RC#29: Bilingualism, Big Brother-Style

published in Eastern Economist #410, December 11, 2001

Once again, with an election in the wind, the issue of the Russian language in Ukraine rears its many heads.

            Just two months ago, it seemed that Ukrainian was on the fast track. The VR Science and Education chair had made a very public declaration that the installation of Russian-language software in Ukrainian schools was “unacceptable.” After some negotiating, the mighty Microsoft confirmed Oct. 19 that they would provide Ukrainian versions of Word XP and Microsoft Outlook XP for Ukrainian schools and finance localization in the first half of 2002.

            Then, at the end of November, the Verkhovna Rada was presented with six separate language bills, five of which propose declaring Russian an “official” language. “De facto, this would mean that Ukrainian will return to the times, not so long ago, when it had about the same status as Latin,” wrote Ihor Ostrovskiy in Den', a national daily, in a Dec. 7 article titled, “Ukrainians aren’t against Russian; they’re in favor of Ukrainian.”

            “All five bills are in violation of the Constitution,” noted Les Taniuk, chair of the VR Cultural Development Committee, “which does not include the concept of an ‘official’ language. This is yet another attempt to turn language into a fighting ring where the various factions can duke it out…”

            The capital was a-buzz this week with even more controversy, after the Moscow paper Trud [Struggle], a soviet-era leftover, published an interview Dec. 4 with President Kuchma, in which it quoted Ukraine’s leader as saying the Russian language should have official status.

            This sparked a wave of heated commentary. On Dec. 7, Mr. Kuchma denied that he’d been interviewed, saying he had only told a Trud correspondent that Russian should not be treated as a “foreign” language in Ukraine. “More comfortable circumstances for the continuing development of Russian might only be found in Belarus,” was Mr. Ostrovskiy’s response to the president’s remark. “If anything, Ukrainian citizens don’t have normal conditions for learning the state language – but no trouble at all mastering Russian.”

            More than 75% of general circulation newspapers and magazines in Ukraine come out in Russian, which clearly does not reflect the real number of Ukrainian speakers in the country [see chart]. The situation with books is far worse: for every Ukrainian book published, 56 Russian books appear on the store shelves, according to the VR Culture Committee.

            Hanna Chmil, deputy state secretary at the Culture Ministry, says, “As a Ukrainian citizen, my Constitution guarantees me unimpeded access to works of art of Ukrainian origin, including literature – and this I don’t have. For example, Russian is the primary language of broadcasting. And even in those instances where it doesn’t dominate, the cultural values and works it espouses are from another country, not mine.”

            Studio 1+1’s Yuriy Makarov is even more adamant: “Tell me, what’s been done in the last 10 years at the national level to counteract the effects of decades of russification? What breaks were given to Ukrainian book publishers? How is television being monitored to comply with language norms? …As a professional linguist, I can only say one thing: permission only confirms the status quo. And you know as well as I do, what that is.”

            “There’s no question that this issue has political overtones,” says Oleksandr Pavlichenko, director of the EC DIC in Kyiv. “It’s clearly designed to gain votes, particularly in eastern regions. The status quo of the Russian language in Ukraine today is very positive. To give it official status would mean automatic duplication of all official documents, including legislation, and would carry involve tremendous costs. That’s folly.”

            Meanwhile, Ukrainians may have found an ally in an unexpected corner. There was a congress of Ukrainians in Russia this week in Moscow, at which all kinds of people addressed the issue of Russian speakers and things Russian in Ukraine. In a meeting with a Ukrainian delegation, Russian Premier Kasyanov sniffed that his government was about to open a number of Ukrainian schools and he expected “similar conditions” for speakers of Russian in Ukraine.

            To comply with Mr. Kasyanov’s request and match Russian standards, Ukraine would have to swiftly start shutting down 90% of Russian-language pre-schools, public schools, institutions of higher learning, institutes and so on across the nation. It would immediately have to stop training at public expense Russian-speaking teachers of any level – including, possibly, teachers of the Russian language.

            There are 108 Russian theaters and 16 studios in Ukraine; most of them would have to go. The Lesia Ukrainka National Theater of Russian Drama would have to be renamed the Lesia Ukrainka National Theater of Ukrainian Drama. (And she could stop rolling in her grave at last, poor soul.)

            The government would have to forbid all documents of an official nature – contracts, memoranda, policy papers, company correspondence, government forms, state literature promoting programs not connected to tourism, and so on – to be produced in the Russian language. Companies who continued to negotiate and sign contracts in Russian would simply find that their documents had no legal validity.

            The Verkhovna Rada would have to immediately send packing those of its members who are still declaiming in Russian despite a long-standing parliamentary rule that all sessions are to be carried out in the state language, Ukrainian. They might consider allowing surzhyk – the half-and-half dialect many Ukrainian deputies speak – for up to six months while those deputies study proper Ukrainian. After which they, too, would risk being sent packing.

            Political candidates would be forbidden to campaign publically in Russian…

            Oops, I’m sorry, Mr. Kasyanov, but I’m afraid we can’t allow you to interfere in the internal workings of a foreign state – much as some people in Ukraine might love to! •

–from the notebooks of Pan O, with thanks to Den’.

RC#28: Bin Laden's Handmaiden

published in Eastern Economist #409, December 4, 2001

Lest the world think Ukraine is a slacker in the anti-terrorist coalition, I would like to inform you right here and now that Ukraine is putting in a noble effort.

            First its officials had their hands full putting paid to a number of naughty teens trying to send mysterious substances through the Ukrainian mail. Turned out to be buckwheat.

            Now it has its work cut out handling a young lady from Zaporizhzhia who has decided she would like to join Mr. Bin Laden’s harem.

            The first reports on Ms Olena Solod surfaced in a Kyiv paper about a week ago. At first, it seemed that the 28-year-old had decided she wanted to be Mr. Bin Laden’s “double.” She went to the local ZAHS, where births, marriages and deaths are registered, and applied to have her name changed.

            The head of the Kommunarsk District ZAHS, a Ms Viktoria Kuzmina, confirmed that Ms Solod had indeed applied to have her name, patronymic and family name changed and that the matter was being examined “according to our regulations.”

            "What might that involve?"

            “Well, we have 90 days to look into things before accepting or denying her application.”

           " Is there a possibility her application will be accepted?"

            “Well, we really can’t refuse an application without serious grounds.”

            "Such as?"

            “The police will check that she isn’t trying to evade an investigation by taking on a different name.”

            "So the name she chooses to take on has no relevance."

            “Not really,” said Ms Kuzmina, looking a titch uncomfortable. “We have no regulations governing that.”

            "Yet, as far as I know, the ZAHS does interfere when people try to register their babies’ names. People are regularly told that this name or that name 'doesn’t exist.'"

            Ms Kuzmina had no answer to that.

            Meanwhile, seeing the effect her first announcement had, Ms Solod decided to make some more headlines. Having applied to become “Osama Bin Laden,” she now wanted to become “Ladena.” Gathering a coterie of top-notch journalists at the Café Cléopatra, she announced that she had sent a statement to the US and Pakistan embassies in Kyiv:

            “I, Olena Valentynivna Solod, am applying to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to the person of Mr. Zlenko. I request that you assist a citizen of Ukraine rather than occupying yourself with trivia such as giving work to a potential pensioner by the name of Y.H. Kartashov. I need your assistance in one matter: Given that the life of the leader of the Islamic world, Osama Bin Laden, is in grave danger, please assist me in obtaining the frozen sperm of Bin Laden for artificial insemination. Even in the event that Bin Laden is physically destroyed, I want my son, born of Osama Bin Laden, to carry on his father’s business. If my pregnancy is successful, I will make every effort to take citizenship in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, so that I might become the next lawful wife of Bin Laden. I also intend to take my two small daughters to Afghanistan with me, so that, with time they, too, might become the young wives of Bin Laden.

            “During the term of my pregnancy, I promise not to smoke, drink, use drugs, or to have sexual relations with my current husband, so that there can be no doubt as to the genes of this child. Dec. 21-26 are the most auspicious days for me to conceive.

            “Thanking you in advance, Olena V. Solod, the future Osama Bin Laden.”

            Apparently, Mr. Solod is not too happy about the situation, but he’s used to it. He and his wife already had plenty of kids of their own, says the missus.

            "Weren’t there just two daughters?"

            “That’s now. But he had kids from his first wife… and probably from a mistress or two, too.”

            "How’s he going to feel when he can’t enjoy life with his wife for nine months after your historical conception?"

            “Oh, I told you already,” smiling, “he’s used to it…”

            "How about you, won’t you find yourself jealous?"

            “Oh, I’m quite prepared to live in a harem. I’m pretty sociable by nature and I’m sure I’ll find a way to get along with the other women.”

            In the meantime, Ms Solod wrote another letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requesting that she be accepted as official ambassador of the Taliban to Ukraine and that her apartment be designated an embassy:

            “Furthermore, I request that I be granted diplomatic immunity and that my correspondence, phone conversations and person be declared immune as ambassador. Please also register as official transport of the embassy a Moskvych-412 model car, arrange to issue me diplomatic plates, and set up security at the embassy building. The embassy’s press corps will be tasked to supply accurate information about Afghanistan. The embassy further plans to set up a Fund for the Support of Children of Afghanistan to provide humanitarian aid.”

            The letter concluded: “The embassy is already operating, even without official confirmation.”

            Curiously, the lady behind this truly original campaign has made no attempt to hide the fact that she has long intended to run for the legislature. In the Verkhovna Rada, this “Zaporizhzhian-Afghan” hopes to be able to express her “if not terroristic, then at least aggressive” feelings towards the Communists, “especially the likes of [leader] Petro Symonenko, who owns the Ilich Steelworks [in Mariupol] and leaks all that steel across the border.”

            It wasn’t clear, though, just how this charming young lady intended to apply for a spot in Bin Laden’s harem – from her seat in the legislature? One thing’s certain, that she’s going for a first-past-the-posts district, since at least three of Ukraine’s parties will definitely keep her off their lists: the CPU, the Party of Fans of Women, and the Patriotic Party - whose local branch is run by none other than the long-suffering Mr. Solod. In publicizing her whims, though, perhaps the lady doth express too much. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O, with a little help from Ukraina Moloda and UNIAN.

RC#27: Cynical & Corrupt – Who?

published in Eastern Economist #408, November 26, 2001

I came across an interesting story while sipping a thimbleful of gut-wrenching espresso in the VR cafeteria. It really made me think about corruption and how to do battle with it.

            For instance, just a few weeks ago, a commissioner at the Securities and Stock Markets Commission was murdered outside his home. Nobody had ever heard of the guy before this happened. And nobody has heard about him much since, either. I’m still trying to dig up something on that one.

            This particular story I was reading was about efforts to bring elected officials into line in the legislature. It’s also about the milder forms of “discouragement” that can be brought to bear against those who really try to do so.

            After a scandal several years ago involving cash and plain envelopes, the legislature introduced the post of commissioner to oversee the maintenance of standards among members of parliament and the government. The commissioner can set up an inquiry and call on witnesses during the process of investigating fiscal shennanigans. The findings of this commissioner are then adjudicated by a standards and ethics committee.

            Back in 1999, the legislature appointed a certain Ms Filkina to the job. Unlike her predecessor, who was very careful not to tread on any important toes, the new commissioner was asked to take “a tougher approach.”

            The lady did what she was supposed to do.

            The first thing that the commissioner found was that one member of the Cabinet had failed to declare a half-million dollar loan from another member of the same Cabinet.

            “Hah,” said the standards and ethics committee. “Small stuff.” The guilty member was issued a rebuke and nothing more was done.

            Then the commissioner found that a vice premier had failed to declare an apartment rented to him at below market value by the Transport Union.

            “Pshaw,” said the standards and ethics committee. “Even smaller stuff.” The guilty party was simply encouraged to declare the rental deal so that it would look above-board.

            Next, the commissioner found that a deputy had improperly applied parliamentary funds to his personal campaign in the previous election.

            “Dear me,” said the standards and ethics committee. “Totally trivial stuff, really.”

            Then Ms Filkina reported that key witnesses had been put under pressure not to cooperate with her in this case.

            “Let’s not get carried away,” said the committee sternly. “It’s really not on, to accuse the right honorable gentleman of such heinous things.”

            But the commissioner produced a recording of a telephone conversation where the irate elected official in question berated the person who was to speak to Ms. Filkina’s inquiry.

            “Hrummph!” said the standards and ethics committee, banging the gavel loudly on its desk. “We dismiss your findings on the grounds that there is insufficient evidence!”

            In three years, only once was any kind of mild penalty enforced against a highly-placed incumbent the commissioner had investigated. When a former minister was found to have received US $300,000 from a well-known magnate while still a member of parliament, the standards and ethics committee did suspend him from the legislature for three weeks.

            But it did so only after a delay of three months. This happened to coincide very neatly with a general election.

            It seems as though Ms Filkina has done her job admirably. But she’s had little cooperation in doing so. And she’s been sniped at from all sides, to boot. Called “Mrs. Longnose” and the “witch-hunter in chief.” One former speaker openly referred to the commissioner as “lacking political acumen.”

            There’s no doubt about that.

            The lady was foolish enough to really apply the parliament’s own rules on disclosure and conflicts of interest. Worse, she was really willing to tread on mighty toes. As she had been requested to do, from the start.

            Now, after three years of thankless endeavor, Ms Filkina has been told she will not be reappointed to the post. Normally, the position is renewed for a second term of three years. Of course, say her employers, she’s welcome to re-apply for the job along with everyone else.

            In effect, Ms Filkina has been sacked.

            Oh yes, the most interesting point about all of this. I read about this in The Economist. Ms. Filkina’s name is actually Elizabeth Filkin. She was investigating British officials and this all happened in London.

            I suppose we can look forward to the day when there is “only” this kind of coercion in Ukraine. More on Mr. Romashko next time.* •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

* See "Murder at the SEC" at www.wordsmith.org.ua for the full story.

RC#26: Road Rage

published in Eastern Economist #407, November 19, 2001

There are two kinds of road rage. The kind that involves stupid people getting angry and using their cars as weapons. And the kind that arises when decent people are killed for nothing. In the US, when mothers became angry about their kids dying in DUI car accidents, they started up something called Mothers Against Drunken Drivers. MADD.

            That’s about what I feel about the latest deaths by driving here in Ukraine. Oh no, don’t get me wrong. Drinking generally is not the problem since there’s a zero-tolerance rule in place among highway and street police. I feel Mad About Dumb and Dangerous Driving.

            Let me just read you the list of prominent people I know of, who have died in highway fatalities since we started publishing in February 1994:

July 8, 1994, George Yurchyshyn, 54, US citizen, director of the Boston-based Ukraine Fund in Kyiv and his two Ukrainian assistants, age 34, and 33: DOA

Nov. 13, 1997, Roman Lischynski, 57, Canadian director of the NATO IDC in Kyiv, and his driver: DOA

December, 1997, George Kuzmycz, US official dealing with nukes: DOA

Aug. 8, 1998, Oleksandr Veselovskiy, governor of Oschadny Bank: DOA

Mar. 25, 1999, Viacheslav Chornovil, 61, VR deputy, founder of RUKH and his driver, 35: DOA

Apr. 26, 1999, Borys Marusych, 49, general manager of UkrInMash: DOA

Apr. 30, 1999, Vasyl Vovk, Ternopil governor, and driver, seriously injured; other driver: DOA

Jan. 28, 2001, Oleksandr Yemets, 41, VR deputy, member of Reformy i Poriadok: DOA

Nov. 9, 2001, Gregory Hulka, 44, new US Consul General to Ukraine; his daughter Abigail, 10; driver Yuriy Kotyk: DOA

Conspiracy theories aside, there are plenty of preventable reasons behind most of these terrible, untimely deaths.

            To start with, Ukrainian highways are not patrolled. The DAI or state automobile inspection has posts, usually at oblast borders, where they require everyone to slow down to a crawl so that they can keep an eye on traffic. Mostly drivers get stopped only if they are speeding. At night and on holidays, these posts are frequently closed.

            The only kind of “patrolling” consists of a DAIchnyk or two waiting to catch speeders coming down a hill, out of a village, or around a hidden curve on the main trans-Ukraine routes, such as Kyiv-Rivne-L’viv. On other highways and secondary roads, you’d be hard put to find a cop anywhere, any time, even if you needed him.

            Secondly, post-soviet roadways remain dangerously ill-lit, even at major interchanges. The lack of gas stations, rest areas and other services for travellers mean there is little or no secondary lighting, either. Since older roads are frequently lined by overgrown trees, even moonlight rarely helps. Around the DAI posts, there is generally some serious illumination – if they’re working.

            Recently, the government has installed lighting around a few interchanges on some main divided highways. What’s probably making more of a difference is that, in two years, highways like Kyiv-L’viv have gone from having two off-road gas stations on a 600-km stretch, to having one almost every 20 km. These are generally well-lit, even late at night.

            Thirdly, there are no lighting regulations for commercial vehicles. Trucks and buses travel with few or no lights, rarely any reflectors. Only international companies and newer ones seem to adhere to any safety standards.

            For a fourth, many frequently-travelled Ukrainian highways remain in terrible condition. They are mostly two-way and two-lane with no dividers. They are often in terrible shape, with potholes galore and no markers. They often have narrow, broken or no shoulders at all. This means there’s nowhere safe to duck around an obstacle or avoid an oncoming vehicle.

            Finally, too many roads in Ukraine remain largely unmarked. You often can’t even tell what lane you’re in – let alone where oncoming traffic is.

            All of this is a recipe for murder and mayhem when you consider two critical factors on the drivers’ side: terrible habits from soviet days and a dramatic increase of all vehicular traffic in the last 10 years.

Dumb-and-Dangerous Habit Nº1: Driving at night with headlights off or only parking lights. Soviet drivers did it to “save” their batteries and headlamps, since there was little traffic on the roads.

Corrollary to DDH Nº1: Not replacing burned-out headlamps or parking lights. Driving the Rivne-L’viv stretch after dark in 1999, I nearly had heart failure when approaching us turned out to be not a motorcycle with a single faint headlamp, but a truck. Its only working light was on the far side! So I had no visual cues as to its width or relative location. To my right, of course, was a broken shoulder with a deep ditch.

            At least two of the fatal crashes listed here involved unlit vehicles on unlit sections of roadway. Most of the others were caused to some degree by poor visibility.

Dumb-and-Dangerous Habit Nº2: Passing others on two-lane, two-way highways, regardless of conditions, markings and distance.

Corrollary to DDH Nº2: Driving at excessive speeds regardless of the state of the driver, the road and the environment (pedestrians, cyclists, animals, stationary vehicles, etc.).

            Three of the crashes were head-on collisions while passing at high speeds. In the other three, drivers lost control under slippery or otherwise unsafe conditions.

Dumb-and-Dangerous Habit Nº3: The immunity factor. At least four of these accidents involved a Mercedes-Benz.

            Let me explain.

            One of the side-effects of the crony capitalism so common in the FSU is the “free-for-all” license plate and driver’s permit, as I like to call them. Certain highly-placed or well-connected people get specific letters on their plates that say “Don’t mess with me.”

            For a hundred bucks or so, certain people with connections can also buy themselves a permit. If their plate number fails to deter a DAIchnyk, they flash this, essentially saying, “I’m immune. Piss off.”

            So, whether the driver is drunk, reckless or a maniac, the cops won’t touch him. It is, in some sense, a license for the driver to kill – both himself and others.

            Many of those who have these plates or permits drive fancy cars, like Mercedes, that can do 230-260 kph (140-160 mph for the non-metric types) and feel like they’re standing still. And when they miscalculate, all that’s left to identify the dead is a few loose teeth.

            I hope I’m not the only one feeling a bit MADDD. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

RC#25: Revolution: Revealing, Revolving & Revolting

published in Eastern Economist #406, November 12, 2001

October Revolution Day is the old soviet holiday commemorating the Russian Revolution – to those of us who learned our history from books printed outside the Soviet Union. Traditionally, it was a day of parades here. Now it’s a day of protests: mostly, diehard communists protesting the new world order and, occasionally, non-communists holding counter-protests.

            To make things a bit more confusing, October Revolution Day is Nov. 7, thanks to a religious muddle with calendars. A 10-day leap forward was announced by Pope Gregory XIII in March 1582 to compensate for time lost due to Julius Caesar’s imperfect 365.25-day calendar. Three turn-of-the-century leap-years later, the gap had grown to 13 days.

            The Russian Church, of course, refused to accept the new calendar, an example of the anti-scientific conservatism it continues to exhibit to this day. The Bolsheviks, not giving a fig for Church or State, finally adopted Pope Gregory’s version in February 1918. But the old-calendar name stuck to what was now their “November” revolution.

            Ukraine’s Communists are not faring so well these days. They tried fillibustering passage of the Land Code in a truly soviet way – blocking the voting process, engaging in fisticuffs, stealing voting cards and tearing up ballots. But they failed [see RC#23] and the Code was finally passed Oct. 25. Ironically, this was the turning point in the old October Revolution.

            In response to threats of further disruptions and a lawsuit, Deputy Speaker Stepan Havrysh warned a few days later that if the Left continued to interfere with the Rada’s work, he would institute a “sheriff” to keep order in the VR. In addition to the current 5-day ban from the session hall, Speaker Havrysh threatened to introduce fines for “bad behavior,” which he figured would dissuade 90% of deputies from being really disruptive. In Japan, he added for good measure, a legislative “cop” is allowed to use a rubber billystick to whack any deputy who gets too aggressive, once.

            So, on the 84th anniversary of the Revolution, the usual marches took place in major cities. But a trend is a trend, and the trend was distinctly down in most parts of Ukraine.

            In Donetsk, a little over 600 people braved the chilly weather to complain. In Kharkiv, briefly the capital of Ukraine under Stalin, only 200 people showed up. In Chernivtsi, deep in the heart of Bukovyna, 300 hit the streets.

            Mostly these leftists were complaining about President Kuchma and the corruption they see throughout the country. Many were also demanding that Mr. Kuchma reunify Ukraine with Russia and Belarus. It seems they weren’t too concerned that Russia is every bit as corrupted and that Belarus is run by a petty tyrant. As usual, many of the Communists also demanded Kuchma’s resignation.

            One exception was Luhansk. Sitting on the border with Russia but less russified than Donetsk, it benefits less from a fluorishing local mafia. Despite having a complete facelift on its train station two years ago, widespread poverty is clearly getting to the locals. 1,500 of them turned out to say so.

            In the nation’s capital, Kyiv, seven political parties had registered to march on Nov. 7. With moon-faced Communist boss Petro Symonenko leading the way, over 5,000 faithful walked the standard route from the Arsenal to Yevropeyska Ploshcha (ex-Komsomolska), in front of Ukraine House (ex-Lenin Museum).

            This time, the march was led not by one-foot-in-the-grave pensioners, but by children wearing revolutionary hats and waving signs saying “Long Live the Great October Socialist Revolution!” “No rehabilitation for Bandera!” and  “Ban the sale of land!” Three great revolutionary themes, the first two of which are historically Russian.

            Against this backdrop, Mr. Symonenko railed against what he called the country’s “pro-American” foreign policy. The righteous path is eastward, he shouted, in lockstep with Russia and Belarus. Only on this path does Ukraine have a chance of surviving was his somewhat contradictory conclusion. Never one to miss the opportunity for a little campaigning while there’s free media coverage, Symonenko added: “Ukraine’s salvation lies in uniting Communist and non-party representatives at the next election. I hope that the People will make the right choice.”

            All this was in direct disregard of the fact that the majority of the People – or their elected representatives – had, among other things, clearly passed the Land Code: the vote was 232:2. Self-preservation, if nothing else, has also led Ukraine’s legislature to clearly reject reunification in any form.

            But the Communists seem to still have a Revolution sympathizer in high places. That same day, Mr. Kuchma visited a major farm show where he stated, for the umpteenth time, that he would sign the Land Code – “but not today.” The president said he had a letter for the VR with about 40 “suggested” changes. Unlike Stalin, he can’t just jackhammer his own version through, but he can certainly stonewall the Rada’s.

            Then came the kicker: “Lenin promised land,” said Ukraine’s democratically-elected president, “and we have carried out his promise. The land is being given to those who work on it.”

            Mr. Kuchma seems to still consider diehard communists a core constituency. He probably hasn’t heard that a growing population of young people in Ukraine thinks Karl Marx is a fancy chocolate maker in Kyiv.

            The speech was broadcast on channels across the nation. To some viewers, the Head of State looked a bit drunk as he spoke. Well hey, this was historically a celebratory day.

            Meanwhile, the first sitting of a public trial against the crimes of communism, Nuremberg-2, took place that same day, organized by the Youth Committee Against Communist Crimes. And for the first time this year, President Kuchma did not declare Nov. 7 a national holiday.

            I think I’ll raise a glass to this. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

RC#24: The Hunt for Grey September (2)

published in Eastern Economist #405, November 5, 2001

It all started in late September, when the Minister of Ecology, Serhiy Kurykin, announced that he was turning down the use of an official car. His reason? Because pollution had become so bad in Kyiv. But he didn’t offer any statistics to back up his claim. And the data that was finally rustled up [see RC#21] left a lot to be desired.

            Typically, getting some standard information like pollution levels in a major city is anything but straightforward in the post-soviet bloc. Western papers started publishing pollution indexes back in the 60’s. In Ukraine, it seems to be regarded as a security risk to make this kind of information available.

            My suspicions are twofold: that they don’t really have any reliable statistics to this day and that they just want to make a little spare cash on what data they do have. Nevertheless, I promised an update on the hunt for Grey September, so here it is.

            I tracked down someone, a moonlighting reporter called Anastasia, who had a contact in the Ecology Ministry. But she came down with a bad case of the flu and was incommunicado for a week. College dorms in Ukraine have one phone line for a couple of hundred out-of-town students. And the ladies manning the lobbies don’t consider taking messages part of their job description.

            I figured as long as Anastasia didn’t come down with amnesia, I’d be OK.

            Meanwhile, I decided to try a few other leads. I called the All-Ukrainian Environmental League. They promised to look for some materials, but I never heard back.

            I called USAID, which has an environmental program, but the man authorized to talk about it was out of the office. I left a message for him to call back. He didn’t, but I managed to get through to him the following day.

            “The numbers are real, as far as I can tell,” he told me. “The number of vehicles has definitely increased, for starters. They aren’t new cars, either, and older vehicles tend to give off more exhaust.”

            “I thought most of the older soviet cars have diesel engines. Aren’t they supposed to pollute less?”

            “Theoretically yes,” he said, “but if the car isn’t new and the engine isn’t properly adjusted or tuned the right way, a diesel engine can pollute even more than a gasoline one.”

            In other words, he seemed pretty confident that the sudden surge in pollution in 2000 was a major influx of diesel-driven, badly maintained used cars. I had my doubts, but I thanked him politely and waited for Anastasia to call.

            Finally, she managed to recover and give me the name and number of the contact person at the Ecology Ministry. I immediately called them and asked for Yevhen Zynovievych. Things are never so simple in Ukraine, however. I asked him to comment on the table we had been given by DerzhKomStat, the state statistics committee.

            “Oh, I can’t answer that,” said Mr. Zynovievych. “You should call the Department of Hydro Meteorology. Talk to Viacheslav Lepynskiy. He’s your man.”

            I called Mr. Lepynskiy.

            “He’s at a meeting,” said the engineer who answered the phone. “And tomorrow he’s off on a business trip. I’m afraid you won’t be able to reach Mr. Lepynskiy.”

            She was nice enough, however, to give me the number of the director of the Central Geophysical Observatory, Oleksandr Kosovets.

            I got through to Mr. Kosovets the next day. I explained to him what the problem was. Apparently, the Center measures the overall pollution level in Kyiv. But given that about 80% of waste is generated by fuel exhaust from vehicles, he said he could comment on that. So I gave him the numbers:

Exhaust from vehicular traffic, ’000 t

                 1997            1998            1999            2000

Kyiv             55.1            54.7           52.3            137.8

Ukraine    1,433.0        1,884.5       1,747.0         1,949.2

Source: DerzhKomStat

            He thought about it a bit and said, “The numbers for 1997-99 look OK. They’re pretty realistic. But 2000 seems out of line, for sure.”

            “So what do you think is going on?” I asked.

            “Well, of course the number of cars is growing. But not to an extent that would increase pollution levels that much. Besides,” he said, “the quality of gasoline has improved. I’m afraid I can’t explain the figure you have for 2000.”

            Moreover, Mr. Kosovets said, pollution levels measured by his Center have been quite stable over the past few years. “There haven’t been any huge increases that we’ve seen.”

            “Can you provide the figures for pollution levels in Kyiv?” I asked him.

            “Well, ye-e-s,” he said, “I can. But it’s not free of charge.”

            “How much?”

            “A small report will cost three figures.” About a month’s wages.

            I thanked him politely and said I would think about it. At least I have his number.

            While all this was going on, some interesting developments took place with the Ecology Minister himself. On Oct. 18, Mr. Kurykin asked to be relieved of his duties as a VR deputy. Theoretically, he really shouldn’t have remained in his seat all along, as a minister. [The Ukrainian system is not strictly parliamentary. The majority party does not form the government.] In any case, the Verkhovna Rada responded with alacrity, booting him out on a vote of 317 in favor.

            Could it be that Mr. Kurykin has been conscience-struck by the questionable numbers his office provides? Maybe he also wants to know whether a lot of mothballed dirt monsters suddenly hit the roads of the capital in 2000. With any luck, he might even develop some proper data-gathering methods and launch a proper – and free – pollution index. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

RC#23: Selling Mom

published in Eastern Economist #404, October 29, 2001

Before passing a Land Code becomes equated with selling Mom and Apple Pie down the river, let’s put something down for the record.

            “Motherland” is not a word Ukrainians use. The word for a person’s homeland is bat’kivshchyna, a name used, for instance, by Yulia Tymoshenko’s party. It comes from the word bat’ko and bat’ky, which mean father and parents in Ukrainian. Russians, on the other hand, use the word rodina, which means place of birth. Neither nation uses the term "motherland" in ordinary circumstances.

            However, when Russian-speakers really get hot and bothered about nationalism and stuff – like the Germans and their Vaterland – they start to get very Romantic about the homeland and refer to it as rodina mat: the motherland. This is the name of the titanium lady brandishing her sword over the Dnipro river and the Paton Bridge. In other words, them’s fighting words.

            That’s how some of Ukraine’s communists used the word this week during the Land Code debate in the Verkhovna Rada. The resulting madness and mayhem would have beat the best ratings for Survivor, had it gone on in English and been broadcast in America.

            But Mr. Yurchuk, our intrepid VR observer, has done a fine job of describing the hysteria in the cover story.

            The main point is that a Land Code was passed. And that the real debate on land ownership in Ukraine has hardly begun.

            The question of owning land has been a tricky one ever since humans first began plowing it next to each other. But not the question of ownership per se, as the communists would have it. The question of who owns it and how they own it.

            The communists would have all land “collectively owned,” in the hands of the state. But theirs is a system where “l’état, c’est nous” is the unspoken rule – "nous" being the Communist Party, of course.

            The good question is what they really mean by “Only idiots sell land,” “Selling land is selling the motherland,” and “Land is holy.”

            First, “Only idiots sell land.” If you can get perpetual use of 1,000 hectares of land from your buddy, the Agriculture Minister, at no cost to you – other than a little whining and dining at government cost and 10% of all the yield every year, also at government cost – why would you want to pay for it?

            And only an idiot would try to sell it to you. I mean, why sell it, if you can peddle the use of the land among your buddies, and collect all kinds of “benefits” in perpetuo, in return for all the favors. After all, if you sell it once, you can’t sell it again, right?* The guy who bought it from you, probably at far too low a price in the first place, gets to sell it the next time, often for a lot more than what you got for it from him. So why would anyone in their right mind want to sell land?

            How about “Selling land is selling the motherland”? As I said, them’s fighting words. The Russians, like the Americans, understand that you have to have some bottom-line issues and fundamental slogans that get everyone standing tall with a rifle in their hands. Well, the men, at any rate.

            For the Americans, it’s Mom and apple pie. Who knows why “apple pie” when pumpkin pie and turkey dinner are far more American than apples, but there you have it. There’s no logic to propaganda.

            Nevertheless, when the message gets out that Mom and apple pie are under threat – Mom alone wouldn’t work: Americans wouldn’t want anyone to think they’re sissies, or Italians or something – when the word gets out that these twin icons are under attack, all but the most perverted hophead hippy understand that it’s time to mobilize.

            For the Russians – and most Ukrainian communists are crypto-Russians – it’s Rodina Mat. The mother birthplace. The motherland. Once again, Mom alone won’t do the trick to get all those handsome young Slavs to go out there and be cannon fodder. The threat of Siberia was historically much more effective.

            But put together mother and land, in an agrarian culture, and you’ve got the magic combination. The song whose tune millions of soviet-era pensioners have been humming ever since their parents and grandparents were killed or exiled or both before and during the Holocaust Famine of 1931-3.

            The tune that millions of soviet-era veterans learned to march to while tens of millions of their brothers and sisters died in the trenches in WWII.

            The tune that millions of farmworkers – read modern-day serfs – hear while they continue pulling yokes through the fields and ride wooden carts pulled by horses to market. It promises them that they will be able to keep growing their own vegetables and chickens on a tenth of a hectare so that they can survive on no money at all. And it reminds them that even Ivan Tarasiuk, the private farmer down the road with his shiny rented tractor and Dupont chemicals, is an evil threat.

            Finally, there’s “Land is holy.” Coming from a bunch of atheists, this is a real conundrum. Land is holy.

            Well, say you worship at the altar of materialism. Say you know you’re sitting on 25% of the world’s best black topsoil, chornozem. Say you want to benefit for eternity from the bestowal of land use rights. And say you see that your own capitalists are busy exploiting left and right and taking the profits offshore, while you don’t even have a single secret bank account.

            Of course, land is holy. It makes all those things possible.

            And if it stays in your collective hands – well, then, like the lilies of the field, you will never have to toil or spin to reach paradise.

            How do you know? Jesus said so. Right in the bible. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

* Well, maybe you can, but that’s a topic for another column…