On 17 June, just before the beginning of Ramadan, ATR, the only Crimean Tatar television station in the world, resumed broadcasting after two months off air. The station is now based in Kyiv, however, not Simferopol.
Prior to the annexation of Crimea, ATR was an increasingly influential source of news and comment on the peninsula. As one blogger from Simferopol, the administrative capital of Crimea, says: 'Over the past few years, many people – not only Crimean Tatars – got so used to the channel that it's hard think about the information space without it.' Indeed, ATR became – and remains – a symbol of the Crimean Tatars' return to their ancestral home.
Popularity has its price
ATR started broadcasting from the Crimean peninsula in 2006. The station initially made only short programmes, broadcasting up to two-and-a-half hours a day. But in 2011, the television channel began a new phase in its development following the involvement of Lenur Islyamov, a Russian businessman.
