Alluring, mysterious, warm Crimea is a place to which you want to return again and again. Unlike guests of the peninsula, local residents are already accustomed to the azure sea and majestic mountains that surround them every day. The picturesque landscapes constantly attracted more and more new residents. This led to the population of Crimea tripling over ninety years. A variety of ethnic groups live here. The local population is represented by Crimean Tatars, Poles, Russians, Jews, Greeks, Crimeans and others.
Population of Crimea
As of January 1, 2017, the permanent population of Crimea is 2,340,778 people. Of these, 1,912,079 residents live in the Republic of Crimea and 428,699 in Sevastopol. The large population of Crimea allowed the republic to take twenty-seventh place in the ranking of subjects Russian Federation. According to 1926 data, only 713,823 people lived in the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol.
Ninety years of active migration of people from Ukraine, India, Israel, Uzbekistan and other countries have led to a colossal increase in the number of residents of the republic. The population of Crimea by year shows that it was maximally populated in 1989. Then its number was 2,458,655 people.
The population of Crimea has had very serious ups and downs over the years. Thus, in connection with the Great Patriotic War, the number of residents of the republic was halved. In 1939, 1,126,429 people lived here, and six years later, in 1945, there were only 610,000 inhabitants.
Ethnic composition
The dynamically growing population of Crimea throughout history has a continuous connection with the arrival of new ethnic groups in the republic. The ethnic history of Crimea is many times richer than the Soviet or any other. Four thousand years of existence of the peninsula made it a haven for the Cimmerians, Scythians, Greeks, Karaites, Pechenegs, Venetians and others. Initially, the main population of the Republic of Crimea consisted of Crimean Tatars.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, they were supplanted by the Russians, who took first place, and the Ukrainians, who gained a foothold in second position. During World War II, the peninsula was occupied by the Germans for some time, and as a result, this period was characterized by a decrease in the number of Jews. After the Second World War, Armenians, Greeks and Bulgarians suddenly moved to Crimea.
Population of Crimean cities by ethnic composition
- Armenians - Sevastopol, Yalta, Simferopol, Evpatoria, Feodosia.
- Bulgarians - Simferopol, Koktebel.
- Eastern Slavs - Kerch, Evpatoria, Simferopol, Feodosia, Yalta, Alushta.
- Greeks - Simferopol, Kerch, Yalta.
- Jews - Simferopol, Sevastopol, Kerch, Yalta, Feodosia, Evpatoria.
- Karaites - Old Crimea, Feodosia, Evpatoria.
- Krymchaks - Karasubazar and Simferopol, Feodosia, Sevastopol, Kerch.
In Simferopol (Crimea), the population included almost all nationalities existing in the republic.
Crimean Greeks
Greek settlers settled on the Crimean peninsula twenty-seven centuries ago. The population belonging to this ethnic group was divided into Crimean Greeks and Greeks who arrived from Greece at the end of the eighteenth century.
The first Greek colonies were created in the format of the Bosporus State and the Chersonese Republic. Modern Crimean Greeks are descendants of the Greek battalion, which participated in the Crimean War and remained on the orders of Potemkin to guard Crimea. Population of this type settled in Balaklava and other villages nearby. Within the framework of the ethnographic history of the republic, the formed nationality is called Arnauts or Balaklava Greeks.
Approximately thirteen thousand Greeks migrated to Crimea during World War II from Turkey through the Caucasus. The reason for their flight was the genocide unleashed by fanatical Muslims. The bulk of the Greeks who came to Crimea were uneducated and had a social status no higher than that of an artisan or merchant. Having settled in the new territory, the Crimean Greeks began to engage in gardening, fishing, trade, and they also successfully grew grapes and tobacco. The Crimean Greeks are still considered one of the most numerous ethnic groups of the peninsula, as their number is seventy-seven thousand people.
Crimean Armenians
Armenians became full-fledged residents of Crimea a thousand years ago. It is repeatedly mentioned in history that the most original and, of course, very important center of Armenian culture is Crimea. The population of the Armenian ethnic group appeared here along with a certain Vardan. In seven hundred and eleven, this Armenian was declared emperor of Byzantium when he was in the Crimea. The peak of settlement of the peninsula by Armenians occurred at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Crimea during this period was called “maritime Armenia”. The areas of activity of Crimean Armenians are: trade, construction, financial activities.
The sharp decline in the number of the Armenian ethnic group in Crimea dates back to 1475. The reason for the change in the population structure was the Turks who came to power. They destroyed Armenians and took them into slavery. A new wave of growth in the Armenian population occurred in the eighteenth century, when they were given official permission to return to Crimea. The population of Armenian origin has thinned out greatly over the years Civil War. If during October revolution There were seventeen thousand Armenians in Crimea, but by the end of the twentieth there were only five thousand left.
Karaites
Karaites originated from Turkic people. The only thing that distinguishes them from their progenitor is their religion - Judaism. The Karaites are mentioned for the first time in historical chronicles in 1278. But, despite this fact, there is an opinion that they settled on the peninsula several centuries earlier. Throughout its existence, the Karaite ethnic group never stood out among the local residents. The turning point in the life of this nationality was the moment of the annexation of Crimea to Russian Empire. Then the Karaites had the opportunity to buy land, not pay a number of tax duties and enlist in the army voluntarily. Until 1914, the Karaites were a very prosperous people. Eight thousand of them lived in Crimea.
Wars, repressions, and famine in the following years led to a sharp reduction in the number and standard of living of this nation. Today, about eight hundred Karaites live in Crimea.
Krymchaks
Krymchaks are a people who follow Talmudic Judaism and speak a language close to the Crimean Tatar. They appeared on the territory of Crimea even before our era. In the eighteenth century, only eight hundred Crimeans lived on the Crimean peninsula. The population of this ethnic group reached its maximum in 1912 and amounted to seven and a half thousand people. Today this ethnic group is on the verge of extinction. This people I was never rich and did not know how to express myself in politics and trade.
Jews
For the Jews, the peninsula was a fairly fertile territory, so they settled it very actively. In 1897 their number was more than twenty-four thousand people. At the time of the revolution in Crimea, there were already twice as many Jews. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was even a project to create a Jewish republic on the peninsula. Its implementation began in 1924, but was not crowned with the expected success. A special blow to Crimean Jews occurred during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War. All non-evacuated Jews were killed by the Nazi occupation. At the end of the twentieth century, twenty-five thousand Jews lived on the peninsula. Many of them later emigrated to Israel.
Crimean Tatars
The first Mongol-Tatars invasion of Crimea dates back to 1223. At the end of the fourteenth century, the entire peninsula was inhabited by a people who called themselves Crimeans, while the Russians called them Tatars. The inhabitants of Crimea themselves came to this name only after becoming part of Russia.
The Tatars were a significant people of Crimea until the annexation of the peninsula to Russia. Since then, the number of the Tatar ethnic group has not decreased much, but a lot of Russians have arrived in the territory of Crimea. The Tatar people ceased to be the most numerous on the peninsula. Many Tatars emigrated to Turkey after the Crimean War.
The fate of the Crimean Tatars was especially dramatic during the Great Patriotic War. They fought bravely in the ranks Soviet army, many of them died in battle, while some were burned by the Nazis. Some Tatars went over to the enemy's side and turned out to be traitors. In connection with this, in 1944, almost two hundred thousand Tatars were deported from the country. They began returning to Crimea in 1989 and have since made up twelve percent of the peninsula’s population.
Other nationalities
In addition to the nationalities presented above, many representatives of other large ethnic groups live in Crimea. Since the end of the eighteenth century, Crimea began to be settled by Bulgarians, of whom there are now no more than two thousand people.
The first Poles settled on the peninsula at the end of the seventeenth century. Their mass migration to the peninsula dates back to the sixties of the nineteenth century. They were never trusted by local residents, and therefore they were not provided with benefits and the opportunity to settle separately. Now there are no more than seven thousand of them in Crimea.
Recent events have drawn public attention to the political preferences of the population of Crimea. To a large extent, they are determined by the ethnic composition of the current autonomous republic within Ukraine.
The evolution of the ethnic structure of the Crimean population is presented in the following graphs and table. It should be noted that the first graph “Population of Crimea”, borrowed from Wikipedia, does not contain data from the 1970 census, but there are columns relating to April and July 1944 - before and after the deportation of the Crimean Tatars 18-20 May 1944. In the second graph and in the table “Structure of the population of Crimea” there are data from the 1970 census, but there are no quantitative estimates ethnic composition population in April and July 1944
Population of Crimea in
XVIII
-
XXI
centuries
| Dates
Total, thousand, people |
As a percentage of the total population: | |||||||
| Crimean Tatars, Turks, Tatars | Crimeans, Karaites, Jews | Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Belarusians, Moldovans, Georgians | Ukrainians | Russians | Germans, Poles, Hungarians | Other | ||
| 1st quarter 18th century | 467,0 | 95,1 | 0,2 | 4,7 | ||||
| 1760-70s | 454,7 | 92,6 | 0,3 | 7,1 | ||||
| 1793 | 127,8 | 87,8 | 12,2 | |||||
| 1795 | 156,4 | 87,6 | 2,3 | 2,6 | 1,3 | 4,3 | 0,1 | 1,8 |
| 1816 | 212,6 | 85,9 | 2,3 | 2,5 | 3,7 | 4,8 | 0,7 | 0,1 |
| 1835 | 279,4 | 83,5 | 2,0 | 3,9 | 3,1 | 4,4 | 0,7 | 2,4 |
| 1850 | 343,5 | 77,8 | 2,2 | 3,5 | 7,0 | 6,6 | 1,0 | 1,9 |
| 1858 | 331,3 | 73,0 | 2,6 | 4,3 | 4,0 | 12,6 | 1,5 | 2,0 |
| 1864 | 198,7 | 50,3 | 7,0 | 11,0 | 7,2 | 21,3 | 2,7 | 0,5 |
| 1897 | 546,7 | 35,9 | 4,4 | 5,9 | 11,8 | 33,1 | 7,0 | 1,9 |
| 1917 | 749,8 | 29,4 | 6,4 | 5,9 | 8,6 | 41,2 | 5,7 | 2,8 |
| 1920 | 718,9 | 26,0 | 7,5 | 6,5 | 7,4 | 44,1 | 6,7 | 1,8 |
| 1926 | 713,8 | 25,1 | 6,1 | 5,4 | 10,9 | 42,2 | 6,1 | 4,2 |
| 1934 | 832,0 | 23,8 | 8,1 | 3,1 | 10,9 | 44,0 | 6,1 | 4,0 |
| 1937 | 996,8 | 20,7 | 5,8 | 3,7 | 12,9 | 47,7 | 5,1 | 4,1 |
| 1939 | 1123,8 | 19,4 | 5,8 | 4,3 | 13,7 | 49,6 | 5,0 | 2,2 |
| 1944 (late summer) | 379,0 | 0,0 | 21,0 | 75,0 | 4,0 | |||
| 1959 | 1201,5 | 0,0 | 2,2 | 2,3 | 22,3 | 71,4 | 0,1 | 1,7 |
| 1970 | 1813,5 | 0,4 | 1,4 | 3,9 | 26,5 | 67,3 | 0,2 | 0,3 |
| 1979 | 2135,9 | 0,7 | 1,1 | 2,7 | 25,6 | 68,4 | 0,3 | 1,2 |
| 1989 | 2430,5 | 1,6 | 0,7 | 3,0 | 25,8 | 67,0 | 0,3 | 1,6 |
| 2001 | 2024,1 | 12,0 | 0,3 | 2,6 | 24,3 | 58,3 | 0,4 | 2,1 |
Data for Russians and Ukrainians in 1864 - estimate.
Data for all years except 2001,- for the entire peninsula, data for 2001- only for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
Changes in the ethnic composition of the population of Crimea provide food for more than one publication. IN this moment I think it is possible to dwell on only a few observations.
1. Crimea is one of the territories of the former Russian Empire/former USSR that has experienced radical changes in its ethnic composition in the last two and a half centuries.
2. The key factor in radical changes in ethnic composition is changes in the nature of the dominant political regime and in the political situation.
3. Before the annexation of Crimea by Russia (1783), the Crimean Khanate was an almost monoethnic state; Crimean Tatars made up over 92% of the total population.
4. Crimean Tatars remained the absolute majority on the peninsula (over 50%) until 1864, and also a relative ethnic majority until the end of the 19th century (about 36% in 1897).
5. Over the course of about a century and a half (1783 - 1944), the Crimean Tatars experienced three major demographic catastrophes - after the annexation of Crimea to Russia (1780-90s), after the Crimean War (1850-60s), May 18-20, 1944 As a result of the first demographic catastrophe (primarily emigration), the size of the Crimean Tatar population in Crimea decreased fourfold, as a result of the second (emigration) - its number was halved from what was on the eve of the Crimean War, as a result of the third ( deportation) - almost all Crimean Tatars were evicted from Crimea.
6. In the second half of the 1980s, the return of the Crimean Tatars to their historical homeland began. According to the 2001 census, their number in Crimea was 243 thousand people, or about 45% less than there were on the peninsula for three centuries at the beginning of the 18th century. Taking into account natural and mechanical population growth, the number of Crimean Tatars by the beginning of 2014 may have approached 300 thousand people.
7. Since the beginning of the 20th century (1917), the largest ethnic group in Crimea in relative terms (over 41% of the total population) has been Russians. They became the largest ethnic group in Crimea in absolute terms (75%) in 1944 after the total deportation of the Crimean Tatars.
8. Over the next six decades, the share of Russians in the population of Crimea gradually decreased. According to the 2001 census, the share of Russians in the population of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was 58.3%. Over 12 years, from 1989 to 2001, the number of Russians in the “big” Crimea (a hypothetical union of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, which has a special administrative status) decreased by 179 thousand people, or by 11%. The share of Russians in the population of the “greater” Crimea for 12 years decreased from 67.0% to 60.4%.
9. Taking into account the demographic trends of the last 13 years, Russians in 2014 obviously make up approximately half of the population of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (excluding the city of Sevastopol). It is possible that according to the results of the new census of Ukraine expected in 2016, Russians will make up less than half of the population of the peninsula (excluding the city of Sevastopol).
10. In the foreseeable future, in the absence of serious military-political cataclysms, Crimea will remain a region with a clearly expressed multi-ethnic composition of the population, and the largest ethnic groups Russians, Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars will remain.
List of the largest cities in Crimea: we briefly tell you why the cities are remarkable and what attractions you can see there.
Now on the Crimean peninsula, only 18 settlements have received city status, the largest of them in terms of area occupied are Sevastopol, Sudak, Yalta, Yevpatoria, Kerch and Simferopol.
Sevastopol is the largest city in Crimea
Large sea and commercial port, the most Big City Crimea, which has a special status and received the rights of a separate subject of the Russian Federation. According to 2015 data, the population was 398.97 thousand people - it is also the largest city in Crimea by population.
Concentrated here great amount attractions: ruins of the ancient Greek settlement of Chersonesos, monuments of military eras (Russian-Turkish War, Great Patriotic War) and museums, a magnificent embankment, Aquarium. Not far from the city is the cave monastery of Inkerman and Balaklava, the place where submarines were based. In the Sevastopol a large number of and picturesque bays.
Photo © mr. Wood / flickr.com
Once upon a time there was the capital of the Scythian state, which was later destroyed by the Goths. Simferopol is located in the central part of the peninsula and has no access to the sea. The Salgir River flows here.
Simferopol is the second largest city in Crimea by population after Sevastopol, with 332.6 thousand people living in it. Tourists in Simferopol are attracted by local attractions: the ancient site of Naples Scythian, Vorontsov Palace, Ethnographic Museum, Central Museum of Taurida, Kebir-Jami Cathedral Mosque, Weeping Rock, Chokurcha Cave, Red Cave (Kizil-Koba).
Third in the list of the largest cities in Crimea and the most eastern city peninsula, located on the shore of Kerch Bay. The local population is about 148 thousand people. Rich History The city dates back more than 2.5 thousand years; there are a huge number of monuments of the Bosporan and Scythian kingdoms, Tmutarakan, and Byzantine villages. Kerch - great hero city, which immortalized the memory of the events of the Great Patriotic War in numerous monuments and memorials.
Photo © Alexxx1979 / flickr.com
An ancient city in the west of Crimea, population - just over 106 thousand. Evpatoria is one of the large cities of Crimea, located on the shores of the Kalamitsky Bay, there are wonderful sandy beaches and a warm, shallow sea. In Evpatoria there are many entertainment centers, water parks, attractions, the Juma-Jami mosque, the monastery of dervishes, an ancient water supply system, Turkish baths, ancient temples. Nearby is a city with therapeutic mud Saki, which has a large number of health facilities.
Photo © Yuriy Kuzin / flickr.com
The most popular resort of the South Coast with a population of 78.2 thousand people is also the most big city on this coast of Crimea. The city has many hotels and holiday homes, there is a beautiful embankment, monuments, alleys, a local history museum, the Chekhov House Museum, the Yalta Zoo "Fairy Tale", "Glade of Fairy Tales", the Uchan-Su waterfall, the Massandra Palace, the famous winery "Massandra", not far from Yalta - Livadia Palace and Nikitsky Botanical Garden.
Photo © B. Rad / flickr.com
Feodosia is an ancient city located in the southeastern part of the peninsula, founded by Greek colonists. Now about 70 thousand people live here, which makes this locality one of the largest in terms of population in Crimea. There are few ancient buildings here; the excavations that have begun are making residential areas difficult, so the main architectural monuments preserved from the Middle Ages: the remains of the citadel of the Genoese fortress, the walls of Hayots-berd, Armenian temples and the Armenian fountain, the Mufti-Jami mosque. Art connoisseurs will enjoy the Alexander Greene Literary and Memorial Museum and the National Art Gallery of the famous marine painter I.K. Aivazovsky.
Photo © naiv.super1 / flickr.com
Dzhankoy
An important railway junction in the northern part of the peninsula. According to the latest data, the population was about 39 thousand people. Shallow rivers flow through Dzhankoy and there is no access to the sea. The city is not rich in attractions: the Kalinovsky landscape park, home to more than 100 species of birds, a mosque, Svyato-Pokrovskaya Orthodox Church and a local history museum.
Alushta
A well-known resort city on the southern coast of Crimea, the population is about 30 thousand people, which is much less than in Yalta, but nevertheless Alushta is one of the large cities of Crimea. Alushta has many beaches and attractions, an aquarium, a dolphinarium, a nature museum and an arboretum, not far from the city (near the village of Luchistoye) Mount Demerdzhi and the famous Valley of Ghosts.
Photo © lazy_lizzy / flickr.com
Bakhchisaray
Former capital of the Crimean Khanate. The city with a population of just over 27 thousand people is located in the steppe zone of Crimea in the foothills. The main attraction is the Khan's palace Khansaray. No less interesting for tourists are the Fountain of Tears, glorified by A.S. Pushkin, mosques and the cave city of Chufut-Kale.
Krasnoperekopsk
An industrial city in Crimea (specializing in chemical production), with a population of just over 26 thousand people. Located in the southern part of the Perekop Isthmus, the North Crimean Canal passes nearby.
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