EN
We review the magnetic and optical properties of recently grown Cr-based II-VI semimagnetic semiconductors. We focus on two features of these materials which distinguish them from other semimagnetic semiconductors: the particular magnetic behaviour of these crystals, resulting from the Cr^{++} ion energy structure determined by a strong, static Jahn-Teller effect, and a ferromagnetic p-d exchange interaction, which is unique for II-VI semimagnetic semiconductors.