02 September 2025
The Crimean Platform office became one of the partners of the “Crimean Shore” program at the PORT festival in Odesa
The Office of the Crimea Platform was one of the partners of the special program “Crimean Shore” at the first PORT Literary Festival in Odesa.
Literary discussions were a key part of the festival, with three of them focused on Crimea. One highlight was the presentation of Osman Arifmemetov’s book My Deportation. Reports of a Crimean Journalist Written in Pre-Trial Detention, featuring journalist Oleksandra Yefymenko, editor and translator Mariia Horbach, and human rights defender Tetyana Pechonchyk, head of the ZMINA Human Rights Center. The discussion was moderated by Yevhen Bondarenko, head of communications for the Office of the President of Ukraine in Crimea. Speakers explored the issues of Crimean political prisoners, the importance of preserving the Crimean Tatar language, and the resistance movement in temporarily occupied Crimea.
Writers Alim Aliev, Kateryna Kalytko, and Svitlana Taratorina held a conversation about the “Crimean Fig” literary contest, which unites Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian literature. Later, Taratorina, author of “The House of Salt”, joined Kateryna Samoilenko for a discussion titled “The House of Sault: Crimea Will Return Home.”
The festival opened with a musical performance by Crimean artist Aziza Eskender, who performed traditional Crimean Tatar songs.
The event also featured a booth for the “Letters to a Free Crimea” initiative, where visitors could write messages of support to Crimean political prisoners.
Guests had the chance to view elements of three exhibitions preserving voices of resistance and memories of the Crimean Tatar deportation and genocide. The exhibit “Lomykamin’. Women’s Resistance in Crimea” marked ten years of resistance to the occupation, sharing the stories of women illegally imprisoned for supporting Ukraine and those who resist daily. The festival showcased Emine Ziyatdinova’s photo series “Crimea. Home”, the art installation “The Beach” by Liya Dostalieva and Yulia Po, and Po’s 2014 photographic diary “Little Green Men”. A highlight for visitors were diary entries from the underground women’s resistance group “Zla Mavka”, still active in occupied Crimea.
The exhibition “QIRIM İÇÜN / For Crimea” offered a journey through the complex, multilayered history of Crimean Tatars, marked by struggle, victories, and losses. It drew parallels between today’s events and the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars from the peninsula in 1944, displaying paintings reflecting both historical and modern Crimean Tatar life.
The festival also featured a photo exhibition “YILLAR VE YOLLAR” (Years and Roads), showcasing photographs from 1920–1925 taken across Crimea from the archive of Tanzile Topalova.
At the “Crimean Shore” zone, visitors added personal memories to a large map of Crimea, pinning old photos and writing dreams and wishes for the future, while sharing stories of their homeland.
Visitors could find a gift for themselves or loved ones at the fair featuring works by Crimean artists, and at the food court, they could taste Crimean Tatar sweets and coffee brewed on hot sand.
The “Crimean Shore” program at the PORT Festival was organized by Crimea Daily, the Crimean Fig / Qırım Inciri literary project, the NGO Qadın Divanı, the ZMINA Human Rights Center, and the state-run Crimean House, with the support of the Office of the Crimea Platform.