“We have a large family, three kids, so of course we don’t have enough water,” says Tatyana Mikhalchuk, who lives in Gresovsky, a settlement near Simferopol.
A year ago, Tatyana and her husband Arseny decided to move to the Crimean capital from Armyansk, a town in the north of the peninsula. She says that one of the reasons for their relocation was a fear of being left without any water. Northern Crimea is considered the peninsula’s driest area, so towns like Armyansk would be the first to suffer in case of trouble.
There’s reason to be concerned. Dried-up rivers, decreasing reservoirs and a bad harvest – this is what Crimea has been through in 2020, the driest year in the last 150, according to local officials. To combat the drought, the Crimean authorities have introduced a water supply timetable in some areas of the peninsula, and are even ready to try cloud seeding to generate artificial precipitation.
