40 years of work leaves you with $100/month, not enough to pay for utilities.
The rest goes to first-class citizens who worship all things Soviet.
Woman 3: I, Valentyna Volodymirivna, want to particularly address Lukyanov and Chechetov: What do I have to do — how should I get down on my knees before you — so I’LL NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN HERE? HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT, HUH? YOU SHAMELESS ONES! I’ve worked for 40 years, I’m disabled due to cancer, and my father died during the first days there, in the war. He wants to see your flag? He doesn’t want to see this humiliation that you cause us! And you think he has interest in your flag! You can put it wherever you want, put it on, go out, have fun, get drunk in your palaces! But don’t touch us. And you [opposition] keep fighting. As sick as we are, we’ll help you. Trust us. And our grandchildren stand ready to help you. So that we’ll never have to see and hear these “wand wavers” [imitates Chechetov] — illiterate “wand wavers”— because all they have is their big mouths, down to their knees! I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
5:37-6:42
Signing the Soviet flag into law
Shut up, you crazy old Untermenschen! Go dig a grave and wait for the go-ahead from the AMF!
Woman: Yatsenko Lyudmyla Stepanivna here. Mr. Yanukovych, I’m that woman who, 5 years ago, came showing you a League of Bila Tserkva Entrepreneurs pin and was asking for sound legislation. For that pin, your teammates at the time — when you lost in the first round — would pound me with their feet. They [later] switched to a different party...
Yanukovych: I’d like to ask you — I’d very much like to ask you — to name publicly the names of those who dared touch a woman — those fellow party members of mine, as you put it. Please name them. I really want...the names of the specific people who laid a finger on you.
Woman: I don’t know how I’m going to live in Bila Tserkva [if I name them]. [applause]
Yanukovych: Well, in that...in that case...in that case, leave your number and address. As early as tomorrow morning — tomorrow morning — you’ll have my...[nods his head]...people come to you...who...to whom...who will hook you up with me on the phone. And please supply all the papers. We will deal with it. On these issues, I’m telling you, I’m a man of principle...OK? There will be a definite response — a definite one — you can count on it. I don’t know any tough guys in Bila Tserkva whom we won’t find. [applause]
Original: имена, людей, которые вас конкретно тронул пальцем My translation: the names of the people who specifically laid a finger on you Comment: конкретно (konkretno), as in чисто конкретно can be translated as absotively posilutely, no shit, etc
Original: которые свяжут вас со мной My translation: who will hook you up with me Comment: связать (svyazat) also means to tie somebody up
Meet another man of principle from the Party of Regions: MP Oleh Kalashnikov (no pun intended). This man, a then-MP, attacked reporters in 2006.
After a 3-year exile, he now appears to have been pardoned by the Party of Regions top brass, not to mention the Office of the Prosecutor General.
Enjoy a memorable moment from Tymoshenko’s political talk show-shopping last Friday night.
Savik Shuster, host: I, together with my colleagues, friends, decided, in July, that I no longer wanted any owners. And…do you like this studio? PM Yulia Tymoshenko: You did it, but you…
Shuster: I did it all! Now, let me tell you… Tymoshenko: We don’t have a lot of Saviks.
Shuster: No, no, no, no, no! Yulia Vladimirovna,* we took out loans in August…well, at the end of July, we took out loans, we invited the French — using Ukrainian know-how, French know-how — we built it, we did it, at the shortest time possible, we took pride it, and then…it crashed. We now have all our salaries slashed by 50 percent. We’re not firing anyone because we…then we’d have to turn off the lighting, turn off the cameras. You know we can’t do this, right? Nobody’s willing to lend, that’s it, right? And if they are willing, they charge such interest rates that, I don’t know, one should have you from morning till night — all the time, you understand, all the time — to have a high rating.
Tymoshenko [turns the linguistic lapse into laughter]: Who should do what? Hahaha! Shuster [senses his faux pas]: Yes, that’s what I’m saying. What should we do?
Tymoshenko: Hahaha! What should you do, Savik? Shuster: Yes.
Tymoshenko: You should make honest “Svoboda Slova” broadcasts, even for free, if that’s what the country needs.
*Patronymic transliterated from Russian
By the way, she took her shoes off during one of the commercial breaks.
Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky did not earn the nickname "Космос" ("Kosmos") for his spaced-out public appearances alone. He earned it for his lack of gravity toward the public good in the avalanche of land decisions and zoning polices sponsored by his office.
On "Shuster Live," the man presented his side of the story:
Kyiv Mayor Leonid “Kosmos” Chernovetsky: It’s like a… Talk show guest: From space, coming from space! Chernovetsky: Uh…exactly! It’s a cosmic policy and it has nothing to do whatsoever with reality.
Savik Shuster, host: Listen, it’s interesting, why do they call you ‘Kosmos?’ Chernovetsky: First of all, let me tell you…
Savik Shuster: He’s just, he’s just…I-I-I got the notion from him, he didn’t just say ‘from space’ for nothing. Talk show guest: I said it accidentally, almost accidentally.
Chernovetsky: Savik, it’s an honor for me, because many of the decisions that my administration makes along with the Kyiv City Council which I have the honor to preside over — they are completely unusual for Ukraine. These are completely novel approaches that the ministries and the Cabinet may view as ‘cosmic’ and may present them as such. But I’m proud that they are unlike anything that has happened before in Ukraine.
He’s right. No other mayor in Ukraine has made so many decisions in such a short period of time — land decisions, that is.
Bolstered by the buckwits who sell their votes for a pack of buckwheat, he and his party are running for parliament. Fasten your seat belts. This is just the beginning!
Volodymyr Lytvyn: If we have resourceful teachers, if we have resourceful parents, we won’t have untalented kids. One last thing: I am confident that in families where the parents take interest in everything, the kids won’t need to be taught how to read.
Savik Shuster: Thank you. Can you tell us why you’re crying? Who do you want to be when you grow up? Girl: A killer. [roar of laughter from the audience]
Savik Shuster: A killer? Girl: Dear politicians…
Savik Shuster: But killers don’t cry. Girl: Dear politicians, there you are, accusing each other of all kinds of thieves…thievery, but you all know — and, you know, Mr. Prosecutor [camera catches Piskun], too, will probably corroborate — that wrongdoers and criminals will always come back to the crime scene. Why do you always come back to power? Why don’t you let me live? Why don’t you let me voice my opinion?
Savik Shuster: Could you tell us your name? Girl: Sofia.
Savik Shuster: Where are you from? Girl: I’m from the city of Lviv.
Savik Shuster: And how old are you? Girl: I’m 15.
Savik Shuster: And where do you study? Girl: Um…at school. [squeezes out a laugh]
Savik Shuster: I understand that. Girl: I’ve also been an active member of the Children’s Academy of Sciences for three years.
Savik Shuster: Wonderful! Do you promise us not to cry again? Girl: No, I’m not a politician to promise anything.
A gripping video, isn’t it? This girl isn’t kidding, is she? The emotional yet mature grasp of Ukrainian politics she demonstrates should make the “powers that be” think — before it’s too late.
When she says “I’m not a politician to promise anything,” she makes it sound like “that’s not the shape of my heart.”
Now look at her hairstyle. What do you see?
So how long before payback time begins? How long before we have folks like Mathilda and Léon the Professional scouring this country, screwing back the proFFessors who screwed them?
Much of Ukrainian politics can be construed as a one-way contact sport whereby a bunch of ballsy individuals bang the people silly in every conceivable way.
They turn power into money, and money into power. They turn votes into poverty, and poverty into votes. This perpetual bliss is called stabilnist, and it's the only thing that turns them on.
But when something — or someone — threatens to disrupt stabilnist and turn it into a two-way street, it’s nothing short of Apocalypse for them. The angels of stabilnist start crying blue murder. They can’t get enough of that sexy time!
Undoubtedly, the Lutsenko-Chernovetsky episode involved behavioral patterns that broke the rules of civil conduct. But there’s more to it.
By bringing the land issue out in the open, this episode also broke the not-so-secret behavioral code whereby political opponents often treat each other like friends, but treat their voters like shit. It’s the same code that helps certain individuals in the Kyiv City Council find common ground — or should we say, common land — and force Kyivites on the sidelines. At the end of the day, the people play by the ruleswhile the politicians they vote for play with the rules.
Below is a fragment from Savik Shuster’s Svoboda talk show on Inter. The program aired Friday night, hours after the act. Lutsenko joins the studio on the phone, at approximately 04:00 minutes into this video.
Yuriy Lutsenko, Minister of the Interior: Good evening, dear Savik! Good evening everyone who’s watching and listening. Uh, I couldn’t miss this broadcast, despite having promised not to make statements for the media during the first 100 days of my office as Minister of the Interior. I will tell you briefly why today’s incident took place, and will outline it.
Today, a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council was held on the issue of land grabs in Ukraine. Uh, many different officials said feel-good things, and I was one of them. Without naming names, I cited cases of utter land lawlessness and land grabs of thousands of hectares worth of priceless Kyiv land — all of it without reference to the incumbent Mayor of Kyiv. I talked about similar things happening in Kyiv oblast and in the Crimean Autonomous Republic.
As the meeting drew to a close, I offered a hands-on solution. The Office of the Prosecutor-General should not just challenge the illegal activity of, say, the Kyiv City Council — which has already started pillaging hospitals, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, the Kyiv Fortress and so on — but to file charges and attach these contested land plots so that they will not pass into the hands of con artists.
After all the attendees favored the initiative to form a joint task force of Prosecution, MoI, and SBU, and to set up special land courts — for this problem concerns all of Ukraine — I finished my speech. After this, there was a statement by Chernovetsky, who said the following: “Viktor Andriyovych [Mr. President], Lutsenko extorted me for land, allegedly for police purposes, and if I refused, he promised to arrest my son.”
I was shocked. I remember one occasion…I met with Chernovetsky twice in my life: once at a Kyiv City Council session, and once in my office. So once — before the [2006 parliamentary] elections, before he became head of the City Council — he called me and told me that the former Kyiv City prosecutor is putting the pressure on a law enforcement officer to arrest my son, Stepan Chernovetsky, before the elections, on suspicion of involvement in the housing fraud of the Elita Center, which stole hundreds of millions worth of people’s money invested in the construction of dwellings.
I said, “Mr. Chernovetsky, here’s my credo: ‘I don’t fight the kids. This is a no-go.’” So I gave an order to Kyiv police to interrogate Mr. Stepan Chernovetsky, son of the incumbent Mayor, after the elections, so that it would not be exploited in the political faceoff. And when today he brutally exploited this — and turned the issue on its head — I was shocked. I said it was a lie. After that, 20 minutes passed. The meeting of the National Security and Defense Council finished. The President thanked everyone for a job well done and, accompanied by other officials, left.
I called out to Chernovetsky and said he was a liar — that he was the bastard in this situation, for normal people don’t act this way. I made a human thing, keeping in mind that even the Sicilian mafia doesn’t fight the kids, least of all the Ukrainian government. [Comment: The Sicilian mafia in La Piovrabehaves differently. And much of the Ukrainian government, in fact, does behave like mafia.] And for this I got backstabbed with an absolutely untruthful and sordid accusation.
After that, Mr. Chernovetsky — in a manner he’s been acting all his life — hit me cunningly in the knee that still hurts from the days of Maidan. I’ve just been to the hospital and have made all the arrangements to document this. I gave Chernovetsky a face slap — all the governors have seen it. With the palm of my hand, I gave a man’s, or manly, if you like, slap to a person who lies and schemes in his position as Mayor of Kyiv. I must disappoint Mr. Oles Dovhy [Deputy Mayor of Kyiv, 27]. I will not make apologies, for I believe that it was an absolutely mean act — heaping lies on me after all I had done.
Oles Dovhy, Deputy Mayor of Kyiv: It’s not Chernovetsky you should seek apologies from, but from the people, and that’s it.
Yuriy Lutsenko: It’s absolutely mean to hide behind the President’s back, and it’s absolutely mean to hit a man in the knee under the table, for I know who does it — it’s jailbirds who do this. Apparently this skill will come in handy for Mr. Chernovetsky. But someplace else. I’m not going to apologize, and I believe that I acted as a human, as a citizen, and finally, as Lutsenko. In this case, I can understand Mr. Chernovetsky: He will buy off everything, just as he bought off Kyiv. He will buy off the doctors, he will buy himself a medical certificate [as proof of battery], and let him do it. I will remain Lutsenko and am not going to apologize to scoundrels and thugs.
Savik Shuster: Subject closed. Oles Dovhy: I would like to add some detail…
Savik Shuster: No, subject closed. We have to take a commercial break. Oles Dovhy: I didn’t ask…
Savik Shuster: Please, Mr. Dovhy [roar of applause]… That’s it. We’re closing. That’s it. We’ve heard both sides. Oles Dovhy: I didn’t ask Mr. Lutsenko to apologize to Leonid Mykhailovych [Chernovetsky]. I would like to ask him to apologize...
Savik Shuster: …to the nation.... Oles Dovhy: …to the people…
Savik Shuster: That’s it. Thank you. We’ll be right back after the commercial break.
Below is an audio fragment from ICTV’s Svoboda Slova talk show, the arch-rival of Inter’s Svoboda — which Savik Shuster cloned when he changed channels last year. Chernovetsky can be heard licking his wounds in a rather pathetic way.
Leonid Chernovetsky, Mayor of Kyiv: He stormed out of the crowd, and hit me twice…uh…in places that men usually take pride in — that’s point number one.
Andriy Kulykov, Host: You mean the head, right? [Comment: What kind of sick freak are you? Can’t you think of anything else? Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that some powerful men in this country take pride in “places” other than the head?]
Leonid Chernovetsky: And point number two, he hit me in the face with his fist, and instantly he was held back by several ministers and administration chiefs. Of course, I naturally pulled myself forward to fight him back, but to my greatest disappointment, I didn’t have the opportunity. Now, that was a nightmare! Just imagine, what should we do in a country where a minister, in the presence of the country’s key figures, punches someone in the face and crotch?
Damn, I thought that turning the other cheek — or whatever — was the Christian thing to do. Isn’t it what you stabilnist folks preach to us?
Joking aside, most Kyivites would agree that Lutsenko and Chernovetsky owe them an explanation. After all, analysts consider them the two major contenders for the job, should mayoral early elections be held as promised by the Orange camp.
In the spirit of clean fighting, the two should settle the score by taking independently monitored polygraph tests on the land issue and by reporting the test results to the public. Let the public see whose side of the story has more truth to it.
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” as the CIA motto goes.
