By Vestnik Kavkaza
More than 10 thousand Sevastopol residents gathered on Monday on Nakhimov Square to mark the Defender of the Fatherland Day and the anniversary of the start of the Crimean War. According to ITAR-TASS, the people who organized the meeting of People’s Will in 2014, where it was declared that Sevastopol wouldn’t obey the new Kiev authorities, made speeches. Alexey Chaly was elected the people’s mayor. Today the chairman of the Legislative Assembly of Sevastopol, Alexey Chaly, has arrived in Moscow to speak about how to develop Sevastopol almost a year after joining the Russian Federation, and outlined the strategic points of the city.
“Sevastopol is famous for its rebellion against the authorities. The first rebellion occurred in 1830, better known as the Plague Revolt. As a result, the governor was killed, power in the city wad seized by insurgents. They forced the government to make concessions, although a few days later government troops arrived and dealt with the rebels rather cruelly.
In 1905, two uprisings happened. Both were unsuccessful. The rebels did not achieve their goals. Some of the Black Sea Fleet ships were captured. Many people died, hundreds participated in each of the episodes. People were convicted, the rebels sent to hard labor, someone was shot and so on.
The next episode occurred in 1917, which was like a happy ending in the sense that the rebels won, but the result of these actions was that several hundred officers of the Black Sea Fleet were sent to the bottom of Sevastopol Bay.
Thus, what happened in February 2014 - this is the fifth revolt in Sevastopol; the objectives of the rebellion were fully reached, and there were no casualties,” Chaly said.
According to him, the event that happened a year ago must be approached with certain historical standards: “This is a historical event on such a scale that we are looking at a century ago. We need to talk about the strategic changes in the situation. In this, there is a need for the city, in this, in my view, there is a need for the country, because people look at us - at what happens in these newly-merged areas?”
Chaly said that “this is one of the main strategic developments of Sevastopol, which we have identified in our conception - a transformation of Sevastopol, we called it beautifully the Centre of the Generation of National Consciousness. The number of historical monuments belonging to different periods of formation of our state, in Sevastopol, cannot be compared to any city in Russia. There is, from the 5th century BC, the key points, and ending with February 2014. Therefore, it would seem like a federal agenda, which aims at the same time at upbringing and education, and at enlightenment, but also at the economy, it would be interesting to implement.”
