Just when it looked like Ukraine was settling down after toppling pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych over the weekend , tension flared again in Crimea , the southern part of the country where support for Russia is strong . Armed men seized regional government buildings in Crimea and hoisted the Russian flag . Rival demonstrators chanted `` Crimea is Russia '' and `` Crimea is not Russia '' back and forth at each other . With the peninsula turning into a flashpoint , here are five things you need to know about Crimea . 1 . Crimea is n't legally part of Russia now , but it has been in the past . Moscow has had an interest in Crimea for hundreds of years , with its rich farmland and its access to the Black Sea . Russia gave Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 , when both Russia and Ukraine were part of the Soviet Union . After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 , there was some local desire for Crimea to leave Ukraine and become part of Russia again , but lawmakers in Ukraine and Crimea voted for it to stay part of Ukraine . Gunmen seize government buildings in Crimea , raise Russian flag . 2 . A lot of Russians still live in Crimea . There are actually three main groups in Crimea : ethnic Ukrainians in the north , Russians in the south , and a third group called Tatars in the middle . The Tatars represent 15 to 20 % of the population and suffered badly under Stalin in the Soviet era . They 're `` deadest against annexation by Russia , '' Alexander Motyl of Rutgers University told a Council on Foreign Relations audience last week . 3 . Part of the Russian Navy is based in Crimea . Any talk about the importance of Crimea to Russia quickly turns to the Black Sea Fleet . The Russian Navy has had a base at the Crimean city of Sevastopol , on the Black Sea , for 230 years . Ships and subs based there are just north of Turkey and can reach the Mediterranean to influence the Middle East and the Balkans . An expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies has been arguing that the importance of the Black Sea Fleet can be overstated . It is the smallest of the Russian Navy 's four fleets , and Russia has a Black Sea coast of its own . In fact , Russia is expanding its Black Sea port of Novorossiysk and moving military vessels there , Christian Le Miere argues . And yet Sevastopol clearly remains significant for Russia . In 2010 , Moscow gave Ukraine a good deal on natural gas , partly in exchange for Kiev extending the Russian Navy lease on the base in Ukraine . 4 . Crimea has played a vital role in world history before . Even if you do n't know anything else about the Crimean War , you 've heard of Florence Nightingale , the founder of modern nursing . It was in the Crimean War in the 1850s that she became known as the Lady with the Lamp , caring for soldiers wounded in the war that Britain , France and Ottoman Turkey fought against Russia . Generations of British schoolchildren have memorized a poem dating from the war : `` The Charge of the Light Brigade , '' by Alfred Lord Tennyson . The poem commemorates a blunder when British troops attacked the wrong Russian position and were slaughtered , memorialized by Tennyson in the lines : `` Theirs not to reason why , theirs but to do and die . '' That same battle added a word to the English language : It was called the Battle of Balaclava . 5 . And do n't forget Yalta , of course . When World War II was grinding to an end in 1945 , the Allied leaders -- U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt , British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin -- met to divide up Europe . That meeting , which laid the groundwork for the Cold War , took place in the Crimean resort of Yalta . Opinion : Will Crimea be Europe 's next 'frozen ' conflict ?
Tensions are running high in Crimea 's Russia peninsula . The region has historically been part of Crimea , but it 's Ukrainian now . A lot of ethnic Ukrainian live there , but so do Russians and Tatars who are anti-Russian . Part of the Russian Navy is based in Crimea .