

Why is this strange?





  • 3
  • 2
    Although I can't give a full answer either, note that in 1954, the Ukraine was completely within the USSR's borders. The government, military, and technical organizations could operate in Ukraine just as easily as Americans can travel between states. I'm sure Khrushchev (party boss of Ukraine!) never dreamed of the coming collapse. – DrZ214 Sep 4 '15 at 5:36
  • 6
    BTW, Russia has been constantly expanding since XVII century. is not correct. XVII = 17th century. The sale of Alaska in 1867 and the loss of Finland after the Russian Civil War (1917 - 1922) come to mind as prime counterexamples, not to mention the loss of Central Asia and many Eastern European states after breakup of USSR (1991). Those were some fairly large losses of land---shrinkings, not expansions. – DrZ214 Oct 8 '16 at 2:00
  • 2
    I request that we stop editing this question, resolve the issue in meta, then once it is resolved implement the solution. Let's hold off any further edits until we have a resolution. – MCW Jun 1 '20 at 15:03

Khrushchev wanted to...

  • test his political power
  • to please the Ukrainian population
  • to shift the rebuilding cost to the Ukrainian republic.

Khrushchev wanted to test his political power


Khrushchev wanted to please the Ukrainian population


The Crimea was considered a "crown jewel", the best vacation resort in Soviet Union. So the gesture would appear favorable to Ukrainian commoners. In reality...

Shift the rebuilding cost to the Ukrainian republic


  • 39
  • 5
  • 3
  • 7
  • 3

From: Khrushchev’s Son: Giving Crimea Back to Russia Not an Option .



  • 1
    Welcome to history.stackexchange! With Crimea in the news lately, it's nice to see an influx of questions about the area. – NotVonKaiser Mar 17 '14 at 17:58
  • 14
    @NotVonKaiser I've heard that one of the most compelling reasons why Putin re-annexed it, was exactly because he wanted more questions on this topic here. – o0'. Sep 1 '15 at 16:52






It also was a cover for mass deportations of locals (mostly Tatars, but also ethnic Russians and Ukrainians) to central Asia for perceived disloyalty with the German occupation during the War-- by the International Committee on the Crimea: The Transfer of the Crimea to the Ukraine*

  1. First of all Khrushev was born in Russia and was ethnic russian.

  2. In 1954 in all Crimea were only about 15 grocery stores. There were no agriculture, factories, hospitals and even roads. 40% of residential buildings were destroyed. It was not gift. It was a stone on the neck!

  3. Recovery of Crimea was hanged on Ukraine which had own budget and had to finance new region. Starting from 1954 was built canal for irrigation, restored cities, built roads and resorts.

But now some propagandists trying to present it as a gift from Khrushev to Ukraine. They are modestly silent about Crimea state in 1954. It was a Desert !


As a complement to the previous answers and especially Tom Au's answer here: it may be just a general hypothesis, but a very intriguing one.

This transfer of territories between Soviet Republics may serve the general purpose of binding together these republics by including them in a logic dominated by the central authority, by diluting traditional boundaries and identities and by creating at least potential territorial rivalry where the central power in Moscow could play the arbiter.

I have found a map of these territories here, where this situation is described as a breakaway territory strategy.

The "breakaway" territory acts as a "glue" that keeps the different republics together. (The larger the disputed property, the longer and more difficult the divorce procedure.)

enter image description here

As for Crimea, for all of these territorial changes and/or disputes other specific/local reasons may be found, but I think that all these cases may be considered through this logic.

In the case of Ukraine/Russia, territories had been also transfered from Ukraine to Russia, as seen here.

enter image description here

On the same map is mentioned the transfer of Ukrainian territory to the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, namely Transdniestria, which was not historically Moldavian. That is illogic outside the context described above, especially as other historically Moldavian territories remained part of Ukraine (Budjak and Northern Bukowina).

Abkhazia and Ossetia had a tradition of autonomy within Georgia and Nagorno-Karabach was an Armenian enclave in Azerbaidjan, and Soviet central power has supported their autonomy within the same logic.

It is also interesting to consider this within the larger scope of the relation between the Soviet internationalist-imperialist central power in Moscow and the local & national authority of the republics. The disputed territory could be claimed as pertaining to the larger more universal authority of the Soviet empire.

As an arbiter, Moscow could intervene but also could claim directly for itself (that is, for Russia), territories disputed between the republics. Also, most of the aforementioned territories had Soviet military bases and/or now have Russian military bases, and the causality between being disputed territory (with "gluing" properties) and having military bases works both ways.

  • the best example of the USSR setting borders to make a divorce painful is the Fergana valley (one country controls the valley, other the main entrance, and a third the surrounding mountains), besides the various enclaves on each other territory. An Uzbek told me they joke that Stalin was drunk when drawing the borders. – Luiz Jun 1 '20 at 13:37

No one in the Soviet Union of that time could even dream that the Union will ever dissolve. "Sovereign Ukraine" was a fiction invented by Stalin to deceive the naive Westerners and to obtain an extra seat in UN.

In 1944, the whole native Tartar Crimean population was deported (30%-40% lost their lives in the process). One had to populate the area, and this was difficult to do from Russia (Russia has no land connection with Crimea. All roads and communications to Crimea go through Ukraine). So it was a purely administrative decision to transfer Crimea to Ukraine.

But in fact, Crimea has much closer historical connection with Ukraine, just because of the geography. For example, it is Crimean-Ukrainian troops that wrestled the Ukraine from Poland in XVII century. While the experience of Crimean Tartars with Russians consists mainly of 2 genocides: one in XVIII century and another one in XX century.


Nikita Khrushchev was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 - 1964. He was born April 15, 1894, in Kalinovka, a village in what is now Russia's Kursk Oblast, near the present Ukrainian border.


In 1938 he become a leader of Ukraine.






  • 6
    I don't disagree, but I'm not sure how this answers the question. – MCW Mar 4 '14 at 15:17
  • Qestion was "Why", my answer is: "Because, this is land of Khrushchev's life." He rebuilt this part of Soviet Union for the whole time of his existence. – user2496 Mar 4 '14 at 16:23
  • 1
    I upvoted although I am not sure this is the correct answer. Still, it's useful to point out Kh's personal connection to Ukraine. – Felix Goldberg Mar 4 '14 at 16:47
  • 1
    "уймись, дурак" mans "stop, fool". – Anixx Feb 10 '15 at 14:32
  • 1
    Stalin was a native of the Moscow district?? – Alex Sep 1 '15 at 0:49


Графика написания передана без изменений



The Bear Steps in – a Russian thriller by Andras Jenei


  • 2
