In Crimea, Russia has mucked it up SOME find it relaxing to be covered head to toe in black, smelly mud. Others become a bit gloomy, particularly when the spa is half-empty and is in disputed territory. The job of Lieutenant Doctor Igor Aleksandrovich Dovgan, director of the gracelessly named Saki Military Clinical Sanatorium N.I. Pirogov, is to keep his guests on the relaxed side—the paying ones, at least. The spa, on the sunny shores of the Black Sea, pampers private clients, while taking a boot-camp approach to the wounded veterans it treats at the expense of the Russian state.
Dr Dovgan has run the sanatorium ever since it was seized (like all other state-owned property) from the Ukrainian defence ministry after Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014. It is in good shape, with friendly staff and functional, if somewhat military-looking, equipment. The gardens are immaculate: no sooner does a rose shed a petal than a gardener rushes to pick it up. A plaque commemorates the night in 1945 when the spa sheltered Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill on their way to meet Stalin at Yalta.
When Crimea was…
