1954 transfer of Crimea Ukraine inexorably to Russia, "Eternally Together", as a poster commemorating the event of 1954 proclaimed. The transfer was described by some of the Supreme Soviet as a gift to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654 when the Cossack Rada apparently decided to unify with Muscovy, putting in place the eventual acquisition of Ukraine by Russia. Other reasons given were the integration of the economies of Ukraine and Crimea and the idea that Crimea was a natural extension of the Ukrainian steppes. There was also a desire to repopulate parts of the Crimea which had suffered
Nikita Khrushchev miner, and labouring in a brick factory. Wages were much higher in the Donbas than in the Kursk region, and Sergei Khrushchev generally left his family in Kalinovka, returning there when he had enough money. Kalinovka was a peasant village; Khrushchev's teacher, Lydia Shevchenko, later stated that she had never seen a village as poor as Kalinovka had been. Nikita worked as a herdsboy from an early age. He was schooled for a total of four years, part in the village parochial school and part under Shevchenko's tutelage in Kalinovka's state school. According to Khrushchev in his memoirs, Shevchenko was