It's a very flawed analogy.

Indeed, Crimea was and still is very popular destination among russians - but for completely different reasons, totally unrelated to the religion. It is a place with the best climate among russian localities, with warm sea - so it always was a popular vacation spot.

Imperial palace at Lyvadia, near Yalta - russian tsars were spending summer there.

Prominent aristocrat - Count Golitsyn, passionate about winemaking, established Noviy Svet = New World (literally) winery - where he produced high-quality sparkling wines ("Russian Champagne").

Many russian artists and writers were working there - in places like Koktebel. A lot of movies were filmed in Crimea too.

In soviet time, a lot of vacation resorts were built there. It was a problem to get a spot due to limited amount of vacancies and huge demand.

In 1962, there were 150 resorts, vacation houses, health facilities with ~50 thousands beds. - see [2]

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В 1962 г. в Крыму функционировало 150 санаториев, домов отдыха, пансионатов. Число мест в них составляло около 50 тысяч.

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Sources

1. Why we will never be indifferent to the Crimea: 33 vivid memories of the Soviet Union. Newspaper article with a lot of USSR-time photos of 1960-1989 with people, vacationing in Crimea - including Yuri Gagarin.

2. (russian, online book) M. Olinsky, V. Shlyapnikov. Crimea. Tourist guide. = М. Олинский, В. Шляпошников. Крым. Путеводитель справочник. This is digitized 5th edition of 1962.

This is bullshit on that anchor's parts. Religiously the most important place of pilgrimages for Russian Orthodox are:

• domestically it is the Golden Ring, a series of monasteries, ancient churches and holy sites in Old Russia (territory inhabited by ethnic Russians prior to its colonial expansion to Siberia and the steppes). This route contains historically important cities such as Yaroslavl and Vladimir, which dated back to High Medieval period from the time of Christianisation of the Rus under Vladimir the Great
• additionally Orthodox Russians place a big reverence to Mount Athos in Greece, considered one of the holiest site in Eastern Orthodoxy. Russians has a monastery here, alongside Greeks, Romanians and Georgians Orthodox
• and of course Jerusalem, especially Church of the Holy Sepulcher, for obvious reasons

Crimea only became part of Russian empire in 1790s, which is only two centuries ago, long after a distinct Russian identity was matured.

If any, the better analogy is Crimea to Russia is like Hawaii to the Americans. These sites are both popular holiday attractions, sites of major naval bases of high importance, and forcefully seized by respective countries from previously independent and culturally distinct native states (Crimean Khanate and Hawaiian kingdom)