SEVASTOPOL, February 25. /ITAR-TASS/. Deputies of the city hall in Sevastopol, which is the main base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet since 1783, have entrusted the powers of city administration in the businessman Aleksei Chalyi.
His appointed was demanded by a thousands-strong crowd of residents of the city, who took to the streets to protest against the Maidan and to take independent decisions on their own destiny.
At the demand of the local people who blocked the city’s main street chanting ‘Chalyi’ and ‘Russia’, an emergency session of the city hall was convened Monday night. The deputies had a unanimous vote on forming a new body of power - a department for the maintenance of life-sustaining activity, which Chalyi took charge of.
The deputies told him to get down immediately for the formation of the city’s executive power agencies. Thousands of demonstrators who had come to the city hall’s building met this complicated legal decision with jubilant chants.
The meeting continued in the small hours of Tuesday morning and Russian flags had been hoisted on the building of the city hall.
Sunday, the residents of Sevastopol that has traditionally strong ties with Russia and where the absolutely majority of the population are native speakers of Russian, crowded Nakhimov Square carrying Russian tricolors in their hands.
They declared Chalyi the city mayor. Monday, the former mayor Vladimir Yatsuba declared his resignation from the post and quit the ranks of the Party of Regions.
Yatsuba and Chalyi had negotiations, in the process of which they agreed that decisions on the transition of power would be taken by the city hall.
In spite of a complex social and political situation in the Crimea, the Black Sea Fleet based in Sevastopol is functioning as usual, a spokesman for the staff of the fleet told Itar-Tass.