Maybe it wasn't. They will surely have to live thru several hard years, maybe even regret they ever did this. But now this accession has a point. I don't think

Maybe it wasn't. They will surely have to live thru several hard years, maybe even regret they ever did this. But now this accession has a point. I don't think Crimea had much international tourism. When I checked two years ago, Crimea didn't have single plane or train scheduled from Poland, for example. It had some connections to hubs like Frankfurt, but I doubt many non-ex-USSR people ever considered Crimea. As for Russians, they always were the bulk of visitors. In the summer, trains from Moscow to Crimea departed like every 20 minutes, and you could meet all kinds of Moscow friends on the streets. This year, a lot of railway service were disrupted, understandably. I hope it returns once. I think that mainland Ukrainians will visit Crimea too once the situation stabilizes.