The bold promises made by Aqyar (Sevastopol) Gauleiter Razvozhayev to restore power to the city have not come true. Darkness is engulfing the peninsula’s largest settlement. Every day, about two dozen air raid alerts are sounded in Aqyar. Those who have homes outside Crimea are leaving.

Until the end of last week, efforts were made to prevent power outages in Aqmescit (Simferopol), the capital of Crimea. Those efforts failed. Currently, the city has electricity for only half a day. People have snapped up candles, flashlights, and power banks.

Wholesale warehouses currently have a one-and-a-half-month supply of food. However, there is no fuel to deliver goods to retail outlets. On June 30, the authorities ceremoniously announced the resumption of gasoline sales to private customers. The spectacle lasted one hour. Of the half a million private cars on the peninsula, 7,000 were refueled — 20 liters each. Simferopol residents say they can’t remember the city streets ever being this empty. 

“It wasn’t like this during the first months of the pandemic, nor in the first days after government buildings were seized in February 2014. The city seems to have died out. Yesterday afternoon on Kirov Avenue, I was the only one behind the wheel within sight,” a Crimean businessman told CEMAAT on condition of anonymity.

Crimea has always needed extra workers during the summer season. However, last week saw a surge in unemployment. Not only is no one hiring, but permanent employees have also been sent on unpaid leave. The hotel and restaurant industries, retail, and construction have all collapsed. Social media is flooded with posts about store closures and equipment sales. Among construction companies, only those owned by the Rotenberg brothers are still operating. The oligarchs, known as “Putin’s wallets,” have received the best plots of Crimean land, including Balaklava and Cape Sarych. However, even the top managers of these companies in Crimea do not have their contracts, which were set to expire in September, renewed.

One of the world’s leading producers of titanium dioxide, the plant in Armyansk, was destroyed by the Ukrainian armed forces on June 13. The facility, which accounted for one-third of Crimea’s budget, has been destroyed and, as has just been reported, cannot be restored. The management of “Titan” informed its Russian customers of this, advising them to seek new suppliers.

Prices for local agricultural products have plummeted. A kilogram of cucumbers costs 50 rubles, while tomatoes and peppers cost 100 rubles per kilogram. At this time last year, vegetables cost twice as much, while fuel was five times cheaper. Currently, farmers are harvesting and selling their entire crop at rock-bottom prices just to recoup at least some of their investments. Under the current conditions, farmers say, it’s more profitable to stop growing anything altogether.