The Truth Behind the Crimean Crisis

by Steve Watkins

Crimea was populated first by Neanderthals, then by anatomically-modern humans, for many millennia. During the Ice Age, Crimea was a place of refuge and, eventually, it was a source of repopulation of Northern and Central Europe. Unfortunately, while the rest of mankind evolved, the Neanderthals have gained political and social dominance in Ukraine, and attempted to control Crimea.

The peninsula in the Black Sea, now known as Crimea, had multiple powers dominating it throughout the ages. From about 600 B.C., the Greeks set up several ports on the southern coast. Then, it was known as Taurica, and was full of savage warriors who refused to be pacified by the Greek, then Roman, colonial powers. Taurica was the site of many cultures, from Scythians, Greeks and Romans, to Armenians, Italians, Turks, to descendants of Mongolian invaders (Tats, Yaliboyu, Nogay, and Ortayulak) and Turkic groups (Khazars, Cumans, Pechenegs, and Kipchaks). There were also Goths and Gypsies.

Crimean Tatars became a nation at the time of the Crimean Khanate, which was an Ottoman Turk vassal state from the 15th to the 18th centuries. It became Muslim when Crimea’s leader, Ozbeg Khan of the Golden Horde, converted to Islam in the 14th century.