Vedzhie Kashka, interviewed in “Opening the road home”, a documentary about her life filmed for the ATR Crimean Tatar TV channel in 2015. Image still via YouTube / ATR. Some rights reserved.
Last month, the face of Vedzhie Kashka, an 83-year old Crimean Tatar woman, hit social media. Kashka, a veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement and contemporary of Andrey Sakharov, passed away in a Simferopol hospital on 23 November. Kashka had suffered a heart attack after Russian security services raided a local cafe, arresting Crimean Tatar activists who had met with her — on murky charges of an embezzlement case allegedly involving Kashka’s family. Across the Black Sea peninsula and beyond, Crimean Tatars were incensed. Thousands gathered at her funeral in a show of sorrow and defiance.
