Crimean Tatars
The Crimean Tatars are Turkic people who inhabited the Crimean peninsula, now a part of Ukraine, for over seven centuries. They established their own Khanate in the 1440s and remained an important power in Eastern Europe until 1783, when Crimea was annexed to Russia. During World War II, the entire Tatar population in Crimea fell victim to Stalin’s oppressive policies. In 1944 they were unjustly accused of being Nazi collaborators and deported en masse to Central Asia and other lands of the Soviet Union. Many died of disease and malnutrition. Although a 1967 Soviet decree removed the charges against Crimean Tatars, the Soviet government did nothing to facilitate their resettlement in Crimea and to make reparations for lost lives and confiscated property.
Today more than 250,000 Crimean Tatars are back in their homeland, struggling to reestablish their lives and reclaim their national and cultural rights against many social and economic obstacles. Crimean Tatar communities are also found in Turkey, Romania, Poland, Finland, the United States, and Central Asia, especially Uzbekistan.
Why the Crimean Tatars? In the early 1990’s YWAM International encouraged each YWAM base to “adopt” an unreached people group. We had been serving the Tatar people in Crimea for several years, so in 1995 a team spent two weeks in Tatar villages with the express purpose of seeking the Lord regarding adopting this people group. After returning home the staff agreed that the Crimean Tatars were the people that God wanted us to focus on. Since that time we have made annual trips to minister in the villages and continue to build relationships with the people. Our desire is to see a long-term team go from our base to this region to live among the Tatars and share the message of the Gospel with them.
