Kyiv in Colors 2

Kyiv, Ukraine, Sept. 23, 2007, 168 hours before face-off
As the parliamentary campaign in Ukraine enters its last week, I decided to take some pics.

The Battle of Billboards


Stability and prosperity! (PRU) v. The Ukrainian Breakthrough (BYuT)


Enough fooling the people! (Kuchma Bloc) v. Happy family, successful country! (PRU)


Danilych, [Kuchma] the people are with you!


Hexed: She hit you back then, she’ll hit you again!
(a spoof on BYuT’s Zrobyla todi – zrobyt zaraz! She did it back then, she’ll do it again!)

Behind the Enemy Lines



On the Brink of "Civil War"
You see them? Don’t be surprised to find PRU and NUNS tent kiosks within striking distance of each other as they quietly pass out campaign brochures.


Stability and Prosperity, Sidewalk Edition
An elderly lady from the countryside (baba) selling apples near the food market at Shevchenko Square


Stability and Prosperity, Bazaar Edition


“Justice for Everyone” As Seen from a Marshrutka


"Boys, boys, boys, I’m looking for a good time…"


Big Blue (Kyivska Rus Movie Theater)


Big Orange (Lvivska Square)


Can’t You See How Close We Are to a Civil War, Damn It? (Maidan)


Just Another Look at “Stability and Prosperity”



Miss Mature Maidan, aka Baba Paraska


Juggling Campaign Promises


The Bubble Rush of “Better Living Today” (PRU campaign slogan in 2006)



Once Burned, Twice Cautious (Or Should We Say Copycats?)
(PRU supporters break camp at Maidan to be on standby against "election fraud.")



"I believe the children are out future, teach them well and let them lead the way…"




Revolutionaries of all colors, unite! (a NUNS tent kiosk juxtaposed next to Lenin’s Statue overlooking the Besarabsky Market)


A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words (The Numbers Speak for Themselves)

Photo courtesy of Ukrayinska Pravda

The Iron Ladies

During her brief visit to London, former — and perhaps even future — Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko lunched with former British PM Margaret Thatcher.

One of the most popular politicians in the Soviet Union of the late 80s, Maggie could have easily unseated Gorby in a free election. With her charisma and polished manners, she had commanded more respect than the leader of the economically stagnant Soviet state, slapped with severe food supply shortages.

In Ukraine, the Iron Lady franchise belongs to Tymo, who has reveled in the brand, despite casual zig-zags between left and right in her international political orientation. (Last year, her party subscribed to an ideology of solidarism and reportedly sought membership in the Socialist International. This year, in the runup to the French presidential election, Tymoshenko surprised experts when she made overtures to Nicolas Sarkozy.)

Thatcher signed a book of memoirs, The Downing Street Years, for her Ukrainian follower. Hanna Herman of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions speculates that Tymoshenko’s visit may have included a secret meeting with Berezovsky.

According to Tymoshenko, she was “impressed by the woman whom everyone called the Iron Lady, who was loved and feared, but despised by no one.” She added that “It’s hard to imagine the history of 20th-century politics without a person like Margaret Thatcher.” Former British PM, in turn, said she was ready to visit Kyiv to help her counterpart defend Ukraine’s independence.

If Tymo becomes PM again, let us hope that she will fight stabilnist as fiercely as Thatcher fought the Falklands War.

Sources: http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/9/21/64234.htm

Say YES to the Referendum!
Question 1 (check-marked): Do you agree that the official languages in Ukraine should be Ukrainian and Russian?

Which Language Is Second to None in Donbas?

When asked whether making Russian a second official language will hurt Ukrainian speakers, Viktor Yanukovych stated:

Абсолютно ні. Ось психологія людини така, я ж знаю, я народився, жив, виріс у Донбасі. Якщо до тих людей буде шанобливе ставлення і до мови, якою вони говорять, я вам скажу, піде прогрес. Піде процес у бік української мови, і ситуація змінюватиметься на краще".

"Потрібно вчити. Ось внук у мене вільно розмовляє українською. Сини - один краще, другий гірше, ну, вони не вивчали українську мову. Але прищеплювати у людей ненависть до російської мови? Я вважаю, що це неправильно".

Absolutely not. It’s how the mind works, I know this, for I was born and grew up in Donbas. If these people are treated with respect, including the language they speak, then I’ll tell you there will be progress. The process will move in favor of the Ukrainian language, and things will change for the better.

We should study it. Now, my grandson has full command of Ukrainian. As for my sons, one is more fluent and the other is less fluent; well, they didn’t study the language. But should one inculcate people with hatred toward Russian? I think it’s wrong.

According to the 2001 census, Ukrainians make up 56.9 percent of the Donetsk oblast population. Nationwide, some 77.8 percent identify themselves as Ukrainians, while only 67.5 consider Ukrainian their native language.

Question: Which of the two languages needs protection?

Sources: Ukrayinska Pravda, UNIAN, Korespondent, State Committee on Statistics, Party of Regions Official Site

'Party of Ringtones' Photoshop Spoof
Зрадлива родина — потішна країна! Zradlyva rodyna, potishna krayina!
Crappy family, distressful country. (Literal translation: Treacherous family, funny country.)

Based on:
Щаслива родина — успішна країна! Shchaslyva rodyna, uspishna krayina!
Happy family, successful country


Containing Neo-Soviet Imperialism
A clash of civilizations between a Soviet flag-clinching fist wearing Lenin’s hat and a dulya-flipping fist wearing a peasant Ukrainian hat. Dulya (doo-lia), the local equivalent of flipping the bird, is a fist-clinching gesture in which the thumb goes under the index finger.

All works courtesy of Censor.net.ua



Ilya Repin. Barge Haulers on the Volga. 1870-1873. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Stabilnist = Spin x Sovok x Sadomasochism?

American PR wizards may chalk up a few extra votes for the Party of Regions. But they will not change the mindset of the grassroots Regionalist voter; they are chasing it! All it takes is pushing the right buttons, using state-of-the-art spin in tandem with the preexisting Moscow malware.

So far, the PRU top brass has refused to emancipate its electoral base in eastern Ukraine from mental slavery to Sovok, or Sovietica. Here, in the nexus of Ukraine’s Rust and Sun Belts, one can also discover a heavily Sovietized, proletariat-influenced subculture. Here, the local oligarchs perpetuate their power by stirring a political cauldron of the good old Soviet times — when the state provided for people’s basic necessities as long as they stayed within the Communist Party’s line. The breakup of the Soviet Union did not alter this Pavlovian formula. In the sixteen years of Ukraine’s independence, it has served as an elixir of the ruling elite, guiding the country’s transition from communism to crony capitalism, or stabilnist.

When you think of Ukraine’s second-class citizenship with regard to the EU, think stabilnist. The societal submissiveness that came with this chronic condition sank Ukraine to the lower tiers of the Human Development Index. It landed the once third-largest nuclear power on a castaway continent euphemistically called Eurasia. For stabilnist to be effective, Y2K (Yanukovych, Kuchma & Kravchuk) pumped their subjects with nostalgia-inducing painkillers, a task reserved for the well-choreographed Big Brother media. The Ukrainian people assumed the role of the proverbial mule that follows a carrot suspended from a stick, but never gets too close to take a bite.

Somehow, the less Sovietized and more educated segments of Ukrainian society managed to generate immunity against their government’s operant conditioning. The Kuchmatrix malfunctioned. After an interlude of lost opportunities, which we call the Orange Revolution, the Kuchmatrix reloaded. The fresh air of freedom became scarce again, as the smokestacks of stabilnist resumed their routine, rising above the food chain of Ukrainian society.

Some argue that stabilnist has changed. But has it really? Despite all the talk of Akhmetovization — the emergence of a modernization-minded and more Western-oriented wing — most Regionalists have stuck to their guns. They do not share the grief of Soviet genocide victims. With a glorious view of the Soviet past, they have capitalized on a culture of Ukrainophobia and Holodomor denial as their greatest asset in squashing the Oranges.

Recently, the Party of Regions sexed up its campaign by mounting a nationwide petitioning drive to hold a plebiscite on Russian as a second official language and on Ukraine as a non-NATO country. Most likely, the PRU will drop this déjà vu initiative after the election to seduce NUNS into forming a grand coalition.
But before that Kodak moment, the PRU will spray itself with political pheromones to solidify those few percentage points worth of stabilnist-overdosed or Communist-leaning voters.

Most of the swing voting will occur in the Orange camp, as more NUNS supporters predictably switch to BYuT. In contrast, PRU supporters exhibit a far stronger propensity to continue as Guinea pigs in what essentially remains a “hit-me-baby-one-more-time-oops-I-did-it-again” neverending story.

Bait-and-switch manipulations, hardly exclusive to the PRU, offer further insights into the seasonal — and sadomasochistic — peaks and valleys in the Ukrainian social contract. Every campaign, the issue of social responsibility blossoms into a mouth-watering oasis, only to wither away once the campaign comes to an end. Ironically, stabilnist gives short shrift to the very people who support it in the polls. Paradoxically, they keep coming back. Insofar as NUNS and, to a lesser extent BYuT — not to mention the CPU and the SPU — fail to keep their promises, they, too, have a stake in stabilnist.

So here we are, half the country stuck in a time warp, marinated in Cold War soup, while the other half hasn’t quit looking for democratic healthfoods. How’s that for a pop-art Huntingtonian model?

Web-Rigging: PRU Official Site Loses Listing for False Traffic

Bigmir)net, which rates Ukrainian content sites, on Monday removed the official site of the Party of Regions from its listing. Asked about the cause, sources at Bigmir)net stated that the site’s behavior violated their traffic reporting policy, Ukrayinska Pravda informs.

According to Bigmir)net, they intercepted an attempt to raise the PRU site’s rating by using a third-party traffic-boosting technique that jacks up the site counter.

Obozrevatel quotes a UNIAN report in which Bigmir)net claims that 58 percent of the site visits could be traced to a “click club.”

Obviously, Ukraine’s No. 1 rating portal has its own reputation to protect, which explains such bold action. As for the PRU, some habits die hard even in the Information Age, don’t they?

First Graders Hail Yanukovych With Soviet-Style Poems

Public recitals of political poetry got off to a fresh start on Sept. 1, or Knowledge Day, which marks the beginning of a new school year in Ukraine.

The following footage, which I downloaded from Censor.net.ua, features two first graders, boy and girl, at an eastern Ukrainian school ceremony attended by PM Yanukovych.

The poetry they recite mixes patriotism with paternalism. I took the liberty of attempting a poetic translation of these Sept. 1 verses, highly reminiscent of the Stalin era.


Photos courtesy of Sovmusic.ru

Girl:

И от нас
От пап и мам
Благодарность персонально
Виктор Федорович, вам

Here’s from us
From dads and moms
As we press ever so gladly
Viktor Fiodorovich’s palm

Note: Ukrainians formally address each other by first name, followed by a patronymic: Viktor Fiodorovich (transliterated from Russian), or Fedorovych (transliterated from Ukrainian).


Boy

Мы под вашим патронатом
Станем будущем страны
Мы себя покажем Штатам
С украинской стороны

Having you as our patron
Makes our future bright indeed
We will show the States and NATO
Our Ukrainian Godspeed


Apparently, the Age of Innocence still prevails over the Age of Information in some parts of the country. It pampers maladaptive worldviews in adults, encourages first graders to rattle off retrograde rhymes, and creates a divide larger than the digital one. Do you have to be Benita Ferrero-Waldner to know that such personality cult rituals make Ukraine unfit for EU membership? Will there be a knowledge economy in a country that celebrates Knowledge Day this way?

Is it possible that some of our “poetry lovers” crave a divide et impera future for Ukraine? They probably want average-income Orange families to enroll their kids in dance classes right away! This should prepare them for the increasingly popular art of guilt-trip dancing in front of Western embassies to get a visa.

After all, celebrating EU accession at retirement age won’t be so bad, provided you live long enough to beat the current life expectancy of 66 years.

Kyiv in Colors


I was a Johnny-come-lately for the Sunday BYuT rally. On my way from Podil to Maidan, I ran into a downhill exodus of BYuT fans. They were “falling back to base,” that is, to the caravans of buses that brought them to Kyiv from all over Ukraine.


NUNS, which campaigns to lift parliamentary immunity, has dressed the Ukrainian House in orange, displaying a maxim that reads Zakon odyn dlya vsikh. (One law for all.)


At Maidan one could marvel at rookie police officers who guarded PRU tent kiosks, populated by blue-clad teenagers who reportedly make $5 per hour by sitting there and waving banners outside. Exceptions to this recruiting policy can hardly be found in political Ukraine, just as one stands little chance of contesting the PRU’s leadership in it.

Recently, Mayor Chernovetsky ordered the removal of all political paraphernalia from the streets, ostensibly to prevent disorderly conduct. (Yanukovych’s "instability" fetish must be highly contagious.) Amid an acute absence of any signs of civil unrest, municipal authorities have not enforced the ban yet.

If you’re looking for unrest, watch the debates, surf the Web, or, if you’re out on the street, look at the walls. The streets of Kyiv have become a political battleground in a war of words and symbols.


Tymoshenko’s “little red book,” titled Ukrayinsky Proryv (The Ukrainian Breakthrough), has spawned an anonymous spoof slogan, Ukrayinsky Naryv, which can be poetically translated as The Ukrainian Brainscrew. The spoof slogan makes a mockery of the BYuT logo, a red heart-shaped check mark, by turning it upside down. That’s the Regional McCoy, isn’t it?

Short of that, my reality check of the "crisis" craze keeps bouncing all the time. When it comes to ordinary Ukrainians, I see nothing but peaceful coexistence. So if you’re a sucker for stability, welcome to Ukraine.

T-shirt caption: ВірЮ в Україну, or I believe in Yukraine (as in Yulia). Well, some people believe in Yanukraine, but again, no civil unrest whatsoever.

Backbiting or Backsliding? News Host Claims Being Forced to Resign Over Report on Yushchenko's Schooling Expenses

"Дочка президента Ющенка, Христина, сьогодні мала піти в 1 клас Міжнародної Печерської школи у столиці. Там уже в другому класі вчиться її старша сестра Софія, а молодший брат Тарас піде в дитсадок при цій школі".

"Як повідомляє агентство УНІАН, подружжя Ющенків обрало саме цю школу, оскільки там викладають багато іноземних мов, а також існують "європейські стандарти".

"Платити за такі європейські стандарти президентському подружжю доводиться чимало - 12 тисяч доларів на рік за одну дитину. І це без врахування харчування, яке привозять з французького ресторану, та підручників".

President Yushchenko’s daughter, Khrystyna, was today to enter first grade at Pechersk School International in Kyiv. Already studying there in second grade is her older sister Sophia, while her younger brother, Taras, will be entering the school’s kindergarten.

According to a UNIAN report, the Yushchenkos picked this school because it offers a wide choice of foreign language instruction, and is also a haven of “European living standards.”

The price tag for such European standards does not come cheap for the President’s family: $12,000 per child, annually. Note that this figure does not cover lunches, which are supplied by a French restaurant, and textbook expenses.

This is an excerpt from a newscast by Ihor Slisarenko, then a Channel 5 host, who claims to have been coerced into leaving the company, following an angry call from the Secretariat of the President.

According to Slisarenko, after his semi-editorial hit the airwaves, management demanded a written explanation, and then pressed for his resignation. Oleksandr Narodetsky, Slisarenko’s superior, maintains that the employee quit of his own free will. The Secretariat has also denied role.

Now, the million dollar question: Is this a case of backbiting by a disgruntled employee or, worse yet, backsliding toward censorship? One of the first to report the story, Ukrayinska Pravda is watching closely.

Is Channel 5 — held in high esteem as the ice-breaker of the Orange Revolution, in what was then a tightly knit ensemble of Big Brother media — reversing course? If any of that happens to be true, then, in the name of George Orwell, we shouldn’t wait until the end of this campaign. Let’s establish a “Journalist-Beater of the Year” award right away.

P.S. As I was about to post this, I learned that the Channel 5 board has decided to retain Slisarenko, and instead has reprimanded him for breach of editorial policy.

It turns out that the board has found him guilty of bias and misquoting. Well, makes you wonder what the policy says about newsworthiness and the public’s right to know. And finally, how does it square with the previous statement that Slisarenko left “of his own free will?”

Not All Brands Are Created Equal: Witness the Evolution of Yanuk!

Agreed, it’s a small world, but who would have believed?

If Blue Concept ever needs a celebrity endorser for the Ukrainian market, they should know their options. Well, maybe our guy should make the first move, by aggressively cross-bundling himself with the jeans brand to better reach the youth voting market.

“Witness the evolution of Yanuk” reads like a public relations doppelgänger that rivals the sales pitch crafted by Yanukovych spin doctors.

The Ukrainian flag makes its way to the floor of the Verkhovna Rada. Interestingly, it then “cohabited” for several days with the Ukrainian Socialist Republic’s blue-red banner until completely replacing it.

З Днем Незалежності, Україно! Happy Independence Day, Ukraine!

Today, Ukraine celebrates her Sweet Sixteen, still full of adolescent insecurity as she reaches adulthood.

I’m proud to recall that on August 24, 1991 — the day our country declared her independence — my dad and I were rallying outside the Verkhovna Rada, among thousands of other Ukrainians young and old.

We saw history in the making. We consigned the USSR to the dustbin of history, finalizing Ukraine’s centuries-long struggle for independence.

Great links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence_of_Ukraine
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/8/24/63019.htm
http://photo.unian.net/ukr/themes/13 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Chicken_Kiev_speech http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/TOC_files/91/TOC_090191_3516.shtml http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/TOC_files/91/TOC_120891_4916.shtml http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/TOC_files/91/TOC_122991_5216.shtml

Parliamentary Campaign Gains Momentum

In the close race of the 2007 campaign, the main contenders claim credit and assign blame as they see fit.

The Party of Regions touts economic growth (but not the underlying income distribution) and exploits its self-styled notion of stabilnist, or political stability, as the vote-getter. On closer examination, one can detect paternalistic, if not cronyist, undercurrents in that value proposition.

PM Yanukovych will strive to atone for the broken promise of “better living today” with modest last-minute wage increases. Fearing a damning referendum on its "regionomic" policies, the Blue camp will frame the Orange camp for “putting spokes in its wheels.”

Note the extensive use of fear appeals early in the PRU campaign — a defection prevention program targeted at its core electorate. Later on, however, tub-thumping and attack advertising was phased out in favor of soft-sell and contrast techniques that appeal to undecideds, the most coveted prize.

BYuT and NUNS are vying for a bigger slice of the Orange pie, boastful of their Promethean role in bringing about the elections.

NUNS markets the image of a born-again, gutsy President Yushchenko and the movement to lift parliamentary immunity to end the practice of sheltering lawbreakers. In a me-too manner, the PRU has rolled out its own beggar-thy-MP program to slash the MPs’ overblown salaries and perks.

But experts caution that procedural intricacies and the expected makeup of the next Verkhovna Rada make this noble cause appear more inspirational than operational.

BYuT, energized by its victory in the Constitutional Court that restores public employee benefits, will expand on its leader’s feminine mystique.

Nothing works better for her than the charismatic notion of girlpower: the heart-in-hand icon of a justice-seeking amazon that Tymoshenko has cultivated over the years. It perfectly sets her apart from the rest of the Orange camp, largely a boys’ club.

And by the way, her emotionally charged Joan of Arc ethos has found a new creative outlet. Few have failed to notice cryptic ads featuring handpicked “endorsements” from Michelle Nostradamus, the 16th-century French apothecary whose writings are widely interpreted as prophetic. Many viewers might be intrigued by the idea that this source, well-known in Ukraine, has something important to say about her.

Even more politically provocative were some of her other ads. Ukrainian television channels unanimously refused to air an ad that lumped together Yushchenko, Moroz, and Kuchma until it was edited for “political correctness.” The publicity this story generated on the Web more than offset any losses due to censorship. The Ukrainian Breakthrough, Tymoshenko’s can-do white paper, caused a commotion in cognoscenti circles.

The campaign will climax in September, as vacation season draws to a close and people pour back into their daily lives.