Politics of Ukraine compete fiercely for control over the central government and the position of the president. During 1992 a number of pro-Russian political organizations in Crimea advocated secession of Crimea and annexation to Russia. During USSR times Crimea was ceded from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev to mark the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav. In July 1992, the Crimean and Ukrainian parliaments determined that Crimea would remain under Ukrainian jurisdiction while retaining significant cultural and economic autonomy, thus creating the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The Crimean peninsula—while under Ukraininan sovereignty, served as site for major
Nikita Khrushchev and tranquilizers. One of his grandsons was asked what the ex-premier was doing in retirement, and the boy replied, "Grandfather cries." He was made a non-person to such an extent that the thirty-volume "Great Soviet Encyclopedia" omitted his name from the list of prominent political commissars during the Great Patriotic War. As the new rulers made known their conservatism in artistic matters, Khrushchev came to be more favorably viewed by artists and writers, some of whom visited him. One visitor whom Khrushchev regretted not seeing was former U.S. Vice President Nixon, then in his "wilderness years" before his election to