Growing up waiting for their fathers: a photo exhibition about the children of Crimean Tatar political prisoners opened in Kyiv

On 21 October, a photo exhibition “The Childhood They Never Had” opened in Kyiv, dedicated to the children of Crimean Tatar political prisoners who are growing up without their parents, who have been imprisoned by Russia on trumped-up charges.

Since the beginning of the illegal annexation of Crimea, Russia has systematically persecuted Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians with active civic positions. Hundreds of them have been sentenced to long prison terms ranging from seven to more than twenty years. But behind each sentence are not only the political prisoners themselves, but also their families — wives, parents and children who have been waiting for years for their loved ones to return. In the eleventh year of the temporary occupation of Crimea, 367 children were left without a father, 246 of whom are minors. For many of them, searches, arrests and trials have become part of a childhood spent under the pressure of fear, anxiety and constant stress.

Refat Chubarov, Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, who attended the opening of the exhibition, emphasised the importance of supporting the children of political prisoners and explained that words about the heroism of their parents can be of great significance to children: “It is very important for children to know that their parents are heroes. I saw how, after I said this, the children repeated: “Our parents are heroes“.

Viktoriia Nesterenko, Refat Chubarov, Viktoriia Lysak, Denys Chystikov

The Director of the Department for Monitoring the Observance of Equal Rights and Freedoms of National Minorities and Political and Religious Beliefs of the Ombudsman’s Office, Olena Antonenko, drew attention to the systematic human rights violations in Crimea that Russia has been committing since the beginning of the occupation in 2014: “After 2014, Crimea became a place of systematic human rights violations. And it is the Crimean Tatars who suffer the most. The occupying authorities persecute them for their peaceful life, their civic position and love for their native land… This exhibition is evidence of the crime of occupation, which has been going on for more than ten years. Each photo is the voice of a child who is forced to live in fear and wait for their parents to return from captivity. We must remember that behind every name in these statistics are broken lives, but also the unbreakable strength of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar families“.

Thus, the Deputy Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Denys Chystikov, noted that the occupation had deprived children of their childhood and that the state must do everything possible to support them and help them preserve their identity.

Deputy Chair of the Board of CrimeaSOS, Mila Shevchenko, added that many children had their fathers arrested when they were very young, and now they are forced to live with the understanding of life without them.

“The children will grow up and remember that their father was not there because of the occupation, because of Russia… If you look at the photos, the pictures from 2025 are very different, not because the children have grown up in five years, but because they now understand what their life is like without their father,” Shevchenko noted.

Human rights defender and project manager of the Human Rights Centre ZMINA, Viktoriia Nesterenko, emphasised that the persecution of Crimean Tatars in Crimea continues: “In Crimea, the number of political prisoners and children suffering from these events is growing every day“. She called on people to write letters to political prisoners, especially women, to support them and their families.

Viktoriia Nesterenko

This photo exhibition shows how the children of political prisoners grow up, mature and change while their parents are in Russian prisons. The exhibition features photographs from 2020 and 2025, as well as children’s messages to their parents — sincere yet painful testimonies about lost time. The 2020 photos were first presented in Emine Dzheppar’s exhibition project “Being true to yourself is not a crime” dedicated to the persecution of Crimean Tatars in the temporarily occupied Crimea.

The exhibition will run for two weeks, until November 5, at the Museum of Outstanding Figures of Ukrainian Culture, located at 93 Saksahanskoho Street, Kyiv (the building of the L. Ukrainka Museum). Admission is free.

Opening hours: Wednesday to Monday, from 10:00 to 18:00, closed on Tuesdays.

Come to see the eyes and hear the stories of the children whose childhoods have been taken away by the occupation, and to feel their strength and resilience.

Each visitor will also have the opportunity to write words of support to political prisoners and place them in the box of the initiative “Letters to Free Crimea“, which will be available in the museum for the duration of the exhibition.

The new exhibition was created with the financial support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.

Photo credit: Mykola Myrnyi, ZMINA