Banks such as Hungary's OTP, Russia's Alfa Bank and others are among the businesses that have pulled operations from Crimea. Meanwhile, Ukrainian businesses – PrivatBank, VAB Bank, Bank Kyivska Rus and Imexbank – have had their licenses to operate revoked by the Central Bank of Russia.
"State-owned Russian banks are likely to take the space of the banks that have exited the peninsula in the near future," said Lilit Gevorgyan, senior sovereign risk analyst at IHS Global Insight in London. "It will take a considerable amount of time for private banking to return."
A bank targeted by American sanctions in retaliation for the annexation – Bank Rossiya – was one of the first to open a branch on the peninsula after the Russian invasion.
Russia President Vladimir Putin signed legislation in April declaring the region to be Russian territory following a disputed referendum by locals opting to join its neighbor. Russia had troops move into the province before the vote, which the West said was rigged in favor of pro-Russian Crimeans.
Since the takeover, Crimea seems to resemble the Putin economic policy of rewarding supporters through government actions.
McDonald's closed its three Crimean restaurants "due to the suspension of necessary financial and banking services" a company statement said. And some Ukrainians elsewhere in Ukraine are pulling back from spending money there.
"We don't want to spend our money in Russia," said Olena Zaitseva, a Ukrainian marine biologist who regularly conducts field work in Crimea. This year, she said she would cancel her trip.
The economic impact of Zaitseva's absence is more significant than it might at first appear. Under Ukrainian rule, sunflower seed exports, tourism, shipbuilding and solar energy were the mainstays of the Crimean economy! . But they've never been lucrative industries.
Governments in Kiev have struggled to bring Crimea's economy to the same standard of living as other Ukrainian regions since the former Soviet republic achieved independence in 1991.
Still, the region's per capita earnings are still around one-third lower than the rest of the country, according to a 2011 report by the Razumkov Center, an economic think tank in Kiev.
Ukraine's failure to turn around the peninsula's fortunes hasn't been lost on Putin.
"The Kremlin is keen to showcase the advantages of being part of the Russian economy," Gevorgyan said. "The Russian government has already announced $7 billion worth of spending projects which would also include building a connecting bridge with mainland Russia."
The public investment could signal the cutting of economic ties between Crimea and Ukraine for a long period of time, said Igor Burakovsky, director of the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting in Kiev.
"Businesses have to be registered according to the Russian laws," Burakovsky said. "Definitely there will be some problems in order to work with the continental part of the Ukraine."
The situation is especially dire as the summer vacation season approaches.
People stand outside a closed McDonald's restaurant in Simferopol on April 4, 2014.(Photo: Alexander Polegenko, AP)
Around 4 million Ukrainians and 2 million Russians regularly go on their summer vacations in the Crimea. There have been reports of Russian plans to create a free economic area as well as a gambling zone with casinos to attract more Russian tourists in order to replace Ukrainians who aren't expected to return.
"The annexation of Crimea made me stop being lazy and ! finally f! ile documents for an international passport," said Yuriy Voronkov, a web developer from Kiev who is thinking about vacations in India or Thailand.
Anna Kholodnova, 23, of Kiev said she won't be going to the annual Koktebel Jazz Festival on the Black Sea coast. "It's not appealing to me anymore," she said.
Future developments — including unrest in Ukraine's largely Russian-speaking East — are also likely to create economic problems.
Ukraine has been providing energy and water to the peninsula, for example. It's not clear how long those utilities will remain. Ukrainians who sympathize with Kiev are still living in the region, so officials don't want to leave them in the dark or without water.
Still, the Ukrainian government has curbed the flow of water enough to harm agriculture, Burakovsky said. For Russia, meanwhile, the price tag for assimilating parts of Ukraine is growing.
In April, Standard & Poor's downgraded Russia's credit rating for the first time in more than five years to a notch above "junk" status. In late April, the International Monetary Fund said in a statement that capital outflow from Russia "increased significantly" in the first three months of 2014 to $51 billion. The Fund noted that investment in Russia would further dwindle because of the geopolitical situation.
The U.S. and European Union have also levied sanctions against Russian officials and companies with close links to Putin.
Gevorgyan estimated that pension payments for seniors, public sector wages and paying for half-completed infrastructure projects, including three power stations under development, would cost Moscow around roughly $5 billion annually.
Between the sanctions, investors pulling out and the chaotic business climate that's developed during the ongoing crisis, nobody will be eager to put money into Crimea anytime soon unless its Russian government funding, Gevorgyan said.
"Until the geopolitical crisis is put to rest for some time, it is hard to see i! nvestors ! flocking Crimea, including Russian private capital," she said.
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