The most famous Soviet pioneer camp is celebrating its centenary. Just before the festivities scheduled for mid-June, the occupiers announced another “grandiose” plan - Artek is to be further expanded. However, the idea did not arise yesterday.

Back in 2021, the “Artek Development Program until 2025” worth 34 billion rubles was presented in Crimea. It was planned to be spent on the construction and reconstruction of 46 facilities, including the construction of 12 dormitories. But a week ago, Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Kremlin curator of the peninsula Marat Khusnullin said: “Two dormitory buildings for a thousand people will be built for the centennial of Artek. A total of 16 facilities will be reconstructed.” Thus, in 4 years, the plan for the “great anniversary reconstruction” has been reduced by almost three times, and construction plans have dried up by 6 times.

Among Khusnullin's pre-holiday promises was the construction of a “center for innovative educational technologies” by the end of 2025, which was supposed to appear in Artek six years ago.  The construction is being carried out by the notorious Stroygazmontazh company, owned by Putin's friend, oligarch Arkadiy Rotenberg.  The Rotenberg brothers have been involved in many construction projects on the occupied peninsula, and none of them have been implemented on time and with high quality.  That is why fraudulent postponements, changes of contractors, and billions of dollars in budget allocations for construction have long been no surprise to anyone in Crimea.  

Crimeans are outraged by something else though:  “Artek is growing, closing off access to the sea for local residents.  Immediately after the annexation, the people of Gurzuf tried hard to defend their beach “Gurovskie Stones”, sincerely wondering why the Russian authorities did not hear them.  Gauleiter Sergei Aksenov tried to calm the protesters down with false promises.  But in the end, the land plot was given to the Artek members, access to the beach was blocked, and the most vocal activists were promised criminal cases.

“It was very interesting to see how the completely 'cotton' defenders of the beach were trying to protect their interests from the Russian authorities, whom they were so happy to see. These are your friends from Russia, you called them that, why are you so outraged now?  And most importantly, these idiots tried to take Artek's management to the public, as they are used to doing in Ukraine.  They organized pickets, collected signatures, and invited journalists. They were so naive. They were expecting to cut about thirty billion from the budget, and here a bunch of bearded scarecrows are trying to do something about it. They wiped their feet on them and kept walking,” recalls one of the residents of Gurzuf.  

The construction, which began in 2017, caused irreparable damage to the unique natural complex, which is extremely valuable in landscape and botanical terms.  As one of the Crimean local historians told CEMAAT, more than three hundred species of plants grew there on an area of about ten hectares, of which forty-two had a protected status, and nine were included in the Red Book of Ukraine.  Along the way, one of the most picturesque beaches on the southern coast was destroyed.  

Due to the plan to “make it to the anniversary,” construction was carried out despite the problems that prevented the development of this area earlier - ground movement, steep slopes and the danger of landslides. “They drove in piles, but it seems that they did so without adequate consideration of landslide processes, just as they wanted or could. Then they kicked out the retaining wall. In ten years, it will be close to an emergency condition,” said one of the architects working on the southern coast of Crimea.  

But what outrages locals the most is that the new buildings are located right in the center of the “Dead Valley”. This is a lowland that got its name because there were cemeteries there for centuries.  For the last few centuries, the territory of the tract, known as “Gurzuf Sopky” or “Bald Hill,” was home to the ancient Crimean Tatar cemetery “Gurzuf Aziz.” Named in honor of the Muslim saint Gurzuf Aziz, until 1917 it was one of the most revered places in Crimea by Muslims.  Pilgrims came here from all over the peninsula.  And nearby, in the same “Dead Valley,” there were Taurian, Byzantine, and Gothic cemeteries.  

All of these cemeteries were demolished by Russian bulldozers eight years ago, and new Artek buildings were built on the bones of the former rulers of the peninsula. It turned out to be very symbolic.  Because it is to these buildings that thousands of children will be brought to teach them to despise other people's rights, other people's national memory, and other people's lives.