Crimean Tatars - Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. Under the czars, the Crimean Tatars concentrated their economic activity in animal husbandry, vegetable farming, and orcharding, but some began to plant grain (especially wheat) in the north, whereas others took up viticulture and tobacco growing in the south. Food production remains the main economic activity in the Crimea today, and presumably the Tatars would be quite involved had their recent history been more normal.

Industrial Arts. Some engage in part-time craft work, to a significant degree as part of the larger effort to preserve traditional culture in the face of tremendous official hostility.

Trade. Within the Central Asian environment particularly, some open-air marketing takes place.

Division of Labor. Both Turkic and Islamic traditions have shaped the division of labor along gender lines typical of premodern societies, although restrictions on female activity had something to do with socioeconomic status as well. Thus veiling was largely limited to women of means who did not have to work in public. Emancipation of women was increasingly encouraged by Tatar reformers beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century and was further supported by certain features of Bolshevik ideology and practical policy since 1917, although social practice lags behind in the workplace and, in particular, in family relations.

Land Tenure. Under the czars, Crimean Tatars were one of the few groups not to experience serfdom directly, and, despite difficulties in retaining control of land for economic reasons during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many held land privately or collectively through their villages. With the collectivization of Soviet agriculture by the early 1930s, however, private ownership of land ceased to be possible, and Tatar farmers became employees of the state, as did all other Soviet peasants. The laws regarding land tenure and usage are currently in a state of flux, with the current tendency toward restoring private rights and opportunities.