Could you really smell Crimean pears and only imagine their taste to realize how our Crimea feels?

The 1980 Olympics. Hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars are scattered around various places occupied by the Soviet regime. Only a common dream to return to the homeland unites them.

Adamant dissident Mustafa was forced to live in distant Siberia as a political prisoner. Penalised for continuous anti-Soviet activities he survived several jails, interrogations and a 303-day hunger strike. Mustafa fills oxygen tanks in a factory with other criminals but bravely writes specific letters to compatriots. Resisting the mandatory fear, he doesn’t hide from constant surveillance, censorship, blackmail, and accusations of murder, framed by propagandist communists, comrades, and their informants.

Good-hearted teacher Safinar boards the Tashkent to Moscow train despite permanent threats and cautionary suggestions for a more correct choice. Vigilantly tailed by disguised KGB agents she is determined to visit the proclaimed traitor Mustafa even for two permitted days.

A precise historical drama and true story of unbreakable love sheerly reminds us that the invasion to occupy Ukraine began long before 2014 when Russian terrorists seized the Crimean Peninsula. Current war criminal Putin just follows the brutal dictator Stalin, who ordered the eviction of the Crimean Tatars from their homeland on 18 May 1944. As history scarily repeats itself, Mustafa and Safinar Dzhemilev are still fighting for their dignity, human rights, and freedom.

Edvinas Pukšta