RC#5: Madness Multiplied

published in Eastern Economist #380, May 14, 2001

Menu madness

When I strolled into the VR dining room for my usual repast the other day, I found instead of the usual array of soups, salads and salo, “This week: Candidate’s Choice” writ up in huge blue letters above the menu du jour, and I read with some trepidation what our ladies of the aprons were putting their imaginations to this time:

This week: Candidate’s Choice

Starters

Aspic Azarov

(wobbly and not quite accessible)

Yushka Yushchenko

(the one thing you can survive on in a pinch)

Entrees

Dumplings Dubina

(a plain if somewhat greasy item)

Holubtsi Hladiy

(all wrapped up in buckwheat)

Krucheni Kinakh

(needs lots of spicing to work)

Mushrooms Medvedchuk

(can’t always tell the edible from the poisonous)

Omelette Omelchenko

(everything in it, including the sidewalk)

Mystery Meat

(for the candidate no one dares to name)

Desserts

Makivnyk Marchuk

(nice when baked, deadly when boiled)

Tortyk Tyhypko

(a sweet tart)

Horilka Horbulin

(crystal clear and nasty)

            The list is starting to look as impressive as the presidential roster two years ago, I mused as I looked over the food on its plates. Perhaps this is the president’s secret tool for testing the national appetite, so to speak. As for me, I refuse to say which I picked, on the grounds that I might incriminate myself, but suffice it to say, the dish I chose was up to its reputation.

King Canute on the Dnipro

The powers-that-be in Ukraine have had quite the time this past month, manipulating the schedules of 49mn human beings at the wave of a cheap pen in the back room. Whereas a year ago, there was at least two weeks’ notice about the complete shutdown of the country for an entire week between May 1 and May 9, this year’s first shuffle was announced merely two Fridays before May Day and the second shuffle was decided late on Thursday, just before the weekend that people were suddenly supposed to pretend didn’t exist and come to work anyway. So much for spring weddings, graduations, school outings, shashlyky in the woods, trips home to Mama and Tato or to pick up the kid from the grandparents, etc. etc. etc. Now for the line-ups as tens of thousands of Ukrainians rush to cash in their reserved tickets on planes, trains and buses and the massive rush to buy new ones – if they can be had on such short notice. A few brave organizations – including commercial banks, bless the NBU’s rational soul – bucked the trend and took the Cabinet at their word that this was official but not mandatory, but most Ukrainians spent a miserable Saturday and Sunday after the four-day May Day saturnalia pretending to work – especially bookkeepers since the banks were closed – and left before lunch the following Tuesday already soused for their five-day Victory binge. Given the dreadful non-stop war movie marathon that most domestic TV channels offered up in lieu of entertainment over that period, horilka was probably the most fun thing in most houses. It’s a miracle that anybody could stand up straight on Monday morning, when time came to show up May 14 for a normal week of work once again.

            The question is, what next? Having so handily messed just about everybody up this year, why stop at human schedules? Perhaps next year, we will see the president asking the Cabinet to consider moving inclement weather away from his holiday times, or decreeing that all mushrooms are edible so people no longer need to think twice about taking their kids along picking in the woods. Or formally enshrining the popular belief that horilka is a vegetable and therefore people can drink it five days in a row and their life will be prolonged, not pickled. Or here’s a good one: how about declaring that from now on all drivers can see in the dark, so the country doesn’t have to worry about painting fluorescent strips on its narrow highways or fixing up mid-lane potholes and eroded shoulders, let alone putting up lights at dangerous intersections. Think of the millions of taxpayers’ hryvnia saved that can now go to paying for official dachas and weekend junkets with the mistress in Budapest. Or, how about decreeing Ukraine a market economy, building himself a throne on the shores of the Dnipro, and daring the global forces of commerce to touch his tootsies.

–from the notebooks of Pan O