Kyiv Military Parade 2009

A Military Parade Turns Into a Military Festival

Today marks the 18th anniversary of Ukraine's regained statehood. Ukraine is coming of age — in a very difficult, crisis-stricken age.

It wasn't quite as sunny as last year, but the flags were there.


August 23 is Flag Day in Ukraine









Give peace a chance!






















After a rather soporific speech by President Yushchenko, the parade finally kicked into gear. It went well, albeit in an unusual mode: the troops marched in sync with the aviation, not separately as before. (According to news reports, the President was 9 minutes too long, which upset the flight schedule.)









Ruslan and Mriya (the world's biggest cargo aircraft)





Yet what began like a parade ended up like a puzzle: the tanks wouldn't come. That pissed many people off. Well, only those people who didn't make it to Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square).





I did make it — through those nasty police cordons.
And, lo and behold, I found my favorite toys standing motionless there — from Independence Square all the way to European Square...

...with swarms of kids crawling all over them.














































Older kids deserve special note. I, for one, couldn't resist the temptation to mount one of those toys and have my fair share of fun. I











I haven't done this since I was a kid enjoying myself in the open-air artillery section of the WW II Museum.

Woohoo!




















Rationally, I still contend that the money would have been better spent on the military's urgent needs. But emotionally, I concede that the touch’n’feel approach created an interesting break with the watch’n’listen tradition.








The flower clock! Amazing piece of work!


Evening edition









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

Women in the Ukrainian Military

Antique hardware. Miserable pay. They can do it!



Sources:
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/130545.html
http://tsn.ua

Independence Day Military Parade Rehearsals

I don’t think it’s a good idea to hold a Hr. 70M military parade — for a second consecutive year — amid the country’s deepest economic crisis since the ‘90s.

Our military’s acute fuel shortages and constant power outages further illustrate my point.

But all is fair in love, war and a presidential campaign.





Sources:
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/130293.html
http://5.ua
http://stb.ua

Tymoshenko's Cleavage to Conquer Voters' Broken Hearts (Updated)

As Dmitry “Dr. Kremlinzer” Medvedev tries to fix Yushchenko's pro-Western head, Tymoshenko serenades her lovelorn voters — with her cleavage.



The charming braidless white-clad lady debuted at the opening of the Odesa Opera Theater's 200th season. I said debuted because, to the best of my knowledge, she had never exhibited that vote-getting part of her body before.


Now, if she jokingly calls her campaign ads “social advertising,” what does she call her recent public appearance? Social therapy?




Bravo, Yulia! You know I don't love you anymore. But I do think it's a much healthier lifestyle than staying at home, Kremlinizing neighbors, vlogging a dead horse and master Russia/slave Ukraine-bating.

UPDATE
Can she keep up with Vera Lengsfeld?



Sources:
http://tabloid.pravda.com.ua/photos/4a890e644657d/
http://www.kmu.gov.ua/control/uk/photogallery/gallery?galleryId=235700356&
http://daylife.sky.com/imageserve/022s9Utgrp1ZX/340x.jpg
http://www.gomopa.net/GMPCMS/attachment/GoMoPa.NET_3512795659495983.jpeg

Thank you for reading Ukrainiana!

It's time to recharge my batteries. See you in two weeks. Stick around!:)

Tymoshenko: We’re the Team of Salamanders

Her party’s Viktor Lozynsky thrived on medieval rules of engagement. Her party’s 10th anniversary speech thrives on medieval mythology.

PM Yulia Tymoshenko: Both during our first and second terms of office in parliament, there were people who behaved indecently. But today we’re different and we’re capable of purifying ourselves, capable of getting stronger. And all the things that we need to wash and take to the cleaners and renew our white, clean, bright and beautiful color of our banners — I think we’ll do it. We’re the team of salamanders that gets annealed in this flame, in this blaze, gets stronger, builds character, finds ways, restructures its ranks. And today we’re stronger than all the spetsnazes, Alfas, Berkuts, and SEALs combined. Because you and I are a team. No matter what they say about third-party candidates, it’s all a big illusion, a big deception that, you know, as in the case of the third leg: it looks like you have it, but in reality it just keeps you from moving. The responsibility rests with us, Ukraine’s entire pathway rests with us, and we’ll be doing everything to make it worth the while.

So you’re *the* team of salamanders? Then why do your salamanders smell like skunks and behave like hyenas? Why do they mass-troll Ukrayinska Pravda with praise for the Queen of Salamanders?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/127074.html
Original source: http://5.ua

Ukrainian Hryvnia 49% Undervalued, According to Big Mac Index

After a two-year hiatus, The Economist has finally updated its Big Mac Index.

Since 2007, Ukraine's currency, the hryvnia, has lost 50% of its value against the dollar. The change in the hryvnia's undervaluation has been less dramatic but remains staggering: from -41% to -49%.

While not scientifically precise, this rate makes for good comparison shopping: It makes Ukraine a Third World country.

It comes on the heels of just about every other index that leaves us far behind the developed world, despite Ukraine having an aerospace industry.

And as world metal prices are picking up, it comes as terrifically good news for our energy-inefficient commodity-cursed oligarch-controlled McDonbas economy.

Ours is an economy that thrives on cheap labor and cheap natural resources. The outcome? Poor living standards. A net population loss of more than 6 million people during the last 18 years.

Why reform? Why fight corruption? Why invest in energy-efficient equipment? Why diversify the economy? Why pay Ukrainian workers decent wages if they can survive on $300 a month without protesting like those German workers who make $30 an hour?

Just pay the damn Ukrainians their slave wages. Don't let them earn enough to buy homes. Let them blow up in coal mines. Let them drink. Let them stay depressed. Let them die out so we can have the land, too. After all, unless they can make us treat them better, they deserve no better treatment. Therefore, let 5 percent of the population prosper and let the rest struggle.

Meanwhile, we the oligarchs can pollute, we can exploit and we can export. We can pump billions of dollars into offshore accounts. Hell, we can even spend a few million dollars on charity! Just keep the hryvnia undervalued. Let the Ukrainian Dream remain just that — a dream!

Sources:
http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14036918

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