Russian Imperialist Ads Appear and Disappear in Kyiv

“The potential of a Great country — the Power of a Great bank,” says VTB, Russia’s second-biggest bank, on a billboard in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.

VTB, formerly known as Vneshtorgbank (Foreign Trade Bank), has been struggling in Russia amid the world financial crisis. That hasn’t prevented it from running a bombastic ad campaign in Ukraine. For a few months, Ukrainian television has shown ads whose inherent drama links the size of VTB’s business to the size of Russia.

On this particular billboard, however, the image of “big business” that VTB aims to project becomes big politics.

Highly symbolic, the billboard pictures St. Sophia Cathedral and the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Monument on the “Ukrainian side” and the Kremlin on the “Russian side.”

St. Sophia’s Cathedral symbolizes Christianity, being one of Kyiv’s best known landmarks and one of the oldest Orthodox shrines in Ukraine.

The Bohdan Khmelnytsky Monument symbolizes Ukraine’s alliance with Russia under the Treaty of Pereyaslav, concluded on condition of autonomy but gradually eroded by Russia.

The Kremlin symbolizes the government responsible for the erosion of Ukraine’s independence and for the death of millions of Ukrainians in wars and genocide.

For a financial institution accused of being the Kremlin’s “pocket bank,” the ensemble looks pretty natural.

Assuming the river pictured is the Dnipro River, then the ad either portrays Ukraine and Russia as one “great country” or hints at Russia’s occupation of left-bank Ukraine. How’s that for a banking ad? Would Deutsche Bank run ads in Jerusalem juxtaposing the Reichstag with the Wailing Wall?

Currently, lack of customer trust makes the top of the list of why Ukrainians stay out of banks. With the hryvnia losing more than 50% of its value against the dollar in September-November 2008, customers rushed to withdraw their devalued hryvnia deposits.

Not so fast, said the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), ordering a freeze on cash withdrawals.

Equally distressed were the many thousands of customers whose dollar-denominated loans suddenly became impossible to pay off due to an exchange rate gone wild. Meanwhile, with a little help from the National Bank, many banks used the bailout money to bet against the hryvnia, further destroying customer trust.

In other words, bank size may not be that big of an issue. During the last couple of years, major Ukrainian banks have been acquired by big European ones. Yet, for some reason, instead of addressing the issue of customer trust, VTB decided to bank on Russian imperialistic imagery. What a way to set yourself apart from the competition.

The billboard’s proximity to the city’s only remaining Lenin Monument adds another ironic edge to the story. In February 1918, the Bolshevik army shelled and pillaged Kyiv, seeking to overthrow a Ukrainian government that had declared independence from Russia. In March 1918, Lenin moved the Bolshevik government headquarters from the Smolny Institute in Petrograd to the Kremlin in Moscow.

So what target market does VTB have in mind? Pro-Kremlin Ukrainians or Ukrainians with a short memory/poor knowledge of history?

Even more outrageous ads had mushroomed in downtown Kyiv last month: “Project Russia.”




The ads, complete with a map that displayed Ukraine as part of Russia, sprang up outside the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. Behind these ads, it turned out, was Warriors of Creativity, a Russian movement that celebrates creativity in communications.

Their $9M anti-Ukrainian campaign had kicked off with “American salo,” a series of teaser-hate ads placed in the Moscow subway.



A book of the same title soon found its way to the Russian State Duma and the Verkhovna Rada. What makes salo “American” is obviously the Orange Revolution. Many Russians use the word salo as a gastro-ethnic slur for Ukrainians and widely believe the Orange Revolution to be an American plot.

Interestingly, some people in the Russian blogosphere totally missed the creative thrust of “American salo.”

Back in Kyiv, the SBU, the Ukrainian security service, soon ordered the “Project Russia” ads removed. Will the SBU respond creatively this time?

Note: I took the VTB billboard pictures on May 3.

Sources:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c3549190-f818-11db-baa1-000b5df10621.html?nclick_check=1
http://uk.reuters.com/article/rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews/idUKLD8357920090513
http://vovremya.info/news/1239105706.html
http://forum-msk.org/material/news/840172.html
http://www.liberty.ru/foto/Operaciya-Amerikanskoe-salo/Operaciya-Amerikanskoe-salo
http://nikolay-smeh.livejournal.com/114430.html

A Braidless Tymoshenko Outlines Ukraine-IMF Cooperation

Did she sell her braid too? Or is she just unhappy about Lutsenko’s behavior?

PM Yulia Tymoshenko: The board of governors of the International Monetary Fund, uh — considering the effective work of the government in implementing, uh, the preliminary measures of the joint program between Ukraine and, uh, the IMF — has made a decision to speed up the meeting of the board of governors, uh, from, uh, May 12, as planned — from May 13, as planned — to May 8, and, on May 8, the board of governors will review the issue of granting the [second] tranche to Ukraine, and it’s a very positive signal.

In Ukrainian, IMF translates into МВФ (spelled em-veh-ef). Tymoshenko spelled it the English way: АйЕмЕф (ai-em-ef), in a nonstandard jargon-style manner characteristic of showy English-speaking Ukrainian yuppies. (To the best of my knowledge, Tymoshenko does not speak English. Well, except for the “Happy Birthday” thing.)

I digress. So why is the second portion of the IMF loan a “very positive signal?” Where did the first portion of the loan go? Wasn’t it funneled into Ukraine’s bad-loan-infested banks, most of them foreign and oligarch-owned?

Will the green light from the IMF help Ukrainians improve their living standards or will it help them pay off the bad loans with their cheap labor?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/121029.html
Original source: http://5.ua

Boy, 12, Dies of Cancer As Bank Wouldn’t Give Money Back

Imagine your son or nephew is dying of cancer, but your bank will not let you withdraw your money to give him a chance.

Welcome to Ukraine!

Oleksiy Holub, 12, had a facial tumor. He lived in Donetsk. To put him in a foreign clinic, his mom started pooling resources immediately. She borrowed from every friend, relative and coworker she could.

Oleksiy's aunt had Hr. 32,000 (approximately $4,000) on deposit at Pryvatbank. She wanted to use her savings to save Oleksiy.

Prvyatbank wouldn’t let her.

They wouldn't let her withdraw the money, citing a freeze on cash withdrawals ordered by the National Bank of Ukraine.

As a result, Oleksiy stayed in a Donetsk hospital, where they pumped him with chemo, which destroyed his already weak immune system. He kept saying, “Mom, I’m so scared.” And then he died. Soon, his grandma died, too.

His aunt is suing Pryvatbank for Hr. 100,000 (approximately $12,000) for infliction of emotional distress. Pryvtbank says the woman failed to properly formulate her petition for cash withdrawal.

If she wins, she plans to donate the money to kids with cancer.

I just wonder if the same story would happen to any of the royal kids. I wonder if Yushchenko, a former governor of the National Bank, would be unable to withdraw money from his bank.

Oh, silly me. Ukrainian politicians keep their money in foreign banks and heal their bodies in foreign clinics. They don't want to end up like Oleksiy.

Ihor Kolomoisky, Ukraine’s third-richest man and Pryvatbank’s co-owner, lives in Switzerland.

Meanwhile, something is killing this country.

Sources:
http://gazeta.ua/index.php?id=284677
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/10/91062.htm

Bankers Beg for Customers

They need us. But do we need them?

Serhiy Naumov, chairman of Ukrsibbank: In fact, we’re all in the same boat. We’re doing everything possible to stabilize the hryvnia situation. We’re also asking you to...finally bring the money to the banks, make our economy work.

Bring the money to the banks? Only to have the banks refuse to give the money back when you need it?

Hasn’t the government poured billions of hryvnias into troubled banks without demanding equity stakes from them?

Isn't it true that the banks then used the stimulus money to bet against the hryvnia, with a little help from the National Bank?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/116043.html
Original source: http://ictv.ua

Head of Ukrainian Association of Banks Weighs in on Crisis

With Ukraine’s banking system in turmoil and people rushing to close their accounts, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a temporary freeze on deposit withdrawals.

Although the official exchange rate remains at Hr 5.15 per dollar, the asking price on the streets of Kyiv has reached Hr 6, up from Hr 4.6 in July.

Oleksandr Suhonyako, President of the Association of Ukrainian Banks: What’s been going on with the exchange rate, to a large degree, is caused by surging demand on the one hand and by speculative moments on the other. For some reason, everybody thinks that the dollar means salvation again. There’s only one thing left for us to do: to be real citizens and to ask… perhaps even MPs will heed the call that…don’t run, don't demand, don't use it to withdraw your deposits before the maturity date. Be an example. May it be your money, not your shame, that will burn during…during this, because the absence of panic is prerequisite for our Ukrainian society to weather this crisis and solidify.

Do those MPs have any shame to start with?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/100338.html
Original source: http://5.ua