Nasha Ulitsa (Our Street) Radio Drama

In 2002, 13 pilot episodes of Nasha Ulitsa were produced by and for young adults aged 14-21 in Crimea. The series was created in collaboration with the inter-ethnic drama troupe Youth and Children Theatre on Moskoltso. In Winter 2002 the 13-episode pilot series aired on Russian Radio and Gala Radio (Simferopol).

The dramas features various characters and their friends and family as they struggle with issues related to growing up and finding one's identity in a multicultural community - that is, issues with which many young Crimeans grapple on a daily basis. Some of these characters encounter pressure to get involved in illegal activity (particularly drug dealing). Listeners hear about those who succumb to the pressure and those who fight it. Those young people who get into trouble are helped by their friends to understand that what they are doing is wrong. As a result of their spiritual regeneration, the kids from the street are inspired to create an alternative club.

This programme uses entertainment to help young people relate to people from different ethnic groups - an identification that will hopefully translate into real-life encounters. The characters are Ukrainians, Russians, and Crimean Tatars; as the story unfolds, the drama deals with interethnic issues and conflicts among them. Both characters and (it is hoped) listeners learn skills for dealing with conflicts in their everyday life, and are pressed to make hard choices in tense situations. The idea here is that, by listening along to these characters' experiences, young Crimeans will develop their own set of moral values based on the drama's messages - for example, ethnicity should serve neither as a basis for conflict nor as a barrier to resolving conflict situations.

Youth, Conflict.

Given its history, Crimea has a potential for serious inter-ethnic hostility. Organisers explain that a complex set of issues revolves around the role and status - political, economic, social, and historic - of the Crimean Tatar minority in Crimea, which is estimated to account for about 12% of the peninsula's population. The Crimean Tatars were forcibly deported en masse (together with other national minorities) from Crimea in 1944. Beginning in the late 1980s, they have been returning from exile in Central Asia to what they consider to be their historic homeland. According to organisers, the Russian majority in Crimea (67%, according to the 1989 Soviet census) as well as the Ukrainians (25.8%) tend to view the Crimean Tatars as an "alien" and destabilising element in their midst. The Crimean Tatars maintain that they are routinely discriminated against, face hostile attitudes, and encounter indifference when they articulate their concerns.