Moritz Küstner | Lumix Festival für jungen Bildjournalismus

Moritz Küstner
The Silence is the Sound of Fear

“It’s nice up here. It feels like we’re not in Russia. It almost feels like Crimea”, says Osman Ozenbach on the way to the peak of Chatyr-Dag.

Kemal Aga Kuku, 82, remembers the night of the deportation in 1944: the look in the green-yellow eyes of the Russian soldiers who held a pistol in his mouth and forced his family to leave their homeland has burnt itself into his mind. Despite everything, Kemal placed great hope in Russia. He was one of the few Crimean Tatars to speak out openly in favour of the referendum. He was bitterly disappointed when the FSB – the Russian secret service – attempted to kidnap his son on 20 April 2015.

Since the annexation, new patriotic pictures like this one at the port of Yalta have appeared all over Crimea.

Most Crimean Tatars boycotted this year’s Hıdırellez, their traditional spring festival, because it was organised by the Russian authorities. Twelve-year-old Medine Usmanova performed there with her folk-dance ensemble.

On this bed at the Osmanov residence, rose petals are dried in order to make tea.

Emine Osmanov prays at her aunt’s grave.

The Crimean Tatars fought for a long time to be allowed to teach in their own language and organise their own schools. Aliey Ibragimova, the first-grade teacher, had to teach herself the Crimean Tatar language before she was able to teach her 32 pupils. In Uzbekistan, the Crimean Tatars lived far apart and their language was hardly used.

When the Crimean Tatars returned to Crimea in the 1990s, they found that their houses and land had long been in other hands. They began to occupy land by building small huts with one roof, one door and one window; they defended these huts from demolition by the authorities until they were legalised. This led to entire Crimean Tatar districts where, after building the small huts, they built houses.

Najiye Mujdbayeva lives with her son; life has not been kind to her. In Uzbekistan, she worked as an accordeon teacher. Since returning to the homeland of her parents, she has been unable to find work in her field. This is the fate of many well-educated Crimean Tatars of her generation.

On the 71st anniversary of the deportation, 18 May 2014, the Russian administration forbade any public event in order to control the risk of terrorism. For the Crimean Tatars, it was possible only to pray and mourn at the mosque instead of demonstrating in the city centre as usual. After prayers, Mufti Emirali Ablaev, Crimea’s highest-ranking religious leader, leaves the mosque.

On the occasion of Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the Osmanov family prepare to slaughter a sheep in their yard.

Newly built mosques line the roads of the Crimean Tatar districts. After the annexation, many Islamic houses of worship were searched by the Russian secret service with the aim of securing weapons and extremist literature. For the most part, they found nothing more than a few books about the history of the Crimean Tatars; these were then classified as extremist.

Tsarina Ametov with her three children. Her husband, Reshat Ametov, was kidnapped and murdered by pro-Russian self-defence troops. His body was covered with signs of torture. Although there is a video clip showing the kidnapping, Tsarina was told that the investigation had been closed. Her three children have not been left untouched by the loss of their father. Tsarina is particularly worried about her three-year-old daughter, Hatige, who is having a hard time overcoming the trauma.

The pro-Russian self-defence troops established themselves before the annexation and, according to Human Rights Watch, are responsible for many of the documented human rights violations that have occurred since then. One example is the kidnapping and murder of Reshat Ametov, a Crimean Tatar activist who had demonstrated against the takeover in Simferopol on 3 March 2014.

Reshat Sabredinov fought with his anti-aircraft battery from Stalingrad to Berlin. He shot down 17 planes and earned 45 medals. In 1945, after the end of the war, he was given 24 hours in Crimea before he had to set out for Uzbekistan. He says he loves Stalin. In his opinion, it was not Stalin who ordered the deportation, but others in the Kremlin who went over his head.

Since Crimean Tatar activists blew up one of the most important power lines leading to Crimea in winter 2016, the Osmanov family use a car battery and LEDs to light their home.

Ilmi Umerov, a local Crimean Tatar politician, at his home at the beginning of 2016. In summer 2016, the 59-year-old was forcibly committed to the psychiatric hospital in Simferopol. According to Human Rights Watch, this was a politically motivated move after Umerov had said in a TV interview for the Crimean Tatar channel: “It is important for Russia to leave Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk to make it possible to restore the original Ukrainian borders.” After being sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, he was released at the end of 2017 thanks to Erdoğan’s negotiations with Putin. Umerov now lives in Kiev.

The Crimean Peninsula is connected to the Ukrainian mainland only by a narrow isthmus. Since its annexation by Russia in March 2014, the economic situation there has significantly worsened. Tourism, the main source of income, has decreased by nearly 50 per cent. The new border isolates the peninsula from the mainland, a situation that frequently leads to supply shortages for the 2.3 million Crimean inhabitants. Moreover, the peninsula’s affiliation under international law is controversial. The Muslim Crimean Tatars, who are considered to be an indigenous people, are suffering under the new Russian regime. In 1944, Stalin had the Crimean Tatars deported to Siberia; nearly one-third lost their lives. It was not until 1988, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, that they were allowed to return to their homeland. They are now seen as anti-Russian and are often targeted by the Russian authorities. Nevertheless, they feel so strongly connected to their homeland that for many, it is difficult to imagine leaving.

Community
Homeland
Identity
Russia

3 Questions

1. The door opener: Can you describe a formative moment in your career as a visual journalist?

I’m always fascinated when people let me get close and look into their lives. The first time this happened was in Estonia in 2012, when I created a story about Rita, a mother of three who was addicted to heroin and HIV-positive, like many Estonians of her generation when compared to the rest of Europe. Rita trusted me, told me her story and let me follow her life photographically. These moments when I – often unexpectedly – am given access to unfamiliar worlds are greatly enriching to me and my motivations as a visual journalist.

2. The decisive moment: When did you first encounter your topic and why did you decide to cover it photographically?

In 2014, Crimea was at the centre of public attention when the Russian takeover happened. I followed the political movements with horror and fascination. That was when I became interested in the Crimean Tatars, the oldest ethnic group living there. When I was looking for a topic for my final project at Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts, the media interest in Crimea was just starting to dwindle. I wanted to find out how things were going for the Crimean Tatars, who had previously placed so much hope in intervention from the European Union and also in reporting from the Western media.

3. The future: What could the visual journalism of the future be like?

I believe that the visual journalism of the future must become much more diverse in order to show us new perspectives far beyond our reality or bubble. If journalism will not simply provide answers to patterns we already know, then pictures by photographers of other origins, gender identities and ethnic affiliations, or who come from different social classes than we do, must be seen as well. This is the only way to awaken questions within us that we must examine. Pictures will never be able to explain the world, but they help us gain access to subjects and new levels of seeing.

Photographer Moritz Küstner speaks about his long-term project The Silence is the Sound of Fear.

»During my work, I observed how the Crimean Tatars and their culture were changing.«
Moritz Küstner

Found in Research

Die Krimtataren N-OST
Eine Geschichte in Bildern von Moritz Küstner (Fotos) und Greta Uehling (Text) N-OST 03.2019

Dmytro Koval: Kommentar – Mögliche Rassendiskriminierung auf der Krim. Ukraine vs. Russland vor dem Internationalen Gerichtshof

Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, 17.4.2019

Alec Luhn: Vladimir Putin tells Crimea’s Tatars their future lies with Russia
The Guardian, 16.05.2014

Curated by David Oswald

*1989 in Erfurt, Germany
Moritz Küstner studied Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts as well as the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus. As a freelance journalist, he works for CNN, Stern, Süddeutsche Magazin, DIE ZEIT and other media. He developed his photo-reportage about the life of the Crimean Tatars with the support of a Crossing Borders scholarship from the Robert Bosch Foundation.

www.moritz-kuestner.de
@mo_kuestner

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