Zarema Yalyboylu’s photography exhibition The Face of Deportation: The Tragedy of Crimean Tatars After 75 Years tells the story of the Soviet Government’s crime through portraits and stories of ordinary people who were deported, survived and returned to Crimea. The people in these portraits are the living witnesses to the criminal Stalinist regime. Many of them still remember the events of 18 May in the most minute detail, although they were still very small children back then.

The stories of the project’s participants are similar in many ways: there is fear, pain, loss of loved ones. But there is also something that unites them all—their great love for Crimea and their desire to return to their homeland, which Crimean Tatars were separated from for over 50 years.

Every year, there are fewer and fewer living witnesses to the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people. But we believe that humanity will preserve the circumstances of this tragedy in its memory and draw important conclusions to prevent such tragedy from happening ever again, either to the native nation of Crimea or to anyone else.