Verka Goes to Helsinki!
Ukraine-Mocking Comedian to Represent Ukraine at Eurovision Song Contest

Yee-hah! Verka Serduchka, a faux female character created by Andriy Danylko impersonating a train conductor who can’t get enough of marginalizing Ukrainian culture alongside Russian chauvinist stereotypes, should be packing his bags for Helsinki. Ironically, whatever he sings there on May 12 will most likely be interpreted as a quintessence of Ukrainian culture.

Over the last decade, Andriy Danylko has perfected his kinky pseudo-ethnic character into a huge commercial success in Russia and eastern Ukraine. He won the ticket to Helsinki having outperformed several other artists in a nationwide SMS vote broadcast live on state television. So how does someone who masquerades as the Ukrainian equivalent of the N-word get to go to Eurovision? Well, I guess it tells a great deal about Ukraine’s post-Soviet identity crisis. So far, only one local FM station has voiced a protest.

If, for some reason, Kazakhstan fielded Sacha Baron Cohen, I’d rather vote for him than Andriy Danylko. After all, Borat Sagdiyev did not mess with Kazakhstan without making some pointed jabs at Amerikastan. With Verka Serduchka, it’s always been a one-way street.

“Yanukovych Gov’t Helped by God” as Grain Stockpiles Rot in Odesa Port

Уряду Віктора Януковича навіть Бог допомагає. Бог, коли бачить, що ми правильно робимо, і розуміє, що нам палки в колеса вставляють, - так за 100 років найтепліша зима. Допомагає уряду Януковича навіть Бог. Зверху все видно.

Трейдери нехай несуть собі (збитки). Трейдери найменше нас хвилюють.

Even God is helping the Yanukovych Government. When God sees us doing what’s right and understands that spokes are being put in our wheels, we get the warmest winter in 100 years. The Yanukovych Government is being helped by God. He sees from above.

Let the traders bear their losses. The traders are the least of our concerns.

These touching soundbites belong to MP Mykhailo Chechetov, PRU, former head of the State Property Fund, a government agency responsible for overseeing state-owned enterprises and approving privatization deals. In 2004, with Chechetov’s blessing, Kryvorizhstal was auctioned off for $800mn.

A year later, in an open bid, the steel mill fetched $4.8 bn. (Sometimes, God chooses to help the highest bidder, which kind of dashes cold water on Chechetov’s metaphysical observations. He may not have realized it, but the hyperbolic manner in which he chose to heap praise on Proffessor bordered on satire of Borat’s caliber.)

The second quote indirectly relates to the 2003 grain crisis, a major embarrassment for PM Yanukovych during his first coming. With a record harvest in 2002, Ukraine experienced a blowout frenzy of exports that put truckloads of money in traders’ pockets and left farmers scrambling to repay their loans.

On top of that, it depleted the country’s grain stock to a point when imports had to be contracted for, at a higher price, of course. Poor Proffessor! He should have written an autobiographical narrative titled: “Sell Low, Buy High: How Government Spending Helps the Global Grain Market.”

It doesn’t take a scientist to interpret the current Draconian regulations as a mixture of never-again paranoia and bread-and-circus populism. Hey Cargill, give us a break. Can’t you see it? This time Proffessor got the Breadbasket of Europe sealed tight. Not a bushel goes to Bush until Proffessor approves it. Even if it means tons of grain rotting all the while. A few days ago, U.S. Ambassador Taylor took a trip to Odesa to see for himself.

Since Ukrainian grain had been consumed in Ancient Greece, it needs an adequate hero to deliver it from decay. How about sending the Governator on a mission similar to the one he played in “Hercules in New York?” After all, Arnie has repeatedly identified Ukrainian powerlifter Leonid Zhabotynsky as his life-changing role model.

Davos Is Not Donbas, or Viktor Ya’s Dirty Little Secret

Guess who's leading the Ukrainian delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos. You got it. It's Viktor Yanukovych, the incredible “Proffessor [sic] of Economics!” That’s what his handwritten presidential candidate application told us in 2004. Wait a minute, didn’t it also state a certain degree of proficiency in English? Sure it did. Should we therefore assume his American spin doctors put that precious information on his badge? Well, they most certainly chose not to, for fear it would make Borat pale by comparison.

To look sexy at this annual carnival that brings together business and political elites from all over the globe, Proffessor (with a double "F") masquerades himself as the head of the freshly-minted investment council. Hey, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and the rest of you guys out there, you better pay attention. Our man Yanukovych here means business. As a student of Kuchma, he has a way with numbers you can’t imagine. Lakshmi Mittal, a colleague of yours, paid $4.8 bn for a steel mill that our man knew just how to sell for a mere $800 mn. You get the idea.

Viktor Pinchuk of Interpipe, a renowned Westernizer, philanthropist, Kuchma’s son-in-law and, by the way, former co-owner of that steel mill, will hold a lunch-conference titled "Where Is Ukraine Heading?” Among those who plan to attend are Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, former Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, financier George Soros, chairman of Russia's Vneshtorgbank Andrey Kostin, and Ukrainian American astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper.

So where is Ukraine heading? Yanukovych will probably trot out the same old lines about Ukraine destined to be a bridge — the bridge — between Europe and Russia, the latter, of course, being the neighbor everybody would love to have. (Lukashenka would beg to differ on that one.) And if Freud dropped by, he’d point out that the title of the conference clearly addresses the West’s repressed concern that, with Proffessor at the helm, Ukraine is going straight to hell.

OK, let's not overanalyze our humble leaders.The Ukrainian delegation includes Economy Minister Volodymyr Makukha, commodity kings Rinat Akhmetov of SCM, Serhiy Taruta of ISD, and Ihor Kolomoisky of Pryvat. The “old man” (Yushchenko), a no show at Davos, is represented by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, deputy chief of the Secretariat.

Of course, Yanukovych will go to great lengths eroticizing that 7 percent GDP growth rate for 2006. In fact, he’ll tell you any shit you want to hear. But there’s something he will avoid any discussion of. And here’s what it is: As of today, Ukraine remains one of the poorest countries on the continent, period. Ukraine ranks a dismal 125th out of the 161 countries surveyed in the 2006 Index of Economic Freedom.

With most of the profits from our retarded industry being sucked out to offshore banks, a sizable stream of investments comes from EU migrant workers who send remittances to their families back in Ukraine.

Whether you like it or not, sex tourism could become Ukraine’s next killer app. After all, it’s slightly more humane than the sex slave trade and could provide an additional source of income for local law enforcement.

That about wraps up our economic learnings of Davos for make benefit glorious region of Donbas. Proffessors of all banana republics, go hunting!

Building a Better Borat

Sacha Baron Cohen's bully behavior will hit the screen shortly. True, this cultural comedian has made a career out of carpet bombing, not sharp shooting. However, given his disapproval rating, he still can be a positive force.

What do the filthy rich Genghis Khans on the Eurasian Street share with the ethnocentric Cartmans on both sides of the Atlantic? They all need a cultural education.

Of course, Sacha’s career is his to make. But, hypothetically speaking, if he ever chooses to venture beyond his spicier replica of South Park — for “make benefit” of humanity — he needs to do several things. And here's the roadmap:

• enhance his CQ (cultural intelligence)
• eliminate grossly inaccurate, inconsistent, and offensive content
• equip his character with traits that would reposition him from an agent provocateur to an agent of change
• enrage the regimes, not the rank and file
• entertain, engage, educate

These add-ons would help him strike a balance between his provocative value and, let’s say, his “perestroika 2” value. (By all means, his character could do better culturally than Rambo!)

I'm not talking about outright clientitis, such as that found in the U.S.-Azerbaijan relationship. I'm talking about creative cultural ambassadorship — building bridges, not burning them.

With globalization on the march, the West often takes too many things for granted. The truth is, different cultures still react to humor differently, especially if it’s black humor. Take the case of the Danish cartoons and the Vatican’s pontifications on Islam. Stereotyped, culturally irresponsible depictions of the developing world create humor on one side and hostility on the other. They entertain Western audiences only at the expense of fueling extremism and alienating the cultures depicted. On neither side of the twisted window do good things really happen. And one can’t get away with cultural murder in the global village.

By now, it appears that Astana’s angry backlash, followed by a public relations mobilization, has softened to a cooperative approach. Concerned with its image among Western investors and policy makers, the Nazarbayev regime has made moves to befriend the comedian, inviting him on a see-for-yourself trip to Kazakhstan. Because anger amounts to an acceptance of fault, the Nazarbayev regime has put on a smile, effectively telling Sacha that he is barking up the wrong tree.

Once again, the idea is not to have Borat castrated in politically correct terms. The idea is to have a character like Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) from the Naked Gun series, or a culturally-savvy performer like "Weird Al" Yankovic. The idea is to spread democracy through a principle immortalized in Aesop's fable “The Wind and the Sun.”

That’s the only way the sun of Westernization can rise over Eurasia, extending the blessings of civilization not just to the post-Soviet sultans but to the subjects as well.

Lastly, of the 15,300,000 people that make up Kazakhstan’s population, an estimated 550,000 are of Ukrainian descent.