Police Thwart Anti-Yanukovych T-Shirt Sale in Kyiv

It’s the police state’s job to keep humor in short supply. And fail.





First, they raided the company premises, then they cracked down on its sales effort.

OK, those T-shirts haven’t hit the market yet. I mean, physically. But guess what? More juice came out thanks to this crackdown.

Which doesn’t really hurt the “Thank you Donbas!” [for that dumbass] brand.



Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2011/09/15/6589925/

Classmate Praises Yanukovych in Stalinesque Poetry

How do some Donbasians buy £136M+£60M flats? Well, here’s a clue.

Let me have a shot at poetic translation.

Viktor, you're the light and the banner. With you we'll crush our foes! You brought faith to the people. Happiness, freedom, and home.
Viktor, you're the resplendent one. Ray of light, hope, and love!
Do it, take command, lead us. Till all our foes are no more!

The clouds will go, I know. A bright life will come to us.
All your evil foes, all this yellow* scum
Shall perish instantly. And may prosperity come!
The bright life is coming. There's good news in store.
Do it, take command, lead us. Till all the dark is no more.

*Yellow obviously means orange (as in the Orange Revolution)

Why not drop a love bomb on Kim Jong-il too? For a bowl of rice, maybe?

Buckwheat would be even better. It’s up 300% since Kim Januk-il took command.

Bonus Track
Actually, Yanukovych had enthralled poetic souls long before he became president. Here’s another gem, based on a Soviet patriotic tune, performed by a Yanukovych supporter in April 2007.

We need no coast of Turkey
We need no America
That guy from Doneeeeetsk would be OK
He’s nothing but a mirrrrracle

Sources:
http://tabloid.pravda.com.ua/focus/4dad4795c9c53/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftLUiUt6Sfc
http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/23888/person_id/1.phtml
http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/23871/person_id/1.phtml http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/23873/person_id/1.phtml

‘Let the Damn Motherfucker Die!’ (Babushka on Yanukovych)

Ever wonder how people really feel about you? In your home town?

Yenakiyeve, Donetsk Oblast

Reporter: Hi, I’m a reporter! We’re doing a poll. How would you rate Yanukovych’s first year in office?
Respondent: Let, let the damn motherfucker die! Just put it down word for word and have it published.
1:20-1:30

What, no happy priest and kids scenes? That’s one hell of a generation gap. Just who the hell does she think she is? Ruining all those childhood dreams?

The next respondent gave Yanukovych an A on Euro 2012 and an F overall. All but two respondents rated Yanukovych negatively.


It’s good to be home!

Sources:
http://censor.net.ua/ru/video_news/view/161758/jiteli_enakievo_dali_otsenku_pervomu_godu_yanukovicha_vnimanie_nenormativnaya_leksika__video http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/23282/person_id/1.phtml

Woman Mayor to Woman Reporter: ‘Bitch’

Welcome to the Cougar Town of Ukrainian politics!

Reporter: Everybody had assumed there would be some changes for the better and novelties, but that didn’t happen.
Mayor: Bitch.

That’s Nelya Shtepa, mayor of Slavyansk, Donetsk oblast, speaking at her “100 Days in Office” press conference.

A member of the ruling Party of Regions, Shtepa denies saying the word sookah (bitch). What she really said was Sanya, diminutive for Olexandr, the electrician she invoked once a nearby heater had gone off. So she says.

Gordon Brown should have known better than to give up like that. He should have come up with an alternative interpretation of his “bigoted woman” remark. How about he meant Thatcher?






Ain't it a bitch to run Ukraine for the People?

UPDATE
Shtepa is now suing YouTube for what she considers defamation.



Try hard as they did, ICTV reporters couldn't find an electrician by the name Sanya in the Slavyansk City Hall.

The good news is, Shtepa recently married her driver, 15 years her junior.

Sources:
http://censor.net.ua/ru/video_news/view/160450/gorodskoyi_golova_slavyanska_obozvala_jenschinu_sukoyi_video
http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/23173.phtml

Miner Breaks Stalin-Era Record As 4 Die Per 1M Tons

In China, if miners die because of poor safety, their bosses die too.

In Ukraine — whose death rate comes second — the bosses prosper, the miners perish. And some miners even push the envelope!



No sooner had the bodies from the latest accident been recovered than Serhiy Shemuk produced a mind-boggling 170 tons of coal (2,023% of plan). That beats the Stalin-era Stakhanov record by 68 tons.

“I don’t need the money. Just give me the medal.” That’s how one boss summed up a worker’s attitude in an industry that saw 151 deaths in 2009 alone.

Seriously, shouldn’t we have medals for this? For 3,000% of plan? For slaving away in the deathtraps of Donbas and enjoying it? Got killed? Your family will pick it up for you posthumously.

The Yanukovych regime and the International Medals Fund should medalize everyone willing to help them prosper.

Fortunately, some miners beg to differ.



Videos embedded from:
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/167870.html
http://tsn.ua/ukrayina/shahtari-pogrozhuyut-donbasu-ekologichnoyu-katastrofoyu-cherez-neviplatu-zarplat.html
Original sources:
http://stb.ua
http://tsn.ua

A DUI Mayor Hits a Woman in Donetsk Oblast (Updated)

If they don’t kill you in the mine, they can try to kill you outside.





On October 8, Yuriy Anisimov, 58, the dead-drunk mayor of Dymytrov, a town in Donetsk oblast, raced his KIA Cerato into Iryna Tymoshenko, 48, an employee of a local coal mine.

The woman was hospitalized with multiple injuries, including a concussion, broken teeth, fractured ribs and chest trauma. The mayor tried to flee the scene but was surrounded by his constituents, some of whom wished him death.

Police made sure he sustained no further injuries.

UPDATE
On October 20, the mayor was freed on bail. On October 22, the woman died.

Sources:
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/135570.html
http://pro-test.org.ua/index.php?id=5005&show=news&newsid=46286
http://ukr.proua.com/news/2009/10/12/030115.html

30 Missing in Donetsk Coal Mine Accident (Updated)

An accident at the Skochynsky coal mine in Donetsk has left 30 miners missing. Of the 53 miners working on the shift, only 27 have managed to escape.

UPDATE 1
The bodies of two miners have been recovered as twelve remain missing.

UPDATE 2
As of Tuesday, the bodies of six miners have been recovered as seven remain missing.

UPDATE 3
As of Wednesday morning, 9 dead, 4 missing.

Sources:
http://www.unian.net/ukr/news/news-319861.html
http://www.unian.net/ukr/news/news-319874.html
http://www.unian.net/ukr/news/news-319957.html
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/6/10/96258.htm

9 Missing in Coal Mine Accident in Donetsk Oblast

A Monday accident at the Novodzerzhynska mine in Donetsk oblast, at a depth of 585 m (1,919 ft), has left nine miners missing, Ukrainian media report. Five miners managed to escape.

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/5/5/94227.htm

5 Injured, 37 Missing in Yenakiyevo Coal Mine Blast (Updated)

Early on Sunday, a massive methane explosion at a coal mine in Yanakiyevo, Donetsk oblast, left 5 injured and 37 missing.

As Ukrainian mines continue to devour Ukrainians, the mine's Soviet-era name — Karl Marx — aptly describes the state of the country's coal mining industry.

The accident comes less than a week after the recovery of 11 bodies from the May 23 accident at the Krasnolymanska mine.

UPDATE
Thankfully, 21 people have been rescued; 6 bodies have been recovered.

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/6/9/77224.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/6/8/77189.htm
http://korrespondent.net/ukraine/events/486867
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080608/wl_nm/ukraine_mine_dc

Kolesnikov: “Banning the Party of Regions Is Like Banning the Sunrise”

MP Borys Kolesnikov, PRU: Banning the Party of Regions is like banning the sunrise. I’m telling this to my opponents upfront. I want to tell these pseudo-nat…pseudo-patriots that the Party of Regions — and the regions they represent — have made the biggest contribution to Ukraine’s independence. And they have secured the economic dependence [sic] of Ukraine…Ukraine. So here’s how it is: They’ve learned this anthem in the Ukrainian language, they put their hands on their hearts, or wallets, they sing this anthem — and that makes them the patriots. And the fact that the south and the east are working around the clock and are securing eco…economic independence — the Donetsk oblast alone accounts for 25 percent of the country’s GDP. That’s inde…the contribution to the country’s independence.

The Party of Regions has a progressive record of thought-provoking slips of the tongue. In 2004, it was presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych who spiced up the debates with “We must secure for our citizenry a state of feeling insecure.”

It didn’t stop there. Soon, the foot-in-mouth trajectory of Yanukovych’s rhetoric put a whole new spin on some of the big names in local poetry and industry.

So how does the word independence figure into the Ukrainian economy? Most of the export-oriented industry of southeastern Ukraine operates independently of domestic consumption.

Short of that, it’s one sort of dependence or another. The metals they pump for sale to China depend on cheap labor, cheap natural resources, cheap pollution, and “cheap” energy.

Kolesnikov's 25 percent figure for Donetsk oblast’s contribution to Ukraine’s GDP constitutes a steep decline from the “80 percent” urban legend that energizes every election campaign in the east. (The fact that Donbas did not pose as the sole donor of Ukraine's industrialization gets scant notice.)

Meanwhile, no such decline can be witnessed in the net worth of the local oligarchy. The sun never sets on the dons of Donbas.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/79308.html

How Tough Is Tymo?

She’s back. But is she tough enough?

Aside from Putin's history class, one of the major events I missed while being out of town was Tymoshenko’s peace voyage to Donbas. In a move highly reminiscent of the maiden voyage she had pulled on the eve of the Dec. 26, 2004 rerun, weeks before being catapulted to her first PM term, she started her second PM term on a soft, conciliatory note.

With a stronger personal support and a stronger opposition — both in and outside of the Orange Coalition — she faces a reality very much different from the euphoric landscape of the early 2005. The Orange Revolution is now history, but another presidential election is just a dream away. And there she is, ready to make that dream come true, ready to make history. So, the first thing she does as PM — her suitcase full of presidential ambitions — is beard the lion in his own den.

And she seems to have brought some pacifist Kitekat with her, Donbas being a region full of growth opportunities crucial to her nascent presidential campaign.

Judging from the soundbites that she spilled down the mineshafts of our minds, she is picking her battles carefully. She demonstrated a willingness to strike a deal with neutral Regionalist factions, a nonaggression modus operandi that would win allies and keep her focused on the coveted presidential prize.

Meeting with the victims’ families at the Zasyadka Mine, she echoed Donetsk Mayor Lukyanchenko, who embraced Zvyahilsky’s theory that shutting down the Zasyadka Mine may cause methane buildup with a far greater explosive potential. Below are some of the noteworthy statements she made there, a mishmash of activism and appeasement:

We believe that the Zasyadka Mine should not be closed. Instead, it should be developed, using sophisticated safety systems. We are to build a system of quality control in support of the safety system that will never again allow for such tragedies.

Despite grave violations of the leasing agreement, we can’t just shoot from the hip. It is necessary to carefully sort out things, and only then should we make decisions.

I want to uncover every fact, every detail.

In the next couple of days, I will set up a working group answerable to the Vice-Premier that will work on the legislation.

We will conduct a full-scale checkup of how the mine equipment was procured, of what funding was used in the procurements, and of how, basically, all the cash flows are moving. We will not leave anything unchecked.

We will set up a special housing commission that will analyze the living conditions of each of you.

After a while, once we’ve put in some work, we’ll meet in the same arrangement as now, perhaps as soon as a month from now.

We need to do things. Whoever wants to keep on struggling, let them struggle. I want to do practical things and bring order to the country, so let elections be on someone else’s mind.

We’ll be working further, and will make it so that being a miner in our country will be fancied by youths and children.

Just how many Cabinet members’ kids will want to become miners? Is she absolutely positively sure those safety systems will work? If methane buildup indeed happens to be the case, should we burn off the gas, or should we burn off the miners’ lives?

As long as these questions remain unanswered, they beg the question of whether the Prime Minister should endear herself to the miners at the cost of endangering their lives.

Meanwhile, PM Tymoshenko appears to have quietly abandoned her widely publicized campaign promise of abolishing conscription as early as 2008. Her burying the hatchet on this issue can be seen as an attempt to lessen friction with the slow-paced NUNS coalition partners, who control the military.

For people on the front lines, the status quo comes at a high price. A conscript died recently in a bullying incident, followed by the death of another miner at the Zasyadka Mine.

When you try to be all things to all people, you may eventually become president, but more people may die along the way.

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68888.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68880.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68867.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68878.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68875.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68874.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/23/68873.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2007/12/22/68866.htm
http://bayki.com/im/lica/timoshenko_matrix.jpg