36_ENG

JUNE 12, 2018 ISSUE No. 36 (1168)
Tel.: +38(044) 303-96-19,
fax: +38(044) 303-94-20
е-mail: time@day.kiev.ua;
http://www.day.kiev.ua
Artist Andrii
Yermolenko
drew a series
of placards on
the 2018 FIFA
World Cup
in Russia and
explained why
it must be
boycotted
Continued on page 6
“IN ORDER TO BRING
THE WORLD TO ITS SENSES…”

2
No.36 JUNE 12, 2018
DAY AFTER DAY
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
By Volodymyr KOSTYRIN
Photos by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day
This is only the first part of the
project, which has already
found a broad response among
viewers, particularly on
YouTube. Although the subject
the author broaches is rather
complicated, the audience reacted
approvingly. The film’s author
himself, who was born and raised in
Luhansk, stayed behind in his native
city until September 2, 2014, and
saw the dramatic events of Russian
aggression against Ukraine. Later
on, Valentyn Torba wrote a book, I, an
Eyewitness. Notes from the Occupied
Luhansk, on the basis of his reminiscences
and diary. The film is sort of
the author’s video reproduction of
his reflections on those events.
“My book, published by the newspaper
Den, must only be viewed in the
reference frame of two other books in
the ‘Contemporary History for Dummies’
series,” Den’s journalist Valentyn
TORBA says. “A prolog of
sorts to it is Ivan Kapsamun’s book
‘The Trap,’ or A Case without a Statute
The harsh reality of war
Last week Den’s journalist Valentyn Torba
presented his film Luhansk:
Occupation at the Kyiv House of Cinema
Indeed, it is impossible to find
the causes and effects of the current
war without sinking into history –
both the domestic history and the
history of our country’s relationships
with the neighbor that eventually became
the enemy.
“The main conclusion for me is
that this film has a cause-and-effect
relation,” says Ivan KAPSAMUN,
controlled the city. Let me tell you
how he began cooperating with Den.
As early as during the so-called ‘Russian
spring’ in the spring and summer
of 2014, Valentyn’s biting and meaningful
posts and blogs in Facebook,
where he described what was going on
in his city and region, drew the attention
of Den’s editor-in-chief Larysa
IVSHYNA who invited him to contribute
to our newspaper. He agreed,
sk: Occupation is a very serious work.
Valentyn in fact adapted to the screen
what Den had been writing about for
many years. I wish my colleague success
and want as many people as possible
to watch it because, before occupying
our territories, the Kremlin
‘occupied’ people’s brains. To ward
this off, one must know contemporary
history on the basis of the Den’s Library
and the presented film.”
300 years ago and even earlier. The
war is permanent, and it did not begin
in 2014. We were being exterminated
and manipulated in 1933 and well before
that. And, instead of forming
state institutions, the authorities
palmed off certain individuals upon
us, who were just ruining these institutions,
ruining the groundwork
for the restoration of our statehood.
And why are governmental officials
indifferent? Let me say an objectionable
thing: I am convinced for some
reason that the political elite seems to
be feeling good even without Luhansk,
Donetsk, and Crimea.”
“It was about the Ukraine-Russia
border,” civic activist, journalist,
and political scientist Oleksii PODOL-
SKY said after watching the film.
“The first negotiations on this matter,
in which I took part, began in 1995.
Before that, we and Russia had never
negotiated the border question. I was
a diplomat at the time and first came
to Luhansk, when we were trying to
persuade the leadership to follow the
Estonian way. I took part in the
closed-door negotiations about the
Black Sea Fleet, as well as in the talks
about gas with participation of
AT THE SCREENING OF THE FILM LUHANSK: OCCUPATION, THE FUTURE OFFICERS WERE DEEPLY MOVED NOT ONLY BY THE FOOTAGE AND CONTACTS WITH GUESTS, BUT ALSO BY BEING GIVEN THE
BOOK “THE TRAP,” OR A CASE WITHOUT A STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS, A TEXTBOOK ON UKRAINE’S TRUE CONTEMPORARY HISTORY
of Limitations which tells the prehistory
of the political ‘trap’ into
which this country fell. My film is sort
of a video illustration to the trilogy
Den published as far back as 2015.”
Torba said after the screening:
“I’ve brought some books and would
like to gift them to the military present
here. Here is the book ‘The Trap,’
or A Case without a Statute of Limitations
by Ivan Kapsamun, editor of
Den’s politics section. Note the phrase
‘without a statute of limitations.’
Our current problem is that we think
in the terms that call us for artificial
reconciliation. We think: well, OK,
let’s forgive, forget, make friends,
hug, and things will be all right. Do
you remember, by the way, the fake
photograph in the internet about how
the Ukrainian-Russian border must
look like? It shows people drinking,
eating, etc., at the table. The killing
of us begins with this illusory reconciliation.
Nobody wants to ‘fraternize’
with us. They want to exterminate
us, Ukrainians, wipe off our
memory, and turn us into an eternal
second-rate satellite. The aggressor is
taking advantage of our weaknesses to
this end. Therefore, we must not forget
both the foreign and the domestic
enemy.”
editor of Den’s politics section. “This
is the most important point. For what
we have in the information space today
is just a picture, sometimes a
conclusion, with no explanation of
what caused one problem or another.
And many fall for this. This film
practically shows the contemporary
history of Ukraine, including the way
the occupation of the Luhansk region
was prepared and finally carried out.
The film also recalls the Holodomor
period and emphasizes that our country
found itself in a very difficult situation
in the early 1990s because it
had a postcolonial and post-genocidal
society. Such difficult times require
very strong efforts to build the state.
But, we saw in the film that, instead
of building state institutions, the
leadership of this country formed a
clannish oligarchic system, in which
we are in fact still living. The revolutions
we had can hardly be called
revolutions. Society was doing very
much to break this system but, unfortunately,
failed to do so. For society
itself is sick and was unable to organize
– neither after the first nor after
the second Maidan.”
Kapsamun also added: “Valentyn
stayed in Luhansk to the last moment,
when Russian troops in fact
and then, on the chief editor’s instructions,
I came into direct contact,
as I edited many of his texts. We
thus began to receive on-the-spot information
and analyses of events.
Later, when it became dangerous to
stay on in Luhansk, Valentyn had to
leave the native city. He moved to
Kyiv, and the newspaper offered him
a job on the staff.
“In 2015 Den prepared a trilogy of
books compiled by me (‘The Trap’),
Torba (I, an Eyewitness), and Maria
Semenchenko (Catastrophe and Triumph).
The first is about why this
country got into a ‘political trap’ on
the example of high-profile murders of
Yevhen Shcherban, Borys Derevianko,
Vadym Hetman, and, as the apotheosis
of the system, the attempt on the
life of Oleksandr Yeliashkevych, the
attack on and kidnapping of Oleksii
Podolsky, and murder of Georgy
Gongadze. Consequentially, the second
book is about the living and dead heroes
who went to war in the east and
covered with their bodies the mistakes
politicians had made.
“To launch Den’s books, we in
fact traveled all over Ukraine, doing
the educational work the state is normally
supposed to do. The film Luhan-
“This is really a story that touches
one on the raw, and I would like the
people who have nothing to do personally
with our Luhansk region to
watch the first and the next parts of
the film,” civic activist Maryna ZOLK-
INA said during the film presentation.
“I am often asked, because of my
work, why certain decisions are not
made. All I can do is give a not-soprofessional
explanation of why we
show this kind of reaction to this procrastination.
In my view, this happens
because those who must, by force of
our choice, make decisions are indifferent.
You, Valentyn, are not indifferent.
You, as a journalist, a writer,
and a person who makes no decisions,
are not indifferent. So where should
the central authorities draw strength
to regain the temporarily occupied territories?
Where is the source of the
strength that will help us achieve
this?”
“In my opinion, our first source of
strength is to be able to understand
that the war will never end,” Torba answered
this question. “Terrible words
indeed, but we are now in the state of
a permanent war. And if we try to persuade
ourselves that things will be different,
we will be wrong. Things won’t
be different. They were not different
Lazarenko and Turkmenistan. I finally
saw that our leadership was the
No. 1 traitor, that the agent of Russia,
who was selling our state out, was
the head of our state. So I, chief of the
Russia department of our Foreign
Ministry, deliberately joined the opposition
to Kuchma. I was busy writing,
running around, keeping a secret
print shop, and so on. All this resulted
in the Gongadze case. You should
know that Gongadze and other likeminded
people also participated in
this. Do you remember
Yeliashkevych? And Yurii Orobets?
Many of them have already passed
away. I am a person who took part in
all of this and saw everything with my
own eyes. Do you remember the Black
Sea Fleet negotiations, when Crimea
was being surrendered for a gas bribe?
Such entities as RosUkrEnergo were
a feeding trough for the families of
our presidents. Torba was right to say
that the war will go on. The film is
about this, about how cynically
Crimea and the Donbas were surrendered.”
The author also plans to show the
film in Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk
oblast, which was lucky enough to be
liberated as far back as the summer
of 2014.

WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
DAY AFTER DAY No.36 JUNE 12, 2018 3
By Andreas UMLAND
The new German study “Die
Ukraine in den Augen Deutschlands.
Bilder und Wahrnehmungen
eines Landes im
Umbruch” (Kyiv: Buero fuer
politische Kommunikation, GIZ
GmbH, 2018. 111 pp.) carefully
reflects a wide range of opinions
held by German experts on the state
of affairs in Ukraine and issues of its
description, perception, understanding
and misunderstanding in
today’s Germany.
Population and economy-wise,
Germany is the most significant
country in Central and Western Europe,
while Ukraine, which has the
largest area among exclusively European
countries (some parts of
Russia and Turkey lie in Europe,
but most of them are in Asia), has
turned into a geopolitically key
state of East-Central Europe in the
post-Soviet period. The Ukrainians
and Germans have deep-rooted historical
connections. One of such
connections was the adoption of the
famed Magdeburg Law by several
Ukrainian cities in the 15th-19thcentury
period. One of these cities,
namely Kyiv, hosts a monument to
the Magdeburg Law. In the post-Soviet
period, Ukrainian-German cooperation
in various fields of business,
science, education, and culture
has developed and continues to
develop in a great variety of forms.
In view of these and many other circumstances,
it is surprising how little
attention has been paid so far to
the study of the relations and connections
between the two major European
peoples in the context of the
study of European history and international
relations.
While the interest of Ukrainians
in Germany has always been high,
Germans have only recently begun
to exhibit growing interest in
Ukraine and information about it.
In 2006, the Research Center for
East European Studies at the University
of Bremen began publishing
a periodic electronic bulletin called
Ukraine-Analysen, which has had
201 issues so far. At present, two
specialized German-language websites
– Ukraine-Nachrichten (News
about Ukraine, founded in Dresden
in 2007) and Ukraine verstehen
(Understanding Ukraine, launched
in Berlin in 2017) – are also improving
the understanding of Ukraine in
Germany. The work on systematic
interpretation of the history of German-Ukrainian
relations is progressing
as well, albeit at a slower
pace. In 2010, Hamburg-based historian
Frank Golczewski published
a major work on German-Ukrainian
relations in the interwar period
(Deutsche und Ukrainer 1914-1939,
Paderborn: Schoeningh, 1,058 p.).
Since then, there have been several
studies and papers on the presentation
of Ukraine in the German media
(including distortions in it), as
well as Germany’s participation in
the transformations in post-Soviet
Ukraine.
The Ukrainian program of the
German Agency for International
Cooperation (GIZ) offers an extremely
informative and illuminating
description of the German perspectives
on today’s Ukraine in
their new study “Ukraine through
the German Eyes: Representations
and Perceptions of a Country in the
Transition Period.” The study is
based on the methodology of the
GIZ’s previous project of studying
the perception of Germany in the
world, during which international
experts on Germany were asked to
Krieg, Krise, Krim vs.
Dynamo Kyiv and the Klitschkos
A German study tries to determine which perception
of Ukraine is prevailing in German society
answer the question of how the German
state was perceived in their
homeland. The study of Ukraine
conducted by the GIZ in 2017 is also
not a statistical study of the Germans’
attitude towards Ukraine,
but a deep qualitative exploration
of the impressions, interpretations,
opinions, perspectives, assessments,
stereotypes, knowledge and
expectations that exist in Germany
regarding Ukraine. This analysis is
based on 1,014 statements by
44 German citizens who are more or
less familiar with Ukraine or are
interested in it for various professional
reasons. The respondents include
researchers, businesspeople,
civic activists, journalists as well
as cultural and political figures.
The latter category encompasses
some well-known individuals, such
as the Green Party’s Member of the
European Parliament Rebecca
Harms or former Prime Minister of
Saxony and serving Ambassador of
the G7 in Ukraine, Professor Georg
Milbradt.
As initiator and immediate
leader of the project Andreas von
Schumann clearly points out in his
opening remarks, the objective of
the study was not “to search for
[objective] truth” about Ukraine.
Rather, “[we] wanted to isolate the
similarities that can be revealed in
different views [on Ukraine] of different
people [from Germany], to
discover the outlines of these perceptions
[and] recognizable features
of both the real and distorted
portrait of the country.” Von Schumann
points out two fundamental
trends in the assessments given by
44 German participants in specialized
interviews: firstly, the German
experts questioned believe
that the German “perspective on
Ukraine is too narrow, the knowledge
[of Ukraine in Germany] is too
unsystematic, the attention of [the
Germans] [to events in Ukraine] is
too fickle, and assessments [of
Ukrainian topics] are built on too
shallow foundations.” Secondly,
the German experts interviewed,
according to von Schumann, expressed
“a deep desire that Germany
and the Germans find a common
language with Ukraine more
often and more actively.” This desire
is based on several motives:
the historical responsibility of the
German people, the cultural diversity
of Ukraine, the economic potential
of the country, the need to
ensure stability in eastern Europe
and the possible incentives [flowing
from such involvement] for the
further development of the EU.
And yet, as the respondents noted,
the most obvious incentive for
them was admiration brought by
their own closer encounter with
Ukraine. Regardless of the specific
reason that put Ukraine forward as
their principal interest, most [of
the interviewees] stressed that the
“clean sheet” of perception that
had existed at first had quickly
turned into a “colorful canvas”
(page 7).
As shown by the study, three
negative ‘K’s have dominated the
German perception of Ukraine since
2014: Krieg, Krise, Krim – i.e., the
[military] conflict, crisis, Crimea.
Two other ‘K’s with positive connotations,
which are the once famous
soccer team Dynamo Kyiv and the
The Queen’s record achievements
How America and Canada were able
to watch the coronation of Her Majesty
which took place 65 years ago
REUTERS photo
REUTERS photo
name Klitschko, borne by Vladimir
and Vitalii, two famous world boxing
champions who lived in Germany
for a long time and are still
popular in that country, have only
slightly improved this image. The
GIZ study not only presents widespread
German stereotypes about
Ukraine, similar to those described
above, but also offers numerous indepth
assessments of the scope of
various perceptions in Germany of
such Ukrainian topics as the 2014
regime change, reforms, corruption,
nationalism, external relations,
European aspirations, cultural
differences, relations with Russia,
and the nation’s significance for
Germany.
The value of this study is not
only in illustrating well the various
German interpretations of these
topics. Besides presenting the
views of many leading German experts
on Ukraine and their perspectives
on the country they take interest
in, the brochure also offers
an in-depth presentation of how the
German public should be informed
in the future about the history and
events in and around Ukraine.
From the point of view of Germany’s
importance for the EU’s
foreign policy in general and for
the Union’s policy towards Ukraine
in particular, this study of the German
thinking on various Ukrainian
issues, which is now being translated
into English and Ukrainian, will
become mandatory reading for all
those interested in the present and
future of international relations of
Ukraine, as well as its gradual European
integration.
Andreas UMLAND is an expert
at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic
Cooperation (Kyiv)
By Natalia PUSHKARUK, The Day
On June 2, Queen
Elizabeth II celebrated
65 years since her
coronation, held at the
Westminster Abbey on
the same day in 1953. Then, thousands
of guests witnessed the
historic ascension of the 27-year-old
Elizabeth to the throne, while
11 million Britons listened to the
event on radio, and 27 million
watched it on TV. The CBS News
writes that journalist Walter
Cronkite was the first to broadcast
the event in America, using an
improvised studio in a hangar in
Boston’s Logan Airport. Meanwhile,
the Royal Central web
resource reports that the Canadians
and Americans were able to watch
Elizabeth’s coronation on the same
day as the British only because the
BBC’s records of the events were
transported across the Atlantic by
Royal Air Force aircraft. Formally,
Elizabeth assumed her duties as
Queen on February 6, 1952, when
she learned, while visiting Kenya,
that her father, King George VI,
had died. That is why the Sapphire
Jubilee of Elizabeth II, marking
65 years of her reign, was
celebrated last year. The Express
publication notes that there were no
official celebrations for the
coronation anniversary in Britain
this year, and Elizabeth spent
June 2 attending one of her favorite
entertainments, the Epsom Derby.
Pictured: Queen Elizabeth II
with John Warren, Her Majesty’s
horse caretaker.

4
No.36 JUNE 12, 2018
TOPIC OF THE DAY
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
In the first part of the
interview (see No. 34,
June 5, 2018), the
well-known Estonian
philosopher and statesman
Ulo Vooglaid reflects
on the formation of elites,
the preconditions for successful
reforms, and the
importance of service, spirituality,
and planning in
the context of societal
changes. Read below about
the place of upbringing and
patriotism in the system of
education, drawbacks of
the Bologna Agreement,
and the nature of democracy.
● “EDUCATION DOES
NOT BEGIN
IN THE KINDERGARTEN
OR SCHOOL”
In the past few years, Ukraine’s
education officials have been endlessly
trying to reduce the number and
volume of compulsory liberal-arts
disciplines in non-core curriculums
on the grounds that a narrower specialization
is needed. What do you
think of this viewpoint?
“Society is in need of educated
people in all the spheres of life, including,
naturally, industrial production,
agriculture, and trade. If somebody really
intends to withdraw liberal arts
from the system of education, it is
sheer horror. In these conditions, a
generalist cannot emerge in principle.
“Research shows that the fundamental
phases of education, which fall
on the earliest age and even the prenatal
period, are of paramount importance
for the formation of a personality.
We call it ‘education in the
womb.’ What is from the moment of
birth until the age of three is ‘education
in the nest.’ At this stage an individual
acquires the idea of himself as
well as ethic and esthetic notions,
forms the sensation of ‘I,’ ‘we,’ and
‘they,’ and learns the native language.
“We should understand that education
does not begin in the kindergarten
or school. A human begins to
receive education the moment parents
‘send a letter to the stork.’ It is very
important for him or her to feel warm
and cozy, without any fear or alarm.
The likelihood of neuroses and psychoses
depends on this period to a considerable
extent. The question is
whether one will grow into a subject or
an object of manipulations. At a very
early age, in the kindergarten, it is a
conscious person who has rights, duties,
and freedom of actions. He or she
must know why it is necessary to observe
certain rules, do something one
way, not another. This lays the foundation
of a personality.
“As for the next phases, we
should know that the ultimate goal of
an elementary school leaver is not confined
to being promoted to secondary
and then higher school. Life is multifaceted,
and we are speaking of a person
who receives the passport of a citizen
and will soon take part in social
and cultural life. He or she is fully responsible
for what they are doing as
well as for what they are not doing, although
they should do. The graduate
should be prepared for work, and
know how to defend not only himself,
but also others as well as nature, culture,
the native language, the honor
and dignity of the state – with
weapons in hand, if necessary. Work,
creation, cognition – one must be prepared
for all the spheres of public life.
“In the higher school, what really
matters is not specialty but personality
– as a subject, an active beginning
of certain processes for which one
How to change a country
by means of education?–2
Ulo VOOGLAID: “Democracy is a function of culture –
otherwise it turns into a set of public deception ploys”
must be responsible. What is important
here is experience in terms of not
only the specialty, but also the profession
and the office held.”
There is a widespread opinion in
Ukraine’s educational circles that upbringing
is only good at the school
stage. The idea is that school should
inculcate civil patriotism, certain
moral guidelines, etc., in children
(which is far from always the case in
reality, unfortunately), whereas the
university should remain “neutral” in
this matter. But it is hardly achievable
in reality, for every teacher also
has values and persuasions of their
own which they convey, deliberately
or not, to students. Do you agree to
this interpretation of the place of upbringing
in the system of education?
“No, in my view, it is a terrible approach.
I am convinced that upbringing
takes precedence over education.
Knowledge, skills, and experience are
only some of the prerequisites, but human
life centers around the personality,
subjectness, soul, world-view, the
human being and his position in public
and cultural life. This is what really
matters.
“An individual is brought up and
educated not only in school and university
– experts estimate that it is a
question of not more than 10 percent
here. Ninety percent is accounted for
by all the other civic institutions:
above all, the family, and the system
of mass communication and information,
sport organizations, and any other
nongovernmental initiatives.
“It is worthwhile to define what
education and learnedness is. There are
at least 10 viewpoints on this. To get a
full picture, we must take all them into
account. For example, we can regard
education as a lifelong process. It is a
process of forming preparedness for
various situations at different stages
of life, which culture and society offer.
It is impossible to evaluate education
by inspecting schools. You can only
evaluate the result of this activity –
whether or not it meets the expectations
of public and cultural life.
“It is very important that an individual
should grow into a patriot who
wants to serve his country and nation
and is preparing for this at every moment
of his life.”
● “TO LOVE YOUR COUNTRY
IS A NATURAL NEED
FOR MAN”
I think the fear that upbringing is
part of the system of education may
be the result of a totalitarian legacy.
For both the USSR and the Third Reich
were trying hard to “bring up a
new man.”
“Maybe. It is important to note
that the effects of upbringing are not
produced in a game situation – the
process requires a serious attitude. Is
it shameful to love your country culture,
nature? Of course not! It is an
honor, a natural need for man. We
should in no way give in to enemy
propaganda in this matter. Are we really
striving to produce an individual
who will learn all subjects but end up
as a rascal? There’s nothing to argue
about here. Bringing up a soundminded
and adequate patriot is the
primary task.”
After all, one is happier when
these contexts are present in his life,
when this life is not confined to his
purely personal interests and has
broader public and cultural horizons.
“Exactly! Ideals (both personal
and national) are an important quality
of any personality. Serving the ideals
makes life meaningful.”
I know that you are critical of the
Bologna Process in education. Why?
“I remember everybody saying in
1999, when the Bologna Agreement
was signed, that, while earlier it took
Photo by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day
four years to gain higher education,
now it will take five (three years of the
bachelor’s course and two years of the
master’s course). But, as we can see,
the majority of students confine
themselves to the bachelor’s degree. It
is very difficult to call three years of
study a university education. Pardon
my harsh words, but I can only offer
my condolences to those who think so.
If one who has only a bachelor’s degree
is allowed to work in a university, it is
abnormal, to say the least.
“The objective of the higher education
system is to train, above all, an
educated person, not a degree-bearing
specialist, and increase the number of
intellectuals in all the required fields.
It is not a question of choice but a prerequisite
for the existence and development
of society. In addition to giving
a specialty, the university provides
training with due account of the
profession, position, and ability to
cognize and create. The graduate must
be able to begin practical activity in a
certain field. If the objective is only to
prepare for the next stage of education,
as the Bologna Process suggests,
what one is going to do after gaining a
doctoral degree?
“The Bologna Process calls for
students to draw up programs on their
own, but most of them are not prepared
to do so. If doctors were also
trained on these principles, this would
have a deleterious effect on patients’
life expectancy.”
● “TO ASK THE PEOPLE FOR
THE RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE
IN PARLIAMENTARY
ACTIVITY, YOU MUST
PREPARE YOURSELF VERY
SERIOUSLY”
There is an opinion that modernday
democracy is more and more
turning into sort of “democracy of minorities.”
Major efforts are being
made to preserve local identities,
while universal values are being either
ignored or, on the contrary, so
emasculated and “worn out” due to
constant use that they are in fact
turning into empty words bereft of
any sense. For example, everybody
talks of “human rights,” but do people
know where this concept came
from and what it means? Do you
agree that this problem exists?
“Yes, of course. You are asking
about ‘modern-day democracy.’ But
who developed this modern-day idea
of democracy? Who decided that the
so-called minority has all the rights,
while all the other people must observe
them? Unfortunately, this improper
idea is very common. I think
we must ‘straighten our back.’
Democracy is a function of culture.
Democracy is people who know and respect
one another, have a feeling of
shame, and strive to behave normally,
in accordance with the expectations of
others. Only in these conditions is
democracy possible. Otherwise,
democracy turns into a set of public
deception ploys. We have seen these
sad changes take place in the past few
years.
“Winston Churchill once said that
if something depended on elections,
they would have been banned long
ago. Certain figures have always been
trying to use elections for consolidating
and preserving their power even
after their own death. Democracy is
impossible when people are uneducated,
uninformed, and inexperienced.
What’s the use of elections if you
know nothing?
“Ballots should bear the names of
the people who really know what to do
if they are elected. If you’ve been
elected to parliament, you must know
what legislation is and how the law
works as a regulatory mechanism. To
be still more exact, mechanisms of impact
must be brought into play. You
must know this, and only then you will
have a moral right to push multicolored
buttons.
“Another enormous task is to exercise
top control over the activity of
all civic constitutional institutions.
One must understand their purpose,
goals, rights, and duties, and know
the prerequisites that allow one to
govern, manage, and conduct other
target-oriented processes. One must
know society, people, the laws and
regularities of the formation of various
relationships – in other words,
you must be an educated person or, to
be more exact, a generalist. To ask the
people for the right to participate in
parliamentary activity, you must first
prepare yourself very seriously. It is a
tremendous honor, but, first of all, it
is a very important task to serve your
nation – not to simulate service but to
serve indeed. Only this kind of ruler
will earn society’s respect.
“It is primitive to identify democracy
with elections only. Under normal
circumstances, the people, as the
highest power-forming body, has the
right to show legislative initiatives,
hold referendums on various issues,
and take part in shaping the organizational
mechanisms of public and cultural
life. For, as it was said above, an
individual asserts his activity and responsibility
by way of real participation
in decision-making. Once he withdraws
from this process, he sinks into
passivity, apathy, and alienation (in
the psychic and sociological senses).
You cannot order a person to be active.
Activity forms by itself, but this
requires the creation of relevant preconditions.
“We have discussed all this at our
meetings in Ukraine, and I can assure
you that there are a lot of people here
who understand the essence of these
fundamental societal issues.”
By Roman GRYVINSKYI, The Day

WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
TOPIC OF THE DAY No.36 JUNE 12, 2018 5
Who outplayed whom?
Lawyer: “Although the law on the Anticorruption Court
has been passed, the leadership got the upper hand”
By Ivan KAPSAMUN,
photos by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day
Let us recall how many calls
there have been in the past
few years to establish the
Anticorruption Court.
Many. But, to start with, it
was, of course, necessary to pass
a law to this effect. This brought
about a long standoff. On one
side, it is the leadership which
proposed its bill and wanted to
form the Anticorruption Court in
accordance with its rules; on the
other, it is a part of the Ukrainian
public, international partners,
and representatives of the
democratic opposition. There is
also a third side – those who
oppose the establishment of this
court on the grounds that this
will in any case boil down to
window dressing in the current
conditions and it is better to
reform the existing courts so they
could try corruptionists. But, as
the law was finally passed, let us
focus on it.
After a long standoff, MPs
cast 315 votes for establishing
the High Anticorruption Court
(constitutional majority). But,
before doing so, they had examined
1,927 amendments to the
law. This vividly illustrates the
quality of the document submitted
by the Presidential Administration.
One of the main points MPs
failed to come to terms about for
a long time was powers of the
Nongovernmental Board of International
Experts. The question
was whether or not international
partners will be authorized to debar
from competition the candidates
that raise their doubts. Parliament
Speaker Andrii PARU-
BII said “a formula we found”
fully complies with recommendations
of the Venice Commission.
The Chairman of the Parliamentary
Committee on Legal Policies
and Justice, Ruslan Kniazevych,
explained the law’s most
controversial clause on the selection
of Anticorruption Court
judges as follows: “The Nongovernmental
Board consists of
six members appointed by the High
Qualification Commission of
Judges (VKKS) exclusively on the
basis of proposals from international
organizations with which
Ukraine cooperates in the field of
preventing and countering corruption
in accordance with international
agreements. On the initiative
of at least three members of
the Nongovernmental Board of International
Experts, the question
of whether a candidate for the office
of a High Anticorruption
Court judge meets the necessary
criteria is to be discussed at a joint
meeting of the VKKS and the Nongovernmental
Board of International
Experts. The decision on
whether this candidate meets these
criteria is to be made by the majority
of VKKS and Nongovernmental
Board members on condition
that at least a half of Nongovernmental
Board members have
voted for it. Should this decision
not be made, the candidate shall be
considered as rejected.” (unian.us)
The Anticorruption Court is
to be formed within 12 months
from the day this law came into
force.
President Petro Poroshenko,
the bill’s initiator, who was present
in the session hall during the
vote, called on MPs to muster
their strength and approve this
document. After the vote, the
head of state repeatedly pronounced
the word “victory” in his
traditional manner: “It is a victory,
a victory of Ukraine, a victory
of the Ukrainian people, the
victory of me as president of
Ukraine, a victory of the Ukrainian
parliament with Speaker Andrii
Parubii at the head, a victory
of the Ukrainian government with
Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroisman
at the head.”
With due account of a long
history and all the peripeteia, the
“victory” looks at least indecent in
this case. Too much pomp and anguish
in the conditions, when the
state needs a strong remedy and
radical surgery, rather than
shamans or antipyretic pills. It
will be recalled that the law on the
State Bureau of Investigations
was passed as long as two and a
half years ago, but this body has
not yet been formed. The country
has long needed serious reforms,
all the more so that war is still going
on at our territory. Instead, we
can the ante endlessly upped in the
inter-clannish struggle, protection
of personal interests, in playing
down to society, and in promises
to international partners.
All right, let us put aside criticism
for a while and accept the
logic of those who say that passing
the law on the Anticorruption
Court in the present conditions is
at least a kind of a step. What does
it mean? “It seems at first glance
that compromises were reached
and satisfy the Venice Commission
and the IMF,” lawyer Ruslan RI-
ABOSHAPKA comments to The
Day. “In all probability, the leadership
will be delaying the implementation
of this law. On the
whole, I do not think this court is
a panacea and will solve the problem
of corruption.”
“What simply stuns me is
weakness and non-professionalism
of our experts and civic activists
because they have shown a
children’s level,” lawyer Vitalii
TYTYCH told The Day. “In the
past three months, I’ve been in
contact with all stakeholders,
Ukrainian activists, the US ambassador
to Ukraine, and the head
of the IMF mission, but, as a result,
I failed to see that we have
outplayed the current leadership.
In reality, the latter, including
President Poroshenko; Filatov,
in charge of legal affairs in the
Presidential Administration; Kniazevych
in parliament; and Koziakov,
chairman of the High Qualification
Commission of Judges,
have outplayed everybody. The
vast majority of amendments
were aimed at blocking the passage
of the law and creating
chaos. All these amendments are
not the first victory of Bankova
St. And when it is said that the
establishment of this court is a
step forward, I disagree. It is not
clear how six members of the Nongovernmental
Board will be able
to prove that a certain individual
is not competent enough. And
who will they be vetoing? To be
able to choose somebody, one must
have a choice, and there will only
be a choice if professionals and
honest people, who can sacrifice
themselves (such is the work in a
true anticorruption court), accept
offer to work there. But normal
people are unlikely to go there
because no conditions have been
created. Maybe, our Western
partners’ plans included a strategy
– to force us to pass this law
for the time being, leaving the
VKKS free to apply its methods
afterwards.”

6
No.36 JUNE 12, 2018
CLOSE UP
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
The ideal FIFA World
Cup, to kick off in
Russia on June 14,
should look as
follows: a boycott on
the part of world leaders
and ordinary soccer fans
and the release of about
70 Ukrainian political
prisoners. The example is
being set by members of the
British royal family and
British ministers who will
not go to see the tournament
because of Russia’s likely
complicity in poisoning exintelligence
officer Sergei
Skripal. For the same
reason, Iceland announced
boycotting the World Cup.
At the same time, 5,000
Ukrainians are going to the
country that annexed
Crimea and unleashed a war
in the Donbas, enslaves and
tortures thousands of their
compatriots.
To bring the world to
its senses at least a little,
artist Andrii Yermolenko
has drawn a series of posters
about the world soccer
championship. Instead of
idyllic pictures, we can see
the military in the goal,
bombings, and a downed
airplane against the suffocating
red background. Andrii
can be said to have
struck a chord – his drawings
went viral in the internet,
and Facebook even
blocked him. Andrii YER-
MOLENKO told The Day
why, in spite of a wide response,
he considers this a
“one-man picket.”
● “I APPEAL MORE TO
ENGLISH-SPEAKING
EUROPEANS”
“You see, very many serious things
have occurred in the past month. Firstly,
it is the hunger strike of Sentsov and
Kolchenko. This is one of the factors that
catalyzed the creation of these posters,”
Yermolenko begins the conversation.
“At first I joined the campaign of drawing
posters in support of Sentsov. When
you look at the Ukrainian information
“In order to bring the world to its senses…”
field, you can see that our Ministry of Information
Politics is falling short of its
targets. This kind of posters about the
FIFA World Cup in Russia should have
appeared long ago. I understood there
would be none of them until the championship
opening. And then we would be
lifting our hands in dismay and saying
that all those Europeans, Germans, or
whoever it is, are bastards because they
went to the championship instead of
boycotting it. But all is very simple – nobody
shaped a right information policy
in Ukraine about this championship.
And this was my small one-man picket
against the tournament. I wanted more
people to pay attention to this. I appeal
more to English-speaking Europeans
rather than to Ukrainians.
“To tell the truth, it is terrible that
things have very noticeably changed for
the worse in comparison with the 1980
Olympics in the Soviet Union, when a lot
of countries boycotted it. Now, owing
to various commercial and business interests,
everybody is shutting their
eyes to such obvious things as the war
Artist Andrii
Yermolenko
drew a series
of placards on
the 2018 FIFA World
Cup in Russia and
explained why
it must be boycotted
in Ukraine and Syria, acts of terror in
London with a Russian trace, Russia’s
interference into elections in a number
of countries. The impression is that
when civilized people – you know, all
wearing neckties – are sitting at the
table, and a barefaced ruffian suddenly
climbs up and dirties the table, they
are all saying to him: ‘Tut-tut, you
shouldn’t do so, we are warning you for
the last time.’ Then this ruffian says:
‘And now let’s go to my home place and
hold a cool soccer championship.’ And
they say: ‘Let’s go. Maybe, this will salvage
him. Maybe, he will become better
if we come.’ He won’t – that’s the
point. This silence prompts him to go on
behaving brazenly and disgustingly.”
● “SUCH SIMPLE THINGS AS
PROBITY AND THE FEELING
OF DIGNITY GO AWRY”
At the same time, 5,000 Ukrainians
have bought tickets to the World
Cup.
“It is a shock to me. I know that
very many Ukrainians are saying it is
not their war. This disgusts me. In the
first days of the war, very may soccer
fans joined the army. They took up
arms for our Ukraine, while very many
Ukrainians ‘in the chips’ bought tickets
(which cost a pretty penny) and are
traveling to the aggressor country that
is killing your country. They are traveling
there to watch this championship.
In addition, I am sure that, what is still
more disgusting, they will be saying to
Russians: ‘It’s not our or your fault, it
is politics. We know that you are good
and Ukrainians are not fighting against
Russians. It’s politicians…’ This is also
a catalyst of my posters.
“Some people are doing something,
but… My posters are really a
one-man picket against all this. Such
simple things as probity and the feeling
of dignity – your own and of your
country – go awry. They are trampled
upon and killed day after day. I am
sure still more of the Ukrainian establishment
and politicians will push forward
to this championship, which infuriates
me still more.
“We are living at a moment when
things regain their proper places.
Black is black, and white is white. We
must not be afraid to call things by
their proper names.”
● “WE HAVE A BOYCOTTED
BOYCOTT”
Did Facebook block you over the
posters?
“It not only blocked me. Before
that, I began to receive on Facebook
various messages from the unknown
people with all kinds of embeddings. I
knew that those were viruses and did
not accept them. The next day Facebook
blocked me. I asked some people
to hand out the posters, for I’d like as
many people as possible to understand
that it is a blood-stained soccer. I was
unblocked, but not on the account,
where I posted these posters, then
they began to add some unclear files.
I cleaned up my page the other day.
“To block means to be afraid. I was
prepared for this and opened one more
account to post messages from there
in case they don’t unblock me.
“We are living in an era of information
warfare, when participants
are still to lean how to handle it. I
can’t say we are losing. We are not losing.
We just don’t know so far how to
wage this war. I’d like more people,
who know how to do this, to get engaged
in this war. I am one of these
fighters. I know there are very many
fighters of this kind. The state is not
exactly paying attention to us, but
that’s all right – we must do our job.”
How do the foreigners you address
by way of posters react to them?
“It is some French and Belgian
publishers and a Dane who asked me
permission to use these posters. I also
commented for Radio Liberty in the
Czech Republic. A lot of people have
been turning to me. The British asked
to write about this. I allow using and
spreading these posters free of charge.
“We have a boycotted boycott. We,
Ukrainians and Europe as a whole are
boycotting the boycott that was to have
taken place. Schizophrenia pure and
simple. I’d like to draw your attention
to this not because I am so good and polite.
I am just scared. At this very moment,
some of my friends are fighting
at the front, and other friends have
died. I know that I must also do something.
Oleh Sentsov is on a hunger
strike in the country which hosts this
championship and to which politicians
from various countries will travel.
They will travel to celebrate the ‘feast
of soccer,’ while very many Ukrainian
political prisoners are simply dying
there. And should anything happen to
Sentsov (I hope he will be freed anyway)
or any other political prisoner,
the concerned Europe will say: ‘Tuttut,
how vexing and bad!’ It’s the most
terrible thing, double standards, when
a rapist is told not to rape, but he goes
on doing so, the same people who say
‘don’t rape’ visit his home to drink tea
or cognac and talk about soccer. In my
view, it is the same thing.”
By Maria PROKOPENKO, The Day

WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
CULT URE No.36 JUNE 12, 2018 7
By Dmytro DESIATERYK, The Day
The drama Touch Me Not (Nu Ma Atinge-
Ma, Romania – Germany – Czech Republic
– Bulgaria – France, 2018) became a
real sensation of the last Berlinale,
winning there both the Golden Bear
for the best feature film and the award for the
best debut.
This work, done as a peculiar combination of
live-action and documentary cinema, tells the
story of three heroes – Laura, Tudor, and Christian.
The first two are played by well-known actors
Laura Benson (Dangerous Liaisons (1988),
Ready to Wear (1994)) and Tomas Lemarquis
(3 Days to Kill (2014), X Men: Apocalypse
(2016), Blade Runner 2049 (2017)). Like many
supporting characters, they share the same problem
as they strive and at the same time acutely
fear intimacy, corporeal and emotional alike.
Christian practically plays himself: crippled by
spinal muscular atrophy, he is completely free
from prejudice and lives with the girl he loves.
The film itself is a kind of story about liberation,
about overcoming of protective mechanisms and
taboos, sometimes in quite unusual ways.
In the non-competitive program of the
Molodist Festival, which ended in Kyiv on
June 3, Touch Me Not was personally presented
by the film’s director Adina Pintilie and the
leading actress Laura Benson.
Adina-Elena Pintilie was born in Bucharest
on January 12, 1980. She debuted in 2003 as a
documentary filmmaker. Her non-live-action
works participated in the competition programs
of the festivals in Locarno, Rotterdam, Leipzig,
and Warsaw. Pintilie serves as artistic director
and curator of the International Experimental
Film Festival in Bucharest. Touch Me Not is her
first live-action film.
After the Kyiv premiere, Pintilie answered
questions of The Day’s correspondent.
How did it occur to you to make Touch Me
Not?
“When I was twenty, I thought I knew everything
about how relationship should function,
intimacy, our desire mechanism, and also what
means beauty. But in the past years of life, I realized
that actually I don’t know anything. Once
clear ideas get destabilized when I enter in contact
with real people and with real life. So, we set
out on this journey to just question our own preconceived
ideas about how intimacy functions,
and to discover how people actually can access
intimacy in the most unexpected ways. And back
in 2013, we started an extensive casting process,
which was more like in documentaries, but this
film is not a documentary. We try to avoid all
these labels, because the film is mainly a research
one, it is a process film, a research film.
“So, in 2013 we started this extending casting
period. It was not like looking for actors, it
was more like looking for like-minded people.
And after finding them, we worked with video
diaries, with a lot of filmed exercises – it was before
the official shooting, where we could get accustomed
with the camera being, like, a witness
of some of our very personal, intimate stories.
So, this kind of a long process helped to grow the
trust between the participants in the project.”
It looks like creating a commune of sorts.
“It was like fiction functioning like more a
sort of laboratory, like a safe place which allowed
us to explore really sensitive areas. Because
when you are protecting yourself under, let’s
say, fictional character, in that convention you
can go everywhere, because you don’t need to
know what is real, what is invented, what is
imagined, what is memory. Many of them came
as themselves in the film. So, they were not playing
with this mixture of fictional and real elements,
they brought their own.”
Did you have the help of professional psychologists?
“Yes. For example, the emotional anatomy
workshop: it’s designed by this very distinguished
German performance artist and therapist
Julia Sparmann. I found this very inspiring.
So I proposed to collaborate and to create a workshop
for the film, and within this structure,
reenactment of the real workshop, we cast real
people that wanted to work with this intimacy
area in front of the camera, to share their experiences.
And they were already entering this, I
would call it, conventional laboratory. And
everything that happens in this created structure,
or a lot of what is happening there, it’s really
authentic encounters between people. So,
this is a very good example of how the mixture
between staging and reality functions.”
THE DRAMA TOUCH ME NOT BECAME A REAL SENSATION OF THE LAST BERLINALE
REUTERS photo
“We set out on this journey to just
questionourownpreconceivedideas”
Can your directorial approach be called anthropological?
“I would not call it, because anthropologizing
claims sort of objectivity. But this film is a very
subjective emotional exploration that each of us
went through. And by being highly subjective, I
don’t think you can call it a scientific approach.
I mean, in the end, if you look at psychotherapy,
it is both sort of science, but it also involves high
doses of subjectivity, intuition, and non-rational
thinking, because they work a lot with the unconscious
mind, with early memories, with a lot
of emotions. So, that’s why I’m hesitating to put
it in the area of science, but I would put it in the
area of research. Research about human nature,
in that sense it is connected to anthropology.”
One of the protagonists is played by an actor
with a disability. What was special about
working with such an actor?
The Golden Bear winner of the Berlin Film
Festival Adina Pintilie discusses the intimacy
and phenomenon of the Romanian cinema
“For me it was very important in the casting
process. And when trying to find these people,
it was very important to feel that they have
a strong motivation, emotional motivation to be
part of the project. And Christian, it’s a very
particular example of this, because he wanted
to communicate with the audience. And actually,
I think this film functioned like sort of a dialog,
like many of the characters have their
own, very specific views of the world, very progressive,
and they would like to share it with
the audience. And Christian said it from the beginning:
‘I’m not afraid that this film is going
to be attacked for me, for doing it. Because you
know, the people who are going to attack the
film are people who just actually have no idea
about disability and about the relationship between
disability and intimacy. They think that
we, people who have different label on body, we
just need to be taken care of, we are asexual, we
don’t have any intimate life.’ And for him it
was very important to enter into this communication
with the audience and to share with them
that people with the different label on bodies
have the same desire, the same needs, and the
same right to exist as sexual beings as any other
person. He is also an activist for the rights of
people with disabilities. And it was really an inspiring
experience for all of us in the film to
have Christian and Grit. They are a real couple,
they are really passionate explorers of intimacy.
Earlier only Christian was able to verbalize,
to speak about this, but now Grit started to explain,
and her voice is growing in this whole
thing.”
Do you see a difference between documentary
and live-action cinema?
“The border between the two is actually so
fluid, because in the end, it’s about cinema,
which is a very subjective experience of reality.
It’s an illusion that you can capture the reality
in a sort of an objective way. You cannot do
something like that from the moment you choose
to put the camera and to make a frame, and
everything becomes a matter of subjective perception.
I had the privilege to witness a master
class that Werner Herzog [a German screenwriter,
film director, author, actor, and opera
director. – Author] gave some years ago in Salonica,
and he was criticizing, debating with this
view of documentary as being sort of fly-on-thewall
approach, where you don’t interfere, you
don’t alter reality. And he was saying, ‘I don’t
want to be a fly on the wall, I want to be the bee
that stings.’ Because you can’t have access to the
truth of the human being by just putting the
camera and watching that thing, that is happening
in front of you. I have to be able to create situation,
to provoke, to create the environment
that can bring that truth to the surface. So, the
reality is not what it is, it’s transformed by the
subjective perception. And in that sense, I really
don’t think there’s a distinction.”
Now, when there are many different kinds
of technologies that let one change one’s body,
what do you think, how has the attitude to corporeality
changed?
“I basically can talk about my very subjective
experience. I notice that in the past years
at least, there is a strong interest for these selfexploration
activities, like for workshops in
different areas. And I think this happens everywhere
in the world. Everywhere I traveled,
there is growing interest in this process of getting
to know your own body, and to be friends
and accepting your body as it is. But luckily,
more and more people start to look at that as
something very normal, as something which is
naturally part of your life and is worth exploring,
because it helps you. If you know yourself
better, you can solve also the other stuff. Actually,
psychoanalysts have for a hundred years
talked about how intimacy and sexuality are
such natural parts of your life and your development.
This all is so natural in psychotherapy,
but for many other areas of discussion in our
life, this is a difficult topic to approach. Psychoanalyst
Michael Bader was explaining that
your sexual behavior and your sexual fantasy
can be key to read aspects of yourself also in
other domains. So, you can judge yourself and
say, ‘I’m wrong, I’m sick, I have to go to hospital
to repair myself’ – or you can look with honesty
at yourself and you say, ‘OK, I am like this,
let’s try to understand what’s behind this behavior,
why I am actually doing that.” There
are ways of experiencing intimacy different
from the norm, if you try to understand them
and not put a label that they are wrong, first of
all, you will have a better understanding of
yourself, and then you will have a different relationship
with the other person in front of you.
So, you will not so easy become an extremist, or
judgmental, or right-wing, the degree of aggressiveness
has high chances to decrease.
That’s why a film like this is important, because
it’s offering a sort of mirror about how
people can be different than what you think
they are, how you think they should be.”
In conclusion, a question asked from our
Ukrainian perspective this time. It can be said
that we here in Ukraine envy you, Romanian
filmmakers, greatly, because you have just
suddenly, after a prolonged period of communism
and troubles, created an incredibly flourishing
cinematic school. How have you managed
to do it?
“I don’t know. “I don’t know. I mean, the
Romanian cinematic community was all the
time clashing with political system, with the
state system. So, you have this situation which
is not so nice and cozy, it’s not so comfortable,
so then you need to put extra energy to make
things happen. Maybe this is energy which
comes from having an enemy, having an antagonist.
There are a lot of talented people, but not
all of them functioning.”

8
No.36 JUNE 12, 2018
TIMEO U T
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
Take care of bees!
There are 16 entomological
sanctuaries in the Rivne region
By Liudmyla STUPCHUK, Rivne
The prominent physicist Albert
Einstein is said to have
predicted: if bees ever die off,
humans will go extinct four
years later or so. Maybe he
really said that, but it is likelier that
these words were misattributed to
him; still, humanity ought to give
them a thought. It is because the list
of plants that do not yield fruit
without insect pollinators is quite
long. Moreover, 80 percent of the
pollination work is carried out
precisely by bees, because butterflies,
flies or wasps, of course, cannot work
the huge areas that are needed by
humans. Thus, scientists, beekeepers,
and farmers are increasingly
frequently sounding the alarm and
calling for bees to be protected,
considering that the main cause of
their extinction is poisoning with
pesticides and pathogenic microorganisms.
Many plants are pollinated by
wild bees as well, which still manage
to survive under natural conditions,
making nests in the hollows of trees,
at the entrances to caves or even under
rocky protrusions. They almost
never get sick and can survive a severe
winter with the ambient temperature
falling to 50 degrees Celsius
below zero. But wild bees are
special not only in their higher working
capacity and endurance, but also
in low levels of anger, as they rarely
bite and chase after those who disturb
them, so that such scenes can be
seen in cartoons alone. Do you remember
how Winnie the Pooh tried
to escape from such bees? But, just
as “domestic” bees (and maybe more
so), they also face extinction under
the current conditions. Therefore,
some species of wild bees are protected
in Ukraine and elsewhere. The
Red List of Ukraine includes eight
species of bumblebees and several
species of wild bees (mason bee,
Dasypoda).
“The fact is that for healthy existence
of wild bees and preservation
of their ability to harvest wild honey,
special conditions are needed
which are very difficult to preserve
Photo by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day
in the modern world. In order to save
the wild bee gene pool and prevent it
from hybridization with domestic
bees, the protected habitat (pristine
forests with hollow trees and sufficient
tree cover to provide a rich forage
base) should be enormous. After
all, male bees sometimes overcome
distances up to 17 kilometers in
search of a partner,” biologist Anatolii
Vlaskin told us. “It is primarily
‘human factor’ that facilitates the
disappearance of wild bees. Because
of the excessive use of pesticides,
high share of arable land, and the
burning of grass, they irreversibly
reduce their range and perish.”
To preserve the populations of
disappearing insects, including wild
bees, people create entomological
sanctuaries. In particular, there are
16 such sanctuaries in the Rivne region.
The entomological fauna of
these territories is represented by
many species, among them the regionally
rare species of insects included
in the Red List of Ukraine.
For example, such species include
stag beetle, musk beetle, and Old
World swallowtail in Riasnyky and
Miatnyky sanctuaries.
Hrushvytsia and Kolodenka
sanctuaries host populations of gray
forest grasshopper and gray click
beetle, green grasshopper, violet
ground beetle, and red campion. Not
all adults are likely to know how
these insects look, and children have
seen them mostly in books alone.
This is despite their parents probably
having done a lot during their
own childhood to reduce the population
of deer beetles, grasshoppers,
and even swallowtail butterflies – do
you remember how many of them
you caught and put into little boxes
to admire and show to friends?
However, most entomological
sanctuaries in the Rivne region were
created specifically to preserve the
breeding places of wild bees and
bumblebees. They are protected in
Syniv, Moshchanytsia, Stupno, Buderazh,
Korshiv, Steblivka, and Ozeriany
sanctuaries. Logging, grazing,
and mowing are restricted in these
“zoos” for insects, and the use of any
chemicals is prohibited as well.
By Larysa MYRHORODSKA, Ternopil
The “Ukrainian Soul” exhibition
of young creative artist Olesia
Hudyma’s paintings, which
opened at the Ternopil Regional
Art Museum on June 1, can be
termed a positive explosion. Colorful,
fascinating paintings from the series
“Flowers,” “Ukrainian Madonna,”
“Angels of Peace for Ukraine”
‘sounded’ especially atmospheric
when accompanied by Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart’s music. As Hudyma
told The Day, she painted a lot of
works while listening to his tunes.
Hence, there is also a painting named
Flowers for Mozart among more than
40 works on display.
Hudyma is a journalist by profession.
She started painting in 2007
and has created a thousand paintings
since then. The artist has to paint
even at night sometimes, because her
four children need attention too. She
says that without her husband, she
would have never been able to cope
with the domestic chores. Photographer
Liubomyr Kit is now her art
manager as well. Hudyma started
with the “Sleepwalker” series, and
continued with “Steps” as well as already
mentioned “Angels of Peace for
Ukraine,” “Ukrainian Madonna,” and
“Flowers.” Her works are in private
collections almost all over the world,
except for Australia and Argentina.
They were exhibited in Kyiv’s Mystetsky
Arsenal this May. Soon, the
talented Ternopil artist’s series
“Ukrainian Madonna” will appear on
stamps of Ukrposhta, while the
painting The Tree of Life will be made
into a greeting postcard. Well-known
British company Wraptious has already
reproduced Hudyma’s “Flowers”
on cushions made out of vegan
suede. Last winter, the artist’s works
appeared on the covers of the Canon
periodical, published in the American
city of Portland, and in the Kyiv
magazine Slovo Zhinky. Hudyma’s
A romantic mode of transport has
appeared in the city on the Buh River
By Olesia SHUTKEVYCH, Vinnytsia
Recently, pub owner Vitalii
Humeniuk, who leases a barge
on the riverfront, started
offering this attraction to his
patrons. A romantic boat was
designed by his grandpa to confess his
love to his future wife. Many years
later, Humeniuk decided to give the
A positive explosion
Ternopil artist Olesia Hudyma’s paintings
will appear on stamps of Ukrposhta
paintings reflect an eclectic mix of
artistic styles, including impressionism,
expressionism, abstractionism,
symbolism, naive art, mathematism,
magical realism, and postmodernism.
The artist emphasizes: her paintings
are intuitive, heart-created spontaneously,
not based on traditional
rules of the art. “However, in order
to paint like this, one needs to develop
technically for many years beforehand,”
Hudyma believes. Her personal
techniques include impatto and
sfumato, done using masticks, brushes,
and combs. The painter admits
that she is impressed by the art of
positivism. “Now it is the purity of
the colors in the picture that I need,
and it is very difficult to achieve,”
the artist told us.
Hudyma’s works will be exhibited
at the Ternopil Regional Art Museum
until June 18. This is the third solo
exhibition of the young artist in her
hometown.
“Is Vinnytsia really any worse than Venice?”
gondola a second life, restored it,
modernized, and launched into water.
“My grandpa and grandma had an
incredible love story that deserves a
novel-length treatment. The grandpa
built this gondola for her, but christened
it Juliet, probably in honor of the
character of the famous Shakespearean
play,” the pub owner told us. “I worked
abroad for a long time. When asked
Photo courtesy of the author
Photo by Mykhailo URBANSKYI
where I came from, I replied: ‘From Vinnytsia.’
And everybody thought that I
was from Venice. After all, is Vinnytsia
really any worse than Venice? When
I opened my restaurant, I remembered
the gondola and my Vinnytsia Venice.
After a long reconstruction and testing,
I launched the first tourist season and
became the first gondolier in the city.
Now I am carrying couples of lovers who
admire the sunset or sunrise. People are
pleased, while my establishment gets
tourists entertained.”
Juliet differs from the original
gondolas in that it is a bit narrower and
longer. There is an iron crest on the
boat’s bow which acts as a counterbalance
to the gondolier. The boat has a
comfortable seat and a table. Since nobody
teaches the gondola sculling art in
Ukraine, Humeniuk had to master this
skill on his own: he watched video tutorials,
read books and perused dozens
of films. He admits that gondola is
harder to steer than an ordinary boat.
Moreover, in addition to the skill, one
needs to have permission for boat rowing
on the Southern Buh River.
A gondola ride along the Southern
Buh River costs 250 hryvnias. In this
way, Humeniuk tries to raise funds for
his dream: to open a school of Ukrainian
gondoliers, because the number of
clients willing to ride in the gondola increases
all the time, so he is becoming
unable to serve them all.
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