The Story Behind the Crimea Beach Party Phenomenon

This whole thing started last August when russian soldiers stationed at the temporarily occupied Saky airbase in Novofedorivka, Crimea, Ukraine became the first russian occupants on Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula to experience the business end of “finding out”.

As the heavy metal was still raining down on the Saky airbase, a palpable euphoria arose across Ukraine because this was the day Ukrainians had been waiting for, for almost 10 years. It was important not because of any specific targets that were destroyed, but because, symbolically, it marked the start of a new chapter. This Ukrainian strike meant that russian soldiers were no longer safe in Crimea, igniting a genuine spark of hope that one day Ukraine would liberate Crimea.

Looking back through our Saint Javelin group chat, one of the first messages posted that day was “200 km from the frontline. This is basically saying, ‘You can't hide anywhere, motherfuckers’.”

We immediately started working on memes like…

But then, in our group chat, our marketing manager Violetta wrote, “Saint Savelin mural in Simferopol by summer 2023.” I followed up with, “We should do a pre-sale for a Saint Savelin event in Simferopol in summer 2023. Let's create a fake event that people can pre-buy tickets to, and we'll donate the money.”

And that was it. Less than 2 hours later, we had created the Crimea Beach Party.

It took on a life of its own right away, with people starting to plan their beach outfits, organize carpools to Crimea, curate music playlists, and more. Eventually, we sold over 20,000 tickets to an event that didn't even exist. Alongside our clothing sales, the wild success of that 2-hour idea helped us donate over $350,000 to United24's Drone campaign last summer.

Since that initial wave, our Saint Javelin team has been working relentlessly on the Crimea Beach Party 2023 collection. Finally, we have a whole new line of clothing and accessories dedicated solely to the Crimea Beach Party and made in Ukraine.

To make this a reality, we first spent time thinking about what this should look like, who can we get on board, and what message we wanted to send to the world with our work. Then we started working on designs.

We are incredibly proud to say that all these products and accessories are designed by Ukrainian artists. And over the last 4 months, we produced them with the help of they were produced by Ukrainian manufacturers across the country in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odesa and Lviv. The men and women who work at these manufacturers withstood relentless russian attacks throughout the winter and the spring which caused the factories to shut down, re-open, re-organize orders and ultimately somehow make everything work again. And they do it to the level of quality you’d expect from any major global clothing brand.

Our own team in Kyiv and Lviv were nearly sleepless for months as the russian cowards bombed innocent civilians in their cities almost every night with Iranian drones, and cruise and ballistic missiles.

Our goal with this collection was simple – to send the message that Crimea is Ukraine, and one day soon, we will party on the beaches together to celebrate the total Ukrainian victory.

We also know the price Ukrainians are paying in an effort to get their home back. As the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi said, “Every meter is given by blood.” I’m proud that a part of the net profits from this collection will go towards procuring tactical medicine and armoured personnel carriers for the Territorial Defence Forces that are taking an active part in the counteroffensive. These supplies and equipment will help to save the lives of the Ukrainian defenders. Slava Ukraini!