Apricot blossom already dusts the sun-dappled fields of Bakhchisarai, but Safinar Dzhemilev is in no mood to savour springtime in the ancient capital of the Crimean Tatars

“We used to enjoy Crimea’s nature and landscape, the Black Sea and warm sun. But not now. They haven’t yet closed our eyes and ears, but we can’t enjoy these things anymore.”

Dzhemilev’s husband, Mustafa, spent 15 years in Soviet jails for championing the Tatars’ bid to return to their homeland from exile in central Asia, and became their leader when the collapse of Moscow’s empire brought their dream to pass.

Life was not easy in independent Ukraine – a state dogged by corruption, poverty and misrule – but for a nation driven from Crimea first by Catherine the Great and then Josef Stalin, it was a boon to be home, free and not ruled by Russia.

Unlike most of Crimea’s two million residents, many Tatars backed last year’s pro-western revolution in Ukraine, and strongly opposed Moscow’s subsequent military seizure and annexation of the peninsula after a disputed referendum.

Before a vote that Moscow claims showed Crimea's 97 per cent support for joining Russia, Mustafa Dzhemilev received a call from the Kremlin, during which President Vladimir Putin pledged to protect Crimean Tatar rights and seek to solve all the problems that "went unsolved by the Ukrainian authorities for many years".

A year on, Crimean Tatars complain of state intimidation and violence, Dzhemilev is again barred from his homeland, and his wife remains in Bakhchisarai to “give our people hope, strength and confidence that not everyone will go”.

Rekindled fears

About 10,000 of the region’s 240,000 Crimean Tatars are thought to have left, rekindling deep fears in a people Stalin deported en masse to central Asia and Siberia in 1944, for alleged collaboration with Nazi invaders. “Living in exile in Uzbekistan, we saw Soviet troops, tanks and planes going to Afghanistan. What happened last year in Crimea reminded us of that,” says Safinar Dzhemilev, placing a plate of traditional Tatar meat pies on her kitchen table.

“We went out to protest, with our Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar flags, but no one listened. We were a problem for Catherine the Great, then Stalin and now Putin. They all wanted to get rid of the real native people of Crimea.”

For Putin and allies who talk frequently of the “Russian world” and the Kremlin’s right to lead and defend it, Crimea has special significance as the place Grand Prince Vladimir – an ancient Slav leader – was baptised a Christian in 988.

Greeks, Romans and Persians had earlier colonised the peninsula, and the Crimean Tatars’ khanate controlled it for 300 years, under Ottoman vassalage, until Catherine the Great annexed it for Russia in 1783.

But Putin has laid unique historical and spiritual claim to Crimea, declaring its “invaluable civilisational and even sacral importance for Russia, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for followers of Islam and Judaism”.

Since gunmen seized Crimea's parliament last February, the region has been led by Russian nationalist Sergei Aksyonov – whose party won just 4 per cent of votes in 2010 elections – but locals believe all major decisions are made in Moscow.

Tatars say they are forced to take Russian passports or be treated as foreigners in their homeland, and accuse the authorities of using violence and coercion to silence Crimean Tatar opposition to annexation.

Several Crimean Tatars have been abducted in recent months, and at least one was killed, in incidents that relatives and activists blame on the security forces and local Russian paramilitary groups.

“The worst thing now is that people are being abducted, arrested, beaten and killed,” says Safinar. “And there is no one we can turn to.”

Few Crimean Tatars have faith in the authorities or leaders from their own community who accept Moscow’s rule, and they look instead for leadership to Mustafa Dzhemilev and other elder statesmen now living in “exile” in Kiev. “Those who call themselves leaders here are not respected among Crimean Tatars,” she says. “In exile we did all we could to protect our language and culture, but they are not interested in that – they only want to make money.”

A bastion of Crimean Tatar culture and society is ATR, a regional television station that broadcasts mostly in the Tatar language, but also in Ukrainian and Russian.

“The information ministry monitors everything, and we are told not to talk about our [Crimean Tatar] leaders or Ukraine, or to criticise regional officials,” says ATR’s editor-in-chief, Shevket Memetov.

“But we keep telling the truth, and show how the roads are in a terrible state, and the shelves of our shops are sometimes empty – we just don’t say who’s to blame.”

Memetov and colleagues face an uncertain future, ahead of an official decision on whether ATR’s broadcasting licence will be renewed next month. “We’ve put in several applications, and each time it comes back saying we’ve put a comma where there should be a full stop or something similar,” he complained.

“In January, the security services searched my office. One officer pulled a Koran from the bookshelf and asked if there was extremist material in it. So I pulled down a copy of the New Testament and asked him if there was extremist material in that.

Invented enemy

“The authorities need to find an enemy and, if none exists, then they must invent one,” says Memetov.

“That’s why we keep hearing nonsense now about ‘Tatar extremism’. We’ve never had Islamic terror or fundamentalism here, but now they are desperate to find it.”

Tatars insist they will survive their latest ordeal, just as they did Soviet exile, and vow not to be driven from a land that they dreamed of returning to for decades.

“This will end when the West wakes up and realises it must defend itself from Putin – a military type who only understands a fist under his snout,” says Safinar Dzhemilev, looking out over the rooftops of Bakhchisarai. “We have only just arrived home. We’ve built these houses for our children and grandchildren. And we are going nowhere.”