leader of this region standing before these crowds and saying, we are going home. that is certainly the feeling that many ethnic russians here feel, that they are returning to the motherland. many of them were born and raised in the soviet union and remember that crimea was handed over by nikita khrushchev in 1954 to ukraine but it remained a part of the soviet union until the dissolution of the ussr in 1989. and therefore many people still feel that this really belongs to russia and that the last 23 years of ukrainen rule did them little good. they feel they will have their lives improved economically as being part of russia and they'll be better looked after. that's why we have this celebration. 96.7% voting for russia. just 2.5% choosing the other option. this rather ambiguous claim of