Vladimir Pirogov, 73, who for 50 years was a trainer at the city stadium in Yalta in the well-funded heyday of Soviet sport, perches these days on a stool just off the Crimean resort’s elegant promenade, selling his paintings to tourists. In what is now Ukraine, his generation still looks east to Russia, he says. “We’re not needed in Europe, not our factories, not our economic potential. We’re mostly Russian speakers here,” says Mr Pirogov. “We want to live with Russia.”
