The Russians will never give up Sevastopol. NEVER! For a start, its so beautiful. White marble walkways and theatres, neo-classical splendour everywhere. Secondly, a strong majority of the citys population is comprised of Russian naval families. You walk past a church in the summertime (summer 2007), and a Russian naval officer is getting married. The whole ship turns out for him, everybody done up to the nines in their uniforms, looking their best. Its a pretty classy scene. The bars are full of submariners who tell you about their nerves the first time they went by stealth through the Bosphorus. And then theres the citys history. Sevastopol was the first place hit by the Luftwaffe on June 21, 1941. But it never fell. Besieged, blockaded and bombed for 3 years, but it remained the only part of Crimea which never came under German occupation. Every brick and rock in Sevastopol has been washed in Russian blood. Even if, a thousand years in the future, Russia itself disappeared into the sand, morphing into some other empire, some other group-identity, there would still be a colony of Russia remaining. The people of Sevastopol will be the last Russians remaining on earth.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 10:09:19 +0000