tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19297350.post5159447667086449990..comments2023-09-17T10:57:35.535+03:00Comments on Ukrainiana: Paul McCartney Rocks the Rain Away in KyivTarashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18139892487573795049noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19297350.post-7852986787522425302008-06-19T11:44:00.000+03:002008-06-19T11:44:00.000+03:00I didn’t see Zvyahilsky at the concert but I’ve re...I didn’t see Zvyahilsky at the concert but I’ve read the story you mentioned.<BR/><BR/>You’re absolutely right about Ukraine having a grotesque luxury car market that accentuates the country’s wealth distribution and power distance.<BR/><BR/>Many Western tourists mistake the ubiquitous Mercedeses, Bentleys, Rolls-Royces and SUVs they spot in Kyiv for Ukrainians’ overall living standards. Welcome to the Potemkin village of stabilnist!<BR/><BR/>A country where 50 people control two annual budgets worth of assets creates lucrative opportunities for luxury car makers. <BR/><BR/>I wonder what percentage of their custom-built vehicle orders comes from Ukraine.Tarashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18139892487573795049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19297350.post-18302772434213086042008-06-19T05:34:00.000+03:002008-06-19T05:34:00.000+03:00Oops, you're right about the population, Tars - in...Oops, you're right about the population, Tars - in part.<BR/><BR/>Germany has had quite a bit of immigration - including Ukrainians from Ukraine looking for a better life BECAUSE OF THE VIRULENT OLIGARCHY IN UKRAINE!<BR/><BR/>With respect to the statistics you quoted from Wikipedia - notice that Germany was the number one exporter in 2007.<BR/><BR/>AGAIN, THE GODDAMN OLIGARCHS IN UKRAINE HELPED A BUNCH - BY BUYING MERCEDES AND OTHER GERMAN CARS BY THE BOATLOAD.<BR/><BR/>Thank you, Ukrainian oligarchs, for making Germany - NO. 1.<BR/><BR/>Thank you, Akhmetov, and Pinchuk, for all of your "charitable work."<BR/><BR/>Thank you, Zviahilsky, for killing people in coal mines in Donbass - сила Донбасю<BR/><BR/>The Ukrainian phrase, сила Донбас, means "strong Donbass." Donbass is the eastern region of Ukraine with lots of coal mines and metallic ore mines, and the Donetsk Mafia, which pretends that people don't blow up in Ukrainian coal mines, and which likes to say that, since it "produces most of the wealth in Ukraine, it ought to get most of the spoils."<BR/><BR/>Zviahilsky is a puke thug of an oligarch, about 5 feet 6 inches short, and weighs about 500 pounds.<BR/><BR/>After all the mine explosions in his mine, oops, it's not his mine, he just collects money from it, he recently threatened a mine safety inspector by telling him that he would be coughing up blood.<BR/><BR/>I wonder if the little thug attended the concert.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Oh - and thank you, Ukrainian oligarchs, for importing all of those Bentleys and Rolls-Royces!<BR/><BR/>We love the thug oligarchs in Ukraine! They hire US law firms to sue people!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19297350.post-20969105107666229282008-06-18T10:21:00.000+03:002008-06-18T10:21:00.000+03:00Michelle, Thank you for sharing it with your blog ...Michelle, <BR/><BR/>Thank you for sharing it with your blog readers! <BR/><BR/>You know the way things are in Ukraine’s public health care. Charity alone won’t help, especially when guided by ulterior motives. Tossing change while keeping one’s hand in the cookie jar won’t change anything.<BR/><BR/>Enough of these charades. We need change.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Elmer,<BR/><BR/>Babysitters, requested items, bugs, industrial espionage, etc — you said it. It’s all part of Soviet memorabilia.<BR/><BR/>In the late ‘70s-early ‘80s, Kyiv looked no better than Moscow. In fact, Moscow always topped the “best places to live in the USSR” list. To this day, Moscow remains a country-within-a-country. <BR/><BR/>During the summer 1980 Olympics, they sanitized Moscow of “bad-looking” people (criminals, alcoholics, prostitutes, etc) and supplied it with food and consumer goods galore to put the best face on the Soviet way of life. <BR/><BR/>In the Moscow of today, anyone can buy anything if they have the money to buy it. Same here. <BR/><BR/>Germany has a smaller territory but a considerably larger population. Ukraine’s population would probably equal Germany’s if we had no Holodomor, no Stalin, no WW II and no stabilnist. <BR/><BR/>As for the economy, you’re right on target. <BR/><BR/>Compare Germany’s GDP per capita of <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany" REL="nofollow">$34,181 (PPP), or $39,650 in nominal terms</A>, to Ukraine’s <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine" REL="nofollow">$8,624 (PPP), or $2,852 in nominal terms</A>.Tarashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18139892487573795049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19297350.post-26023007756408397802008-06-17T17:14:00.000+03:002008-06-17T17:14:00.000+03:00In 1978, every tourist group had a "guardian angel...In 1978, every tourist group had a "guardian angel" from Intourist - to make sure that tourists did not go where they were not supposed to go. In other words, there were only certain designated areas where tourists were permitted to go. I managed to get around that.<BR/><BR/>Before I went to Ukraine, I was given a list of "requested items" - I won't say from whom. I was amazed at some of the stuff - not even I knew about Roland musical instruments, for example.<BR/><BR/>We knew not to talk in the hotel rooms - "bugs" on the walls. If we spoke with family, it was always in a safe place, outside.<BR/><BR/>Performers who went oversees from the sovok union were always heavily guarded by "babysitters" - to make sure they didn't defect in New York City, for example. Or bring back "forbidden" items.<BR/><BR/>The farther east one went, the more tense it became. I finally made it to Maskva - a dour mud pit. The taxi driver was drunk, and laughing all the way, and he pulled some doughnuts (he made the car spin around in circles, which was easy, since there was a light rain, and the streets were slick) on the way to the hotel.<BR/><BR/>In Maskva, there were special nightclubs for foreigners - well, except for some of the locals who worked there. I met some people from Phillips Petroleum, who had just come back from oil work in Baku.<BR/><BR/>They kept shaking their heads at how bad the technology was in the Baku oil fields. Still true today.<BR/><BR/>I don't think I've ever been in a more dour place than Maskva.<BR/><BR/>For Ukraine, I don't believe in yesterday - I believe in tomorrow, despite all the sclerotic babushkas who can't seem to differentiate between icons of stalin and icons of Jesus Christ.<BR/><BR/>And despite the viral oligarchy.<BR/><BR/>What gives me hope? There didn't seem to be ANYONE listening to Kuchma's inane and stupid musings being shown on stage via video.<BR/><BR/>People in Ukraine are smarter than that.<BR/><BR/>PS Taras, the largest economy in Europe is - Germany's. It is a smaller country, and has fewer people, yet its economy is far larger than Ukraine's.<BR/><BR/>I wonder if the sclerotic babushkas who keep shouting and screaming and barking about NATO like Pavlovian dogs know that?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19297350.post-47189933250222176132008-06-17T12:09:00.000+03:002008-06-17T12:09:00.000+03:00Thanks for the great post Taras! I also hope that...Thanks for the great post Taras! <BR/><BR/>I also hope that Kyiv's Children's Cancer Hopsital will benefit from this concert. I know that there has been "no money for medicine and children's needs" there for at least nine years, (I used to go there to minister to the families.) Despite hundreds of western humanitarian organizations and churches giving money, as of last year on TV they were still complaining that they have no money for anything. Anyone can go there and see for yourself what is going on. No nurses, parents sleeping in beds with children because they have to live there to take care of them. Parents begging for money from visiting foreigners.....I couldn't take visiting there anymore because it was too painful to see the suffering and exploitation going on from both sides.Michellehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10614435122768314831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19297350.post-60197119313140689452008-06-17T11:14:00.000+03:002008-06-17T11:14:00.000+03:00You are welcome, Marta! Thank you for sharing it w...You are welcome, Marta! Thank you for sharing it with your friends, and thank you for the suggestion you made at your blog!:)<BR/><BR/><BR/>Thanks for challenging my listening comprehension, Elmer!<BR/><BR/>To me, it sounded more like “privet druzi,” a combination of Russian and Ukrainian:) <BR/><BR/>Perhaps this perception was reinforced by the spasibo-dyakuyu issue. It’s still unclear to me whether he said privet or pryvit. Having thought about this, I decided to drop my interpretation and stick with “pryvit druzi” until further study.<BR/><BR/>The Soviet ruble had its strengths and weaknesses. Throughout the ‘70s and up until the mid-‘80s, the purchasing power of the ruble remained relatively strong, if measured in terms of food prices. One could buy a loaf of bread for 16 kopecks, consume a kilogram of kolbasa for 2.20 rubles, or enjoy a decent restaurant meal for 10 rubles. Monthly take-home pay averaged 120 rubles.<BR/><BR/>The lion’s share of consumer goods and clothing indeed had poor quality, which explains the much-higher black market exchange rate for the US dollar. While demand for quality Western goods ran high in the USSR, most of the supply came from <I><A HREF="http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/01/14/soviet-history-fartsovshchiki/" REL="nofollow">fartsovshchiki</A></I> (black marketers) and <I><A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryozka" REL="nofollow">beryozkas</A></I> (hard-currency stores).<BR/><BR/>The petrodollar-financed era of the mid ‘70s-early ‘80s saw the rise of consumerism in the USSR. Subsidized and cross-subsidized with petrodollars and price scissors, the Brezhnev economy produced the happiest time for the Soviet consumer — in Soviet history. (As you noted, the <I><A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenklatura" REL="nofollow">nomenklatura</A></I> had their own “specialty stores.”)<BR/><BR/>Despite dumping a dose of Finnish and <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comecon" REL="nofollow">Comecon</A> consumer goods on store shelves to pacify the Soviet people and boost their morale, it was all downhill from the mid 80s.<BR/><BR/>Communism collapsed. Cronyism did not. Through old-boy networks, an coalition of apparatchiks and entrepreneurs “got their groove back” in the roaring ‘90s.<BR/><BR/>I assume the Pinchuks do not want to be back in the USSR financially. After all, several hundred rubles a month cannot buy an £80M mansion in London. <BR/><BR/>In the USSR, they’d spend years, or even decades, on the housing waiting list to get that 2-room apartment. <BR/><BR/>Well, that’s how most people live in Ukraine today.Tarashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18139892487573795049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19297350.post-41572104377480054832008-06-16T17:26:00.000+03:002008-06-16T17:26:00.000+03:00Thank you Taras!Thank you Taras!Marta Salazarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14194781920303344082noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19297350.post-55788773366832493362008-06-16T17:16:00.000+03:002008-06-16T17:16:00.000+03:00I'm glad people enjoyed the concert, and I don't m...I'm glad people enjoyed the concert, and I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade -oops, it looks like nature already did that.<BR/><BR/>1) It's nice that Pinchuk, beneficiary of ill-gotten gains (Kuchma, his father-in-law, stole his share also), organized a concert throuhg his foundation. Apparently, $600,000 has been raised for a children's hospital.<BR/><BR/>http://blog.kievukraine.info/<BR/><BR/>Interesting - because everyone in Ukraine, and those who left Ukraine for greener pastures, will swear up and down that medical care, including hospitals, in Ukraine is/are free.<BR/><BR/>The reality is different - the money assigned from the budget to pay doctors and equip hospitals is regularly stolen by government bureaucrats.<BR/><BR/>So, one has to pay doctors under the table, one has to bring sheets and other things to the hospital for any sick patients.<BR/><BR/>Or, one has to throw an occasional rock concert in Kyiv (well, this is the first one).<BR/><BR/>Apparently the way to take care of budget "shortfalls" in the medical sphere and outright corruption in Ukraine is not to fix the government, but to throw rock concerts.<BR/><BR/>The "political elite" don't care, because they can't seem to find any doctors in Ukraine, and always go outside the country for their medical care.<BR/><BR/>2) Back to the USSR - if things keep going the way they're going, that's going to happen.<BR/><BR/>3) Memories of sovok-ear Beatles -<BR/><BR/>in 1978, no sovok citizen was allowed in any tourist hotel. There were special stores only for tourists, which accepted only foreign currency. Some sovok citizens were brave enough to approach tourists to buy something for them in the "foreign stores," because sovok goods were basically cheap and shoddy imitations of Western or Japanese goods.<BR/><BR/>Every hotel played an "approved list" of Western songs. There was only one - "Hotel California." To this day, I HATE that song, having heard it over, and over, and over, and over, and over in every hotel.<BR/><BR/>People would also ask about Duke Ellington - seemed to be the only person on the approved list.<BR/><BR/>Some people would collect empty Western cigarette packs - Marlboro, or other.<BR/><BR/>In the meantime, the sovok "political elite" had access to anything from the West it wanted. It was well-known that Brezhnev demanded "gifts" of Mercedes on "official visits" to Germany. (He also used to order up rooshan girls for himself.)<BR/><BR/>The sovoks were very proud of the ruble. They wanted $1.10 for every ruble at the official currency exchange stations.<BR/><BR/>On the street, people would buy your dollars for 7 rubles or higher to the dollar. The people knew better.<BR/><BR/>If they got caught, they risked very severe punishment for currency speculation - шпекулація.<BR/><BR/>People would walk up and ask to buy your jeans - the older and more worn, the better. Older and worn jeans were a status symbol, since it signified that you had enough money to buy jeans and had owned them for a long time.<BR/><BR/>4) I thought I heard him say привіт (priveet - Ukrainian), not привет (privet, Russian). No matter - he said he loves Ukrainians.<BR/><BR/>5) So that's how the Pinchuk Foundation operates. Pinchuk doesn't giver away any of his own money. He throws a political ex-Beatle concert, honoring his father-in-law Kuchma, and asks for Other People's Money - and claims credit when he gives their money away.<BR/><BR/>I wonder if the children's hospital will actually get any of the $600,000.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com