Crimea is becoming more Russian — and less hospitable to minorities
“I get up worried and I go to bed worried,” he said, speaking in the converted school building in Simferopol that houses the church headquarters on this peninsula of 2.4 million. “They are closing down Ukrainian schools, Ukrainian newspapers. It’s all closed, and the Ukrainian church is the only thing left.” One poll taken when Crimea was still part of Ukraine found that about 12 per cent of Crimean residents, or 280,000 people, identified as Ukrainian Orthodox.