Several hundred people gathered on the railway square for the ceremonial change of time, waving Russian national flags and chanting “Crimea! Russia!” after Moscow formally annexed the Black Sea region from Ukraine on March 21.

“I greet you with our return home,” Crimea’s new pro-Moscow Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov told the crowd.

“I am confident that all that we have done is to the benefit of Crimea and Crimeans,” he exclaimed, extending his thanks to “our President Vladimir Putin” to noisy applause from the crowd.