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Ukraine Revives the Crimean Villages

"Ukraine revives the Crimean villages" is a historical concept of the postwar reconstruction, housing, and social-infrastructure construction in the rural areas of the Crimean Peninsula carried out with the forces and funds of the UkrSSR after the oblast's transfer in 1954. The program was aimed at overcoming the deep agrarian and demographic crisis in Crimea.

Overview

During a decade of russian administration of Crimea (1944–1953), capital rural construction on the peninsula was effectively frozen. First-wave russian settlers settled free of charge into the ready housing stock of the deported Crimean Tatars, Germans, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Armenians. When this stock was completely exhausted at the end of 1953, Crimea faced a catastrophic shortage of housing, schools, and medical and cultural institutions in its villages.

After the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, a mass resettlement of Ukrainian peasants began (predominantly into the arid steppe regions). Confronted with the appalling living conditions of the settlers, the housing shortage, and the mass flight of families back to the mainland, the government of the UkrSSR developed a large-scale rural construction program and a cadre reform of oblast administration, which made it possible to revive Crimean agrarian production.

Key Details / Subtopics

  • Rural crisis of the RSFSR period (1944–1953): During this period, no new school, hospital, or club was built in the peninsula's countryside. The state financed the construction of only a few hundred houses. Officials sold off en masse the implements and property of the deported peoples. Only at the end of 1953 was individual construction financed through subsidized loans permitted.
  • Appalling conditions of the first Ukrainian settlers (1954): The first waves of settlers from mainland Ukraine faced complete indifference from the local bureaucracy. Due to the lack of ready housing, entire families were housed in livestock farms, kindergartens, and clubs without heating or water. Systemic abuses occurred: settlers were not issued the promised livestock and potato ration cards, and a cow (the main provider of a peasant family) was absent in most of the newly arrived households. This led to the mass flight of families back to the UkrSSR (for example, a significant part of the arrivals left the suburban state farm "Simferopolskyi" in the village of Trudove).
  • Memorandum of 20 May 1954: An official document recorded critical deficiencies in the settlement of migrants. During 1951–1954, 9,970 families (about 50,000 people) arrived in Crimea, of whom 1,005 families (over 10%) left voluntarily because of the intolerable living conditions. In the collective farms, 925 families remained without housing, and 1,385 families had no cows.
  • Low quality of previous construction: Houses built by russian construction organizations before 1954 proved unfit for living (foundations were laid on clay, stoves smoked and did not heat, outbuildings were handed over without roofs, and the houses had no toilets). For example, 20 new houses in the kolkhoz named after Malenkov in the Zuia district were in an emergency state. Instead of the 2 rooms and a kitchen provided for by the design, only 1 room was delivered.
  • Statistics of failed plans in 1954: The state housing construction plan for settlers was systematically disrupted. Of the 2,700 houses planned for the first half of 1954, only 250 (9.2% of the plan) had been built by May.
  • Intervention of Kyiv and the Bureau of the Crimean Obkom: On 30 September 1954, under pressure from the republican center, First Secretary of the Crimean Obkom Dmytro Polianskyi brought the matter of settling the migrants before the obkom bureau. The catastrophic state of affairs was acknowledged: only 802 houses of the annual plan of 2,880 were delivered. Personal responsibility of officials for the outflow of cadres was introduced, and the creation of construction brigades made up directly of settlers was ordered to improve the quality of work.
  • Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the UkrSSR No. 1508 (July 1954): Approved a five-year plan for populating Crimea. It provided for the resettlement of 17,800 families (about 70,000 people) during 1954–1958 and the construction of over 18,000 new houses for them.
  • Cadre reform and the appointment of Vasyl Komyakov (1955): Due to the chronic failure of construction plans and covert sabotage of Kyiv's humanitarian policy, at the end of 1955 Dmytro Polianskyi was removed from office. The new head of the obkom became the Ukrainian-centric pragmatist and experienced agrarian Vasyl Komyakov. Under his leadership (1955–1961), a breakthrough occurred in rural construction and the populating of the peninsula (about 5,000 families arrived annually, for whom quality housing was mass-built).
  • Role of water resources: Supplying the new steppe villages and new buildings first with artesian, and later with Dnipro water from the North Crimean Canal, turned the arid steppes into green oases with orchards and vineyards, which finally stabilized the demographic situation in the villages.