SimCity 2000

Something that you perhaps do not know or have not heard in passing is that Stalin was a fan of relocation programs.  He simply lived for them.   Give him fifty or so ethnic clusters and 1/6th of the globe and he would spend hours--decades, even--mixing and matching and having a great time.  Easy to please.  The Ottoman Turks, on the other hand, loved setting up bazaars in other countries and leaving them as a lasting legacy.

Of course, Google Maps has not taken this into account.  Google Maps and I have been playing quite the chess match of wits, these past few years, and we're always trying to foil one and other.  My thoughts were that preparations for Simferopol need only a quick Google Mapping to determine the distance from the train station to the centre.  So when I saw the swirling streets on Google Maps that anyone who has spent at least three weeks in Tunisia and is therefore an expert on Ottoman-Arabesque urban planning would know is a bazaar/souk and that it would be bustling with activity, I figured I knew exactly where to go and would not entertain any other possibilities.

Crimea was, afterall, the centre of the Crimean Tatars and Simferopol its capital.  Some postcards I bought in Yalta showed Simferopol in the 17th and 18th century as a bustling centre of commerce done in rich Oriental styles.  I assumed absolutely nothing had changed.  And who doesn't love Turkish bazaars outside of Turkey?  I was excited to see how the Russians had incorporated this into their retailing geography.  Sarajevo had capitalised on it as the focal point for tourists, offering decendent and exotic experience to self-proclaimed Orientalists;  Skopje used its bazaar for everyday purpose, presumably the same cottage industries operating out of each shop as for the past several hundred years.  So what, I was curious to know, would it be like when you fill a Turkish bazaar with Russians?  The answer was surprisingly simple and immensely disappointing.

Simferopol's bazaar was, as noted, a Turkish bazaar filled with Russians.  Russians who did not care about the Tatar legacy, and Russians who were relocated there during the era of centrally-planned economies.  As such, the winding streets were not lined with shops and merchants and cafes.  They were barren, desolate, and closed off.  The entire area was residental now, and there was only one or two Soviet-era kiosks selling just the barest of essentials like bread, chocolate, cigarettes and vodka.  Stalin had won.

Sim City Trans seemed well-
financed, but the historic quarter
could have used some
porntipsguzzardo (plus
a few additional 'ardo' entries).

Most of where Simferopol is bumpin' is on the gridded and ordered Pushkin Street, just outside the bazaar. (It's a good chance that anywhere in the FSU will have the centre of its activity around something called "Pushkin Street" which adjoins to some sort of park named after Taras Shevchenko)  And nothing makes a town in the Ukraine bump harder than dark and sketchy-looking "Internet Clubs" which exist for the sole purpose of online gambling.  These, of course, lined the main street.  In addition there was a statue of Lenin, the administrative building for the Crimean Autonomous Republic, and hospital that had absolutely nothing to do with Florence Nightingale. 

I found one Tatar restaurant where I enjoyed a dish of Plov (a pilaf of sorts) with a Turkish coffee and then I looked around for acceptable pizza.  Determining that it was not to be had, I opted, finally, to get a haircut.  I selected from a large poster on the wall the least 80s  haircut available and had to wait for the barber to stop making out with his girlfriend in front of me before he began cutting my hair.  I used this opportunity to figure out how to explain to him that I did not want a rattail, even if it looked apropos on him.

Night fell and I became increasingly unsure about my plans.  Was I to head to Kerch?  Evpatoria?  Was I to leave the Crimea for good?  Mulling this over a beer and some perogies at a Ukrainian beer parlour next to the station, I was quickly swayed by one of the old women outside offering rooms.  I shrewdly negotiated a room with an old Tatar and she even threw in some free tea.  This bought me some time and I was able to plan my next move, getting out of Crimea.