Saying that the annexation of Crimea ruined many lives is as much as to say nothing. But contrary to popular belief, immigrants (“internally displaced people”) and political prisoners are not those people who were hit by it the most but it is those who will know about current events only when they become older. The Crimean babies are a new caste which is deprived of its place in the system of international law since 18th of March and they are children with a questionable present and an uncertain future.
Non-recognition of “Russian” Crimea by the international community made documents with a double-headed eagle issued on the peninsula a paper only for internal use – in Russia, North Korea, Zimbabwe and other countries of the Russian space. But if adult Crimeans while being in euphoria of “KrymNash” didn’t burn their Ukrainian passports, certificates and licenses and now have an opportunity to go to the “mainland”, then young people without passports are at risk.
Since July 22, 2011 (the order of the Ministry of Infrastructure No.235) passengers travelling with children of minority age need to bring the original document that confirms the age of a child in ward even if it is quite obvious. Any child from Crimea going from Simferopol to Kiev in his own way will be stopped at the Ukrainian checkpoint because Ukraine doesn’t recognize the Russian birth certificate but at the same time there is no way to get a document with Trident. No document means no passage. To be honest, nearly 3.5 thousand certificates of “old style” in which the ARC is still registered as a part of Ukraine were issued in Crimea until the 11th of August but it doesn’t solve the problem.
As in most cases of this kind, it is impossible to get a birth certificate in absentia: first, a medical certificate from a maternity hospital, which will be “exchanged” for a birth certificate even without the presence of a newborn at the department of Civil Registration Office, is needed but doctors won’t give you a mentioned certificate without a baby.
If the Ukrainian border guards demonstrate solid principles along the entire perimeter of the state borders, the child with the Russian certificate issued in Crimea will be refused admittance either from Russia or any other border crossing point.
But that’s not all. As time goes by, the problem will still be there. Sooner or later the generation of Crimeans who simply has no way to get the Ukrainian documents and may be recognized with the Russian documents nowhere in the world will grow up. Simple Russian citizenship renunciation will not work – stateless persons on equal terms with aliens can’t cross the border of “temporarily occupied territory”. God only knows, how many of them will be sincere patriots of Ukraine caught in legal conflict and turned “Russians” against their own free will.
One thing is clear – if Ukraine doesn’t return Crimea in the near future or at least doesn’t find a way to make documents for the rest of free people on the peninsula, sooner or later, under the influence of inexorable demographic factors there will be no one to stay for the idea of return.
