Will the Simferopol Airport be named after Amethan Sultan?

Portrait of Amethan Sultan.  Image source:  Wikipedia

According to an article in May 28th's Poluostrov, the Ukrainian minister of transportation is "not against" naming the Simferopol Airport after Amethan Sultan (1920-1971), a famous Crimean Tatar Soviet fighter pilot who twice received the award "Hero of the Soviet Union."  Kia news published the internal document last week.

Amethan Sultan's story exposes the hypocrisy of Stalin's deportation of the Crimean Tatars.  Claiming the  Crimean Tatar population had collaborated with the Nazis, Stalin deported every last Crimean Tatar to Central Asia.  Yet thousands of Crimean Tatars fought in WWII.  According to the Poluostrov article, 60,000 Crimean Tatars participated in the Great Patriotic War, with 36,000 deaths.  Some 40,000 more were actively involved, participating on the home front.

Memorial to Amethan Sultan in his home city of Alupka, Crimea.  Image source:  Wikipedia

Amethan Sultan is nothing less than a national hero.  On Victory Day, Milli Firka, a Crimean Tatar political party, sponsored billboards in Crimea reminding residents of his awards and service.  A few Crimean Tatars have proudly told me of his skills as a fighter pilot.  "When Amethan Sultan was flying, the Nazis would get nervous, and yell on their radios, 'Amethan Sultan is in the air!  Amethan Sultan is in the air!'"

Other Crimean Tatars who received Soviet awards for their service in the Great Patriotic War include Nasibulla Velilyaev, Seit Nebi Abduramanov, Uzeir Abdramanov, Abdul' Tejfuk, Seitnafe Seitveliev and Abduraim Reshidov.  Here are plaques in their memory in the play yard of Simferopol's 42nd school, the only school with Crimean Tatar language instruction in Simferopol, located in the mikrorayon Kamenka.  Amethan Sultan's plaque is the first on the left.

On a peninsula where history is so contentious and many place names have been changed or even lost, and in a culture that still celebrates with passion year after year the Soviet Victory in the Great Patriotic War, naming the Simferopol Airport after Amethan Sultan would be a large step to recognizing not only the large achievements of the Crimean Tatar people, but the injustice of their merciless deportation and 50 year exile.  The first historical name every new visitor to Crimea would come across would not be Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Livadia Palace, but instead the name of the Soviet and Crimean Tatar hero Amethan Sultan, before even leaving the airport.