet - Tatars only suffered under the Russian domination. Second, the referendum was declared illegally, prepared with major violations of democratic procedures, and Tatars well aware of that.

From West: So far and very often the conflict is seen as Russo-Ukrainian stand-off, formally it's right but we have to see it in details and historical context. The major party, who suffers the most from geopolitical shifts in the region are Tatars, Crimea's indigenous people. And Western media doesn't pay to that much attention. From Russia: I personally haven't seen that kind of level propaganda and open lies, Russian official media now uses. That's really sad Russian leadership took that "courage" to brainwash their own people. We experience that in our work as journalists - the people in Russia are afraid to express their genuine thoughts about the events in Crimea, they better repeat the official media interpretation. We see some worrisome elements in this, like it was with Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

It looks really like lose/lose so far. Crimean regional leadership already acts as it's in Russia now, and whatever the outcome of referendum is, given Moscow invested big political capital in getting Crimea into Russia, region will be tied to Russia for the next few years at least. Meaning, legally, economically, even mentally. So now Crimean Tatars will have to adapt to new realities, for example, face problems with land registry, new regulations on small businesses, where they can start to be discriminated because of their anti-Russian stance.