Crimean Tatars greet Russia’s top Muslim Cleric Ravil Gainutdin, foreground right, during the Crimean Tatar Qurultay, a religious congress, in Bakhchysarai, Crimea, Saturday, March 29, 2014. The Crimean Tatar Qurultay, a religious congress will determine whether the Tatars will accept Russian citizenship and the political system that comes with it, or remain Ukrainian citizens on Russian soil.BAKCHYSARAI, Crimea – Leaders of Crimea’s Tatar minority gathered Saturday to condemn Russia’s annexation of the peninsula and appealed to international bodies for recognition as an autonomous group.
Tatars, an ethnically Turkic and mainly Muslim group that was subjected to mass deportation from their native Crimea by Soviet leader Josef Stalin in 1944, gathered to forge a collective response to Russia’s absorption of their native region.
Decisions on whether to accept Russian citizenship and possible participation in a Moscow-loyal government were deferred as the community further contemplates its options.
But the forum of about 250 delegates underscored difficulties Russia will face in integrating a community that resisted annexation and largely boycotted the March 16 referendum to join Russia.
According to the most recent Ukrainian national census, carried out in 2001, the 245,000-strong Tatar community accounted for 12 percent of Crimea’s population. But anecdotal evidence of higher birth rates and a continued return of Tatars from exile in Central Asia suggest those figures may have grown markedly since then.