Simeiz

Simeiz is a small village on the southern coast of Crimea, currently under temporary Russian occupation. During the Soviet period, it became an underground queer resort, beginning with a secluded nudist beach that functioned as a rare space of freedom and encounter. After Ukrainian independence, a bar and nightclub called Hedgehogs emerged, further establishing Simeiz as a queer gathering place. From the 1990s onward, the village developed into a key meeting point for LGBTQIA+ communities from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, attracting around 4,000 visitors annually before the occupation of Crimea in 2014. Today, Simeiz’s queer history is being erasured under the homophobic legislation of the Russian Federation. If this process is completed, photographs and amateur video recordings may remain the only traces of both its existence and its disappearance. The project 'Simeiz' (2022-ongoing) takes multiple forms and is based in oral histories alongside reworked found footage, including archival video and photography. It forms part of the long-term research project 'A Very Brief and Subjective Queer History of Ukraine', which traces invisible, unrecorded, and forgotten queer narratives existing outside state archives and dominant historical frameworks. Through a series of interconnected works, the research examines how colonial legacies, Soviet occupation, and the rise of post-Soviet capitalism have shaped queer communities and artistic practices in Ukraine.