Smug Pro-Yanukovych MPs Scolded by Struggling Seniors

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!

Arbeit Macht Frei!

Sources:
http://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/okara/4dc5998b4d194/
http://1tv.com.ua
http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/24046/person_id/1.phtml
http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/24057/person_id/1.phtml http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/24054/person_id/1.phtml

Soviet Show on Maidan

♆krainian colors, Soviet choreogra☭hy.



Not that I'm new to ☠ligarch Entertainmen☦, but this one caught me by surprise as I was walking downtown last Saturday.

And you know what they call it? “Майданc” (“Maidan’s”) It’s a carnival-like dance contest that brings together the cities of Ukraine. Last Saturday’s contestants: Odesa, Kirovohrad and Kharkiv.



Looking at all that Soviet memorabilia in motion, I had a couple of flashbacks.

April 1989. I’m one of the top three students to be promoted to the rank of pioneer (Soviet boy scout). In second grade, a whole grade ahead of the curve. We’re rock stars!

The “rite of passage” took place in the Lenin Museum, just a few blocks from here. In just a few years the USSR would be history.

And what about these kids? How old are they? What the hell are they doing?

If you're an oligarch and you want this for your kids, check out these tutorials.

Regionalist Compares Yanukovych to Skoropadsky

True friends stab you in the front.

MP Volodymyr Vecherko (Party of Regions): Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych, much like Hetman Skoropadsky, has said it and keeps saying it everywhere, that Ukraine is a nation...and it has the right to determine, on its own, which way Ukraine should go. Is that clear or not?

MP Andriy Parubiy (NUNS): Don’t you equate Hetman Skoropadsky and your chief. I’m begging you.

Host: Gentlemen...

Vecherko: Let me, let me, let me once again...today he’s the president and takes responsibility for the entire nation of the country.

Yanukovych=Skoropadsky? Hope you have a self-fulfilling prophecy there!

(Remember that WW I autocrat whose puppet regime facilitated the German occupation of Ukraine and went the way of the Germans?)

So how do the two compare to each other?

Yanukovych clearly lacks Skoropadsky’s redeeming feature: anti-Bolshevism. Unlike Yanukovych, Skoropadsky siphoned food (not iron) from Ukraine, and thus didn’t need gas from Russia.

Put that issue aside, and Yanukovych becomes a faithful follower of Skoropadsky. He’s the man for the job! As long as Hetman Yanukovych remains in charge, Ukraine will remain oligarch/IMF-occupied territory.

Isn’t it great to have a commodity colony right outside the EU’s door? One with the population of California+Virginia, and the GDP of Utah?

Who wants to lose a steady supply of live-in maids, sex slaves and €5M Courchevel bday parties?




Sources:
http://censor.net.ua/ru/video_news/view/151329/partiya_regionov_viktor_fedorovich_yanukovich__kak_getman_skoropadskiyi_video
http://5.ua
http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/21597/person_id/1.phtml
http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/21850/person_id/1.phtml

Chervona Ruta ’89: Ukraine’s Woodstock

Enjoy these rare videos from the festival that propelled Ukraine’s national revival with the power of music.

Ukrainian music really rocked back then!















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

Ukraine’s Anthem in 14 Languages

Enjoy the fullest compilation!

Some look a bit unnatural, comic and over-multiculturalized (the get-together one below, sung in Ukrainian).



At the end of the day, we’re not a nation of immigrants. I mean we’re not as ethnically diverse as Canada, Australia and the US. (That may change as we borrow another 7 billion dollars from the IMF and lend another 7 million of our population to the great beyond.)

The point is, when it comes to ethnic makeup, we’re more like France, Germany and Poland. It’s just that we’re a bit less Westernized and more Russified.

In other words, we’re not Europe. We’re not the West. We’re stupid savages that trade nukes for nothing and tolerate crooks. We’re Eurasia, a label promoted by the US Department of Sweet Harvests and Reset Buttons.

That said, it’s important that Ukrainians of all creeds and colors live in the spirit of e pluribus unum. In this regard, learning to speak Ukrainian as fluently as one’s mother tongue would be a plus:)

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


Greek


Tatar


Gagauz


Polish


Romanian


Georgian


Yiddish


Romani


Russian


Hungarian


Belarusian


Armenian


Azeri

Videos embedded from: http://inter.ua/uk/video/episode/independence

Putin Confuses Khersones With Kherson, Rus With Russia

Putin meets Yanukovych halfway as the two compile a joint history textbook.

PM Putin: Here, not far from here, in Kherson, in the 10th century, in 988, the then leader, the head of the Old Russian state, Prince Vladimir, embraced Christianity and then baptized Rus.

Well, that makes 10th-century Constantinople the capital of what? The Ottoman Empire?

And Christianity came to Rus via the Old Russian Black Sea Fleet, at the behest of the then mayor of Moscow, right?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/166143.html
Original source: http://tsn.ua

Yanukovych Addresses Nation on Sovereignty Day

To Yanukovych, sovereignty means something else.

President Yanukovych: As president of the state and as the guarantor of the Constitution, I am filled with resolve to secure the internal and external political factors that will allow our people to feel that government irresponsibility has once and for all become a thing of the past. European prospects and developing strategic relations with centers of world politics, including the Russian Federation, will secure us economic prosperity and social progress. Thus, with dignity, we will carry on with the cause initiated twenty years ago. Happy holidays to you, dear compatriots!

2:22-3:06

Want to study one of the world’s funniest languages? Try Ukrofficialese.

OK, what else, Mr. President? Constitution! That name rings a bell. You two are shacking up at Mezhyhirya, right?

How generous of you to spend €1M of your €23K/year salary on those birthday party artists. After all, your official salary makes up 1000% of Ukraine’s nominal GDP per capita.

Makes Ukraine’s flag go upside down!





Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/165303.html
Original source: http://5.ua
Photos: http://www.pravda.com.ua/photo-video/2010/07/15/5224135

Kids Praise Yanukovych in Soviet-Style Song (Full Version)

Welcome to another Lost Generation! ☭owered by Cradle-to-Grave Brainwahing $olutions™.

Now that I have the full version, let me take the liberty to translate the refrain, rhyme by rhyme.



Uncle Vitya, strong and powerful
Uncle Vitya, an uncle who can rule
Uncle Vitya, an uncle who's heaven-sent
Uncle Vitya Yanukovych, a smart president

Hey girls, you forgot “Uncle Lyosha, a smart prosecutor.”

I mean Oleksiy Bahanets, the Lviv oblast prosecutor who uses a $100K Lexus CX 470, with a police license plate that the police can’t identify.

Every Friday, according to Express.ua, that Lexus gets loaded with bagfuls of something that travels from Lviv to Kyiv.










Uncle Lyosha calls the story an “invasion of privacy” and wants the reporters disciplined.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he's just an honest man who owes his fortune to “Climbing for Dollars.”



Sources:
http://tabloid.pravda.com.ua/news/4c19c4a598492/
http://www.pravda.com.ua/photo-video/2010/06/17/5150341/
http://www.expres.ua/main/2010/06/10/37753

5-Year Olds Sing Yanukovych Songs, Soviet-Style

Ever heard one of those Soviet kids' songs that idolize the Great Leader?

Well, here’s a fresh one. Welcome Ukraine's not-so-unlikely 2011 Eurovision entry!

Uncle Vitya
Strong and big

Uncle Vitya
There’s no one like him
Uncle Vitya Yanukovych
A smart president

Reporter [asks in Russian]: Who is a president?
Girl [responds with a Ukrainian-inflected и]: Yanukovych.

Reporter [continues in Russian]: What does he do?
Girl [responds in Russian]: He tells...all the people...what to do.

Courtesy of: Barbie Jazz, a children’s ensemble that brings back the good old days of Stalin’s personality cult.

There’s a romantic side to this. It turns out the director of the Luhansk-based ensemble admires Yanukovych’s grandsons and would love to have them marry his girls.

Hey girls, looks like you have your gender work cut out for you, in a couple of five-year plans!

Could one of these blasts from the past do an album with you, feat. Uncle Vitya?



Debut single suggestion: “Woman, Step Aside Please” (feat. Azarov)



Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/161058.html
Original source: http://tsn.ua
Collage: http://durdom.in.ua/uk/main/photo/photo_id/16482/person_id/1.phtml

Russian MP Calls Ukraine ‘Edge,’ Angers Audience

Україна (Ukrayina) means different things to different people.

To some, it means країна (krayina), Ukrainian for country, region or land.

To others, it means окраина (okraina), Russian for outskirts, borderland or edge.

Naturally, to most Russians, Ukrayina means okraina, not krayina. Ironically, despite this marginalization, it also means a place — the place — from which they trace their statehood.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Konstantin Zatulin. He’s one of those Russians, and a member of Russia’s parliament at that. He’s a veteran crusader who can’t get enough of patronizing Ukraine now that Yanukovych lifted his persona non grata status.

Zatulin: A few years ago, on the program “Where Did Ukrainians Come From?” (it was on Ukraine’s Channel 1), they asked this question, to everyone: Who are Ukrainians? I said: Those are the Russians who live on the edge, and historically it’s precisely how it is. And I want to point out that, in fact...

Audience: Boo!

Host: You see how the audience is responding.

Zatulin: I want to tell you that my relatives and I myself moved out of the Poltava Governorate, Ukraine, two hundred years ago. Living on the edge is a great historical...a great historical advantage. That’s why... And we, too, live on the edge, if you will: in the East, in the West. You don’t...you don’t have to react like that.

Host: Thank you! Please, please, please, ask your question, pani Hanna, pani Hanna, I'm asking you, please ask your question.

Herman: I want...I want to express...I want to express an official protest to the Russian Federation representative...

Zatulin: [exclaims in dismay]

Herman: ...saying that Ukrainians are the Russians who live on the edge. It is an insult to our people, pan Zatulin.

Host: Let's, let's, please, please, please, your question, please.
Herman: I want you to understand that.

Zatulin: I see...I see that, toward the end of our program, the sense of humor is beginning to fade. OK, let’s say those [Ukrainians] are the Old Russians who live on the edge.

Nice hit-and-run strategy! First, you tell us we’re fringe elements. Second, you sense trouble and soft-pedal. Third, you call it a joke. Hahaha!

Now here’s the real joke. If you call your country Rossiya and trace it to Kyivan Rus (quite a stretch), why in the world would you call Kyiv okraina?

Was Kyiv founded by Muscovy? Or maybe Christianity came to Kyiv via Muscovy?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/159635.html
Original source: http://kanalukraina.tv

Anti-Tabachnyk (Tobaccoman) Campaign Kicks Off

Q: A Ukrainophobe runs the ministry of education of what country?
A: Ukraine.

Q: One minister calls another “cheap clown” and “embezzler” in what country?
A: Ukraine.

A lot of Ukrainians want to smoke Dmytro Tabachnyk out of a job. In Ukrainian, tabachnyk means tobacco man.

In 1994-1997, he served as Kuchma's chief of staff. After joining the Party of Regions, he made his mark as a pro-Kremlin publicist who bashed all things Ukrainian and clashed with the Akhmetov-Kolesnikov group. MP Borys Kolesnikov (now Vice PM) once called him “cheap clown” and “embezzler.”

On Wednesday, the АнтиТабачна кампанія (AntyTabachna kampaniya) kicked off in Kyiv and Lviv.

The rally in Lviv gathered a few thousand people, some of whom collected Soviet history books and works of Marxism-Leninism for burning, as initially reported. According to later reports, the books will be pulped, not burned. (We should leave the burning business to those Crimean Russians who burn Ukrainian history textbooks and IDs while chanting “Fascism shall not pass!”)

The rally in Kyiv gathered a few hundred Tabachynyk opponents and a few dozen supporters outside the Ministry of Education. It opened with a brawl but proceeded peacefully after police intervened.





























P.S. Tabachnyk has promised to keep views to himself and to go by the Constitution.

If he wants to go by the Constitution, he better hurry because his boss is beating him to it.

With Yanukovych a Debate No-Show, Tymoshenko Goes Solo

She knew he wouldn’t show up.

She even made this truth-against-mud commercial to capitalize on his absenteeism.




Once in the studio, Tymoshenko made the best of her one-upwomanship. Enjoy these three videos!

Video 1


Tymoshenko does not rule out the possibility of Yanukovych joining her and discusses the benefits of staring at a vacant spot.

It’s just important that the vacant spot would not then occupy the presidential post in this country. That would be very unfortunate and wrong.

Video 2


Tymoshenko talks about 2 Yanukovychs: the airbrushed Yanukovych in commercials, billboards, teleprompter speeches v. the real Yanukovych in terms of IQ, values and policies.

And believe me, all this huge false advertising, all these huge false billboards — it’s just falsehood, as is any advertising.

She also trashes the real Yanukovych for failing to disclose his detailed vision, his team and his PM of choice. She grills him for being a vacant spot, a coward.


Video 3




Tymoshenko draws the line between the honest hardworking ordinary people of Donetsk and their bloody thuggish mafia government, as she puts it.

To illustrate, she portrays the late Yevhen Kushnaryov as a maverick-martyr whose death while hunting three years ago must have been a murder. She doesn't mention Kushnaryov's Ukrainophobic and separatist credentials.




See the guy in the right corner 1:43-1:45? That's Oleksandr Feldman, one of Yanukovych's trusted allies in Kharkiv in the '04 election.

Since '06, he's been under Tymoshenko's wing. Speaking both in Ukraine and abroad, MP Oleksandr Feldman (BYuT) routinely equates the UPA with the Nazis and has sponsored related legislation.

As Jewish organizations denounce the UPA while praising their own freedom fighters, Feldman sides with them but strikes a middle ground on the Holodomor.

He has been raising awareness of the Holodomor in Israel, amid Western media reports of “Ukrainian guards worse than Nazis.” He has even protested the Israeli ambassador’s statement on Israel’s non-recognition of the Holodomor as genocide.

However, MP Feldman argues that it was a genocide of the Ukrainian people, not of ethnic Ukrainians per se. He also insists that the Bolsheviks behind the Holodomor and, by extension, behind the October Revolution and the Gulag “have no ethnicity.”

Back to Tymoshenko. When she said the word “explosions,” she probably wanted to cite another example, but got lost in her talking points.

And, yes, she didn’t mention Lozynsky.

Videos embedded from:
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/146830.html
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/146881.html
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/146883.html
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/146885.html
Original sources:
http://5.ua
http://www.1tv.com.ua

Ukraine Marks 92nd Battle of Kruty Anniversary

On January 29, 1918, 400 Ukrainian cadets defended Kyiv against 4,000 invading Bolshevik troops, as Bolshevik Russia sought to overthrow Ukraine’s independent government.

The battle took place at a railroad station near the village of Kruty, 130 km (81 mi) northeast of Kyiv.



Today, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko attended a remembrance ceremony and even exchanged a few words before observing a moment of silence.

Tymoshenko, who campaigns on a patriotic platform, desperately needs Yushchenko voters’ support to win the February 7 runoff.



So don’t expect her to laugh at Putin’s jokes until at least Valentine's Day.

Video uploaded from: http://newzz.in.ua/main/1148837869-ukrayina-vshanovuye-pamjat-geroyiv-krut-video.html
Original source: http://tsn.ua

Yanukovych, Tymoshenko Crisscross Ukraine

The love-bombing air assault continues. They need every vote they can get.

Tymoshenko goes after Tihipko-Yatsenyuk-Yushchenko voters. Yanukovych stands little chance of winning over Yatsenyuk-Yushchenko voters, but he does have some chance with Tihipko voters.

Channel 1+1 follows both candidates on their campaign trails.

Same rallies, same concerts, same receptions, same promises, same interviews, same endorsements.

Yanukovych in Mykolayiv: I don't get much sleep at night, but I think everything will be alright.

Your powerful voice has been heard all over Ukraine.

Tymoshenko in Lviv: I want to ask you to help me not to lose this main, important battle of this particular presidential election.

More updates. In Kyiv, where people break bones on icier-than-ever sidewalks or burn themselves by falling into negligently open manholes, Yanukovych scored 16%. This prompted Deputy Mayor Irena Kilchytska to declare herself a Yanukovych supporter.

Speaking at a rally in Lviv, Tymoshenko also said this: “Had I lived in 1918-1919, I would have definitely been among the Sich Riflemen. Because it was a real struggle for the freedom and glory of Ukraine.”

Asked twice whether she would have joined the UPA if she had lived in 1944, Tymoshenko uttered no sound and walked away.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/145908.html
Original source: http://tsn.ua

Unity Day 20 Years Ago: Kyiv-Lviv Human Chain

On January 22, 1990, Ukrainians took to the highway to make a human chain that united Kyiv and Lviv.



With Ukraine still part of the USSR, the move symbolized the Ukrainian resurgence (or rather its early perestroika-driven signs) after centuries of foreign domination.

Today, Yushchenko finally awarded Stepan Bandera with the honorary title of the Hero of Ukraine.

Video embedded from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7JfYDP698E

An Ethnic Russian UPA Vet Tells His Story

In this Channel 1+1 report, Volodymyr Chermoshentsev, an ethnic Russian, recalls his past: He fought in the UPA.



After the Bolsheviks killed his father, amid the man-made famine in his native Povolzhye village in 1933, he and his mother and aunt found the situation even worse in Ukraine, settling in Crimea.

Captured by the Germans in 1942, he escaped captivity only to be captured again and then freed by the UPA, which he joined.

Because, naturally, he spoke Russian, the UPA initially treated him with suspicion but finally appointed him an aide to a UPA commanding officer.

The UPA mainly fought the NKVD, not the Red Army, Chermoshentsev says.
Captured and tortured by the NKVD, he managed to escape to the Crimea, to his mother, and later got 10 years for stealing grapes and dodging the draft. Had the Soviet authorities learned about his UPA involvement, they would have probably executed him.

After Ukraine became independent, Chermoshentsev’s story became the plot of a UPA book of memoirs.

Volodymyr Chermoshentsev: I took an oath to love Ukraine, the Ukrainian people. I’m even proud of being called a Banderite — yes I am — a Banderite, not a nobody, not a somebody-for-somebody, but for Ukraine.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/135954.html
Original source: http://tsn.ua

UPA Marks 67th Anniversary

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) that fought both Hitler and Stalin during WW II turned 67 yesterday.

As always, the UPA vets who gathered in downtown Kyiv drew catcalls from the Communists protesting nearby.



In this Channel 1+1 footage, the first UPA vet decries being a “second-class citizen,” under-recognized and under-compensated by the state of Ukraine, for which he fought. The second one, a bit more cheerful, touts a German-made MP-40 submachine gun, also widely used by Soviet partisans.

On the other side of the barricade, the first Communist lady refuses to calls them humans and the second one calls them “up to elbows in blood.” A Red Army vet emphasizes that it was he, not the UPA, who defended and liberated Ukraine.

Toward the end of the first footage, a Ukrainian Navy officer calls for reconciliation between Red Army vets and UPA vets, citing civil war-ravaged Spain as an example: “They fought for Ukraine, and it’s important.”

The footage ends with the rallying call of Ukrainian nationalists: “Glory to the nation! Death to the enemies!”

Turbulent, violent and divisive, history doesn’t heal easily. Elderly people cannot be reconciled against their will. But they certainly do deserve recognition and respect from current and future generations.

The thousands of UPA Ukrainians who fought for their native land deserve it no less than the millions of Red Army Ukrainians who fought for theirs.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/135952.html
Original source: http://tsn.ua

Ukraine Marks Babyn Yar Massacre Anniversary

On September 29-30, 1941, more than 33,000 Jews perished in the Babyn Yar ravine in Kyiv, machine-gunned by the Nazis, in what became the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust.

Later, thousands of Gypsies, Ukrainians and other people followed the Jews into Babyn Yar, including 621 members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and poetess-activist Olena Teliha. Altogether, an estimated 70,000-120,000 people lie buried in the mass grave.

On September 29, 2009, President Yushchenko and Premier Tymoshenko attended the Babyn Yar Memorial.



To bring the tragedy alive, local actors staged a short historical reenactment. A monument depicting a scene from Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel was opened.

Sources:
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/134414.html
http://www.tvi.ua
http://deathcamps.org/occupation/byalbum/list00.html
http://kiyany.obozrevatel.com/news/2007/2/1/27623.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/ru/news/2007/9/29/64522.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babi_Yar

Patriarch Kirill Talks Tough in Donetsk

As Patriarch Kirill went from Kyiv to Donetsk, his “tough love” sermons went from argumentative to aggressive. His 10-day pilgrimage of Ukraine turned into a political campaign event, not quite as advertised.

In Donetsk, his point man was the region’s pro-Russian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych, who staged a royal reception for him. An orchestra hailed Patriarch Kirill with “God Save the Tsar” and “The Patriotic Song” (Russia’s anthem 1990-2000). (Not exactly a Ukrainian repertoire, isn’t it?)

A live-broadcast public church service gathered tens of thousands of people and saw Yanukovych — the ultimate heaven-sent candidate — ride Patriarch Kirill’s coattails.

Patriarch Kirill: It won’t enter anyone’s head to use political or national or cultural or other arguments to justify the breakup of a family, the divorce of a husband and wife, the orphanage of children under living parents. No arguments...no human ideals can justify a schism. No human dream, no political idea, no national ideal during the two thousand years of Christianity has ever been achieved and realized through division of the body of Christ. Where there is division, there is blood flowing out, there is energy lost, there is unity separated, there app...appea...appears factionalism in place of unity, and lost is the ability, among other things, to achieve goals set for the people, for the nation, for the state.

“Where there is division, there is blood flowing out...” Wow! That’s a piece of powerful Christian imagery! In other words, “you do this, we do that,” right?

Your Holiness, are you aware of the East-West Schism? Have you ever heard of Muscovy’s self-proclaimed “Third Rome” title? Before asserting itself over Kyiv, hadn’t the church in Muscovy split from Constantinople — and, for that matter, from the Kyiv Metropoly — in 1448?

Do you think it’s Christian of you to wear a €30K watch while keeping most of your congregation in the dark — and as poor as church mice? Who benefits?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/128553.html
Original source: http://inter.ua

Russian Patriarch Kirill Patronizes Ukraine

When I say “pastoral visit,” I don’t load this term with any paternalism whatsoever, with any “looking down on” whatsoever. I came here as a pilgrim.

I learn constantly and it's not a cliche: I like hearing people's voices, conjugating this diverse choir of human thought. When I say “pastoral visit” — I came here as a pilgrim, to pray and ponder with the congregation.

—Patriarch Kirill I of Moscow on his visit to Ukraine

In other statements, Patriarch Kirill poses as a boss, not as a pilgrim or a preacher. After all, thanks to a twist of history, he runs Ukraine’s biggest church: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).

I took the liberty of dissecting some of his statements.

President Yushchenko: Naturally, the greatest aspiration of the Ukrainian people is to live in a unified, whole, local, first-apostolic church.

Naturally, President Yushchenko overstated his case. The church is hardly the #1 value in any secular industrial society: The quality of life is. Nevertheless, having a unified church that does not take orders from the Kremlin would be good for Ukraine’s independence.

And bad for the Kremlin.

Patriarch Kirill: This church, Mr. President, does exist. There is an local church in Ukraine. If there wasn’t, there would be no Ukraine today. There’s no imperialism here whatsoever, no domination of one over the other. There’s a clear Orthodox ecclesiology here: the Patriarch is the father — for everyone. Regardless of the color of the passport in your pocket, the state we live in — he is the father of all who belong to the Orthodox Church that falls under the single jurisdiction headed by the Patriarch.

Your Holiness, are you elaborating on Lenin’s famous quote “Есть такая партия!” (“There is a party like that!”)?

Speaking of history, I thought Christianity came to Moscow via Kyiv, not the other way around. Also, I thought the church in Moscow had been part of the Kyiv Metropoly until proclaiming itself autocephalous in 1448. Why do you think that Moscow’s efforts to secure independence from Constantinople are holier than Kyiv’s efforts to secure independence from Moscow?

On top of that, I thought Moscow was founded by the Prince of Kyiv, and not the other way around. Which brings us to the ultimate question: Are you here because of Christ or because of Caesar?

Some people think you're here because of Caesar.

President Yushchenko and Patriarch Kirill exchanged the above statements while attending the Holodomor Memorial on June 27 — each in their own way, as you can see. After all, the Holodomor is something that Russia rarely recognizes, much less claims any responsibility for.

No wonder, Patriarch Kirill, who presides over the pro-Russian branch of Ukraine’s Orthodoxy, said the following about the Holodomor:

A famine, a terrible famine wrought by concrete political causes and complicated by, also, natural cataclysms led to great numbers of people perishing — in Ukraine, Povolzhye, North Caucasus, Southern Urals, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan. It’s a common hardship of the entire people that lived, at that time, in one country.

Patriarch Kirill also expressed hope that “the tragic circumstances of our history will not foster the development of fraternal hate-mongering historiography.”

Your Holiness, sweeping genocide under the rug is not a brotherly thing to do.

Technically, the Jews who perished at Auschwitz, Treblinka, Buchenwald and Babyn Yar and the Germans who killed them had lived in one country: The Third Reich. Now, according to some historians, up to 150,000 Jews served in the Wehrmacht. Moreover, the Germans certainly killed more Slavs than Jews. Does that relegate the Holocaust to a non-event? Does that dilute Germany’s moral responsibility for the Holocaust? Did a million of Russians starve during the Blockade of Leningrad because of “natural cataclysms?” Bad weather? Crop failure?

According to your logic, probably yes. According to German law, definitely no.

Keeping in mind that Russia is the sole legal successor to the Soviet Union, how can we be sure it won’t happen again if we dilute responsibility?

As Patriarch Kirill basked in publicity, his bag of tricks grew all the more paternalistic, moralistic and apologetic. It exploded in a live-broadcast prime-time interview on Inter, Ukraine’s #1 television channel, on June 29.

Just a few quotes, gleaned from various sources (unfortunately, I didn’t watch the interview):

When nowadays I’m being told that in order to acquire the Ukrainian national self-identity, we need new names that divide Ukrainian believers — I’m not even talking about Russians and Ukrainians — but names that divide Ukraine itself, this logic eludes me.

I am deeply convinced that in Ukraine there should be no experimenting with names that divide the country itself.

Your Holiness, I don’t recall John Paul II being that judgmental and mentorial toward Ukrainians during his June 2001 visit here. That’s despite the fact that Poles and Ukrainians had fought each other bitterly throughout history and have different historical perspectives.

Or how about this one:

Recently, the Council of Europe adopted some resolution that places Nazism and Stalinism on an equal footing. I’m no proponent or defender of that Stalin era. But here’s what we should now perhaps think about. Both Nazism and Stalinism are repressions, including those against their own people, as is the case with many other regimes that existed. But how does Nazism differ from any other system? It differs by its hate-mongering.

Your Holiness, are you saying Stalinism involved less hate-mongering — and perhaps more humanism? Based on what calculus? If we compare the number of Russians (alone) who died from Stalin’s repressions with the number of Germans who died from Hitler’s repressions, which number will be greater — much greater?

Moving on:

Stalinism is a repressive regime and, in a sense, a criminal regime because as a result of this regime’s actions innocent people were dying. That said, it was the Soviet Union that laid the biggest sacrifice on the altar of liberating both its own country and the entire world from what had posed a threat to the entire human civilization.

So, to prevent the 25 million lives lost by the Soviet Union in WW II from falling into oblivion, one should describe Stalinism as the lesser of two evils? And we can talk about the Soviet Union's liberation of Eastern Europe from Nazism without mentioning the strings attached by Stalin?

Can we remember our human sacrifice — unmatched by any Western or Eastern country — by repressing the facts of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact?

Can we honor those millions of people by keeping mum on Stalin’s cannon-fodder warfare and post-WW II Gulag?

Amen.

Sources:
http://podrobnosti.ua/society/2009/07/28/618621.html
http://newsme.com.ua/ukraine/politic/161248/
http://news.bigmir.net/ukraine/167582/
http://www.imk.com.ua/ru/news/info/67317
http://www.rosbalt.ru/2009/07/29/658945.html