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AUGUST 9, 2018 ISSUE No. <strong>41</strong> (1173)<br />
Tel.: +38(044) 303-96-19,<br />
fax: +38(044) 303-94-20<br />
е-mail: time@day.kiev.ua;<br />
http://www.day.kiev.ua<br />
Dear readers, our next issue will be published on August 16, 2018<br />
REUTERS photo<br />
JUPITER’S MOON EUROPA:<br />
Continued on page 4<br />
A PLACE TO LIVE IN TOMORROW?<br />
Professor Anatolii Vidmachenko on the likelihood of colonizing Mars, the Moon, and other celestial bodies<br />
“Poland is and will remain<br />
Ukraine’s strategic partner”<br />
Ambassador Jan<br />
PIEKLO met with Den’s<br />
Summer School<br />
students, answered<br />
complicated questions,<br />
and shared his ideas<br />
about ways to preserve<br />
the common heritage<br />
Continued<br />
on page<br />
2<br />
Dancing on journalists’ bones<br />
Concerning the tragedy<br />
that befell the film crew<br />
of journalists Orhan<br />
Dzhemal, Kirill<br />
Radchenko, and<br />
Alexander Rastorguev,<br />
who were killed in the<br />
Central African Republic<br />
on July 31, 2018, some<br />
things are obvious and<br />
proven, while others are<br />
still unclear<br />
Continued on page 7
2<br />
No.<strong>41</strong> AUGUST 9, 2018<br />
DAY AFTER DAY<br />
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
By Solomiia NYKOLAIEVYCH, Den’s<br />
Summer School of Journalism, 2018<br />
Has the old conflict between the<br />
two neighboring countries been<br />
finally settled? Does a common<br />
problem help unite the parties<br />
concerned? These and other<br />
questions were posed to Polish Ambassador<br />
Jan Pieklo by young journalists of Den’s<br />
Summer School of Journalism. “Poland is<br />
criticizing Russia for its aggression in the<br />
east of Ukraine and for the annexation of<br />
Crimea,” said Mr. Pieklo. He went on to<br />
assure those present that Poland and<br />
Ukraine would “continue to cooperate” and<br />
help each other. He noted that the Polish<br />
government is already trying to slow down<br />
the launch of the construction of Nord<br />
Stream 2. This gas pipeline is apparently<br />
not as important for Poland as it is for<br />
Donald Trump the businessman. Mr. Pieklo<br />
said that Poland and Ukraine share their<br />
national heritage which is enormous,<br />
invaluable, and indivisible on a world and<br />
local scope. The Polish diplomat stressed<br />
that Poles must stand shoulder to shoulder<br />
with Ukrainians in building a joint nonstereotyped<br />
future.<br />
● EU APPROVES OF UKRAINE’S<br />
REFORMS<br />
Solomiia NYKOLAIEVYCH, Lesia<br />
Ukrainka Eastern European National<br />
University: “How would you briefly describe<br />
the Polish view on the recent EU-<br />
Ukraine and NATO summits, particularly<br />
the meeting between Vladimir Putin<br />
and Donald Trump?”<br />
“Remarkably, three such events took<br />
place within one week. This wasn’t planned<br />
that way, but just happened. I think the<br />
EU-Ukraine summit in Brussels had an effect<br />
on the NATO summit that was attended<br />
by your president and his Georgian<br />
counterpart. The meeting between<br />
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump was interesting,<br />
considering that it lasted for<br />
about two hours and that we know nothing<br />
about what happened in Helsinki then.<br />
Both presidents were accompanied by interpreters<br />
and no one else. No one knows<br />
what they spoke about. There was a news<br />
conference after their meeting. Putin<br />
said a few words about Ukraine and noted<br />
that Donald Trump doesn’t recognize<br />
the annexation of Crimea. The US president<br />
didn’t mention Ukraine at all, and nor<br />
did he mention what was happening in that<br />
European country. As for the EU-Ukraine<br />
summit, preparations were made and<br />
everyone knew what would happen. President<br />
Petro Poroshenko wanted Ukraine to<br />
be part of EU activities and the EU and<br />
Ukraine to come out jointly against Project<br />
Nord Stream 2. This didn’t happen.<br />
The Ukrainian president also wanted to<br />
discuss Schengen [visas], but it was impossible.<br />
Instead, the EU approved of<br />
Ukraine’s progress in making reforms,<br />
particularly in regard to the Anticorruption<br />
Court, as required by the IMF to issue<br />
the next tranche. In other words,<br />
that summit passed without surprises. At<br />
the NATO summit, Hungary blocked the<br />
meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Commission.<br />
The Georgia-Ukraine Black Sea format<br />
was adopted instead. Of course, this<br />
wasn’t what Ukraine and some NATO<br />
countries wanted, but the important fact<br />
was the presence at the summit of the<br />
Ukrainian and Georgian presidents. Getting<br />
back to the meeting between Putin<br />
and Trump, one wonders about the choice<br />
of Helsinki as the site, considering that<br />
the Final Act [of the Conference on Security<br />
and Cooperation in Europe] was<br />
signed there, providing for the inviolability<br />
of frontiers. Symbolically, the two<br />
presidents met in Helsinki after Putin had<br />
breached all of Russia’s agreements on<br />
this inviolability. However, their meeting<br />
was very important. It meant that Russia<br />
wants to take part in global politics. We<br />
don’t know what decisions were made<br />
then, but we’ll learn soon enough. Some<br />
believe that a decision was made that<br />
would be bad for Ukraine and negative for<br />
Poland and Europe. Still, we don’t know<br />
what decisions were made. Your colleagues,<br />
US journalists, ranging from<br />
Conservative to Republican, were very<br />
critical about that meeting and the press<br />
conference. That conference was the only<br />
chance to learn something about what<br />
was happening. We’ll see.”<br />
“Poland is and will remain<br />
Ukraine’s strategic partner”<br />
Ambassador Jan PIEKLO met with Den’s Summer School<br />
students, answered complicated questions, and shared<br />
his ideas about ways to preserve the common heritage<br />
Polish President Andrzej Duda made<br />
a very strong statement at the NATO<br />
summit. Would you care to comment?<br />
“For Ukraine, it means that Poland<br />
will continue to support Ukraine’s NATO<br />
and EU membership aspirations; that<br />
Poland is criticizing Russia’s aggression<br />
against Ukraine and the annexation of<br />
Crimea. The Polish president simply<br />
stressed the good old postulates: Poland’s<br />
stand in the matter of Ukraine, criticism<br />
of Russia’s aggression and annexation of<br />
Crimea, as well as the maintaining of<br />
sanctions [against Russia]. Poland is and<br />
will remain Ukraine’s strategic partner.<br />
Neighbors are neighbors. We may quarrel<br />
now and then, but we have common interests<br />
in terms of security, business, and<br />
economy. Our countries are interested in<br />
learning from each other’s experience.”<br />
● “I’M AN OPTIMIST, I KNOW<br />
THAT WE MAY BLOCK<br />
NORD STREAM 2”<br />
Yuliia DOVHAICHUK, Taras<br />
Shevchenko National University, Kyiv:<br />
“Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states are<br />
blocking the launch of the construction of<br />
Nord Stream 2. Poland is a member of the<br />
EU, so what is there to prevent it from using<br />
means of stopping the process?”<br />
“We’re trying to do just that, but it’s<br />
a very sophisticated process. Germany is<br />
a powerful EU member and it is very interested<br />
in Nord Stream 2, because very big<br />
money is involved in the project and it<br />
spells big profits for Germany and Russia.<br />
There is also the EU energy directive and<br />
we want to use it. Denmark is the only<br />
country required to build Nord Stream 2,<br />
considering that the pipeline, if built, will<br />
pass through its territorial waters. Denmark<br />
is still undecided. So far, everything<br />
is being done in accordance with the<br />
law, including the EU laws. However,<br />
these laws can be interpreted in various<br />
ways. Denmark will make its decision.<br />
You and me wouldn’t want this decision to<br />
be in favor of Nord Stream 2. The Danish<br />
government is under a great deal of pressure<br />
from some EU countries and Russia.<br />
I’m an optimist, I know that we may block<br />
Nord Stream 2. It’s interesting to note<br />
what US President Donald Trump told<br />
Russian President Vladimir Putin, concerning<br />
the sanctions that will be imposed<br />
on those who will take part in the construction<br />
of Nord Stream 2. It is interesting<br />
because it’s about money that will be<br />
lost. Part of German society – particularly<br />
the Greens – is resolutely opposed to<br />
Nord Stream 2. For them, environmental<br />
reasons come first and politics next. They<br />
are very active in the European Parliament,<br />
so we need an alliance.”<br />
Viktoriia HONCHARENKO, Law<br />
School, Dnipro: “How reliable is the US<br />
stand in the matter of Nord Stream 2, considering<br />
its resolute opposition to the<br />
project before Donald Trump and Vladimir<br />
Putin met, and the fact that this resolute<br />
opposition was veiled during the press conference<br />
while describing Putin as just a<br />
competitor?”<br />
“That’s an interesting situation, considering<br />
that Donald Trump isn’t a professional<br />
politician but a businessman.<br />
Some believed from the outset that he<br />
would take a different, businesslike stand<br />
in the matter. The US-Russia trade ratio is<br />
rather low and the US can transport gas to<br />
other countries. In this sense, Russia is<br />
America’s rival, considering that America<br />
would want to sell gas to Europe. Poland<br />
and Lithuania have built coast terminals to<br />
accommodate such US gas deliveries. This<br />
is an economic interest, not just politics.<br />
Russia is using gas as a political weapon,<br />
so this is a political matter for us while it<br />
is an economic as well as political one for<br />
the United States.”<br />
● MINSK AGREEMENTS:<br />
APPARENTLY INEFFECTIVE<br />
Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day<br />
Vladyslava SHEVCHENKO, Kyiv-<br />
Mohyla Academy National University:<br />
“You said in an interview that the Minsk<br />
Agreements aren’t working the way you’d<br />
want them to. Why aren’t Europe and the<br />
United States taking any steps to change<br />
the format?”<br />
“I remember a meeting dedicated to<br />
the Minsk Agreements and discussing the<br />
matter with the German ambassador. He’d<br />
been for the agreements from day one and<br />
I said it was time to think of a new format.<br />
Let’s face it: the Minsk Agreements are ineffective<br />
and it’s also true that the US is involved<br />
in the process. Some believe a UN<br />
peacekeeping force should be deployed. I<br />
have my experience of working with a<br />
UN peacekeeping mission. I was a journalist<br />
during the war in the Balkans and I<br />
was badly shaken by the Srebrenica massacre<br />
– considering that the Bosnian Muslims<br />
were slaughtered when the UN peacekeepers<br />
were in position. It is also true that<br />
the conflict in the Balkans wouldn’t be ended<br />
without NATO support – America’s support,<br />
to be precise. I don’t think that the<br />
Balkan case is closed. We’ve seen Russia<br />
try to topple the Montenegrin administration.<br />
It didn’t work and Montenegro is<br />
now a NATO member despite all Russia’s<br />
attempts to the contrary. There is no decision<br />
on a UN peacekeeping mission in<br />
Donbas and only its possibility is being discussed.<br />
No one has come up with a proposal<br />
on how this could be accomplished. We<br />
don’t know whether this new concept was<br />
discussed in Helsinki.”<br />
Mykola SIRUK: “There are recent<br />
media reports about Vladimir Putin allegedly<br />
saying, during a meeting with<br />
diplomats, that he can see a referendum in<br />
the east [of Ukraine].”<br />
“That’s incredible. Vladimir Putin<br />
says what he thinks is best for Russia. Donald<br />
Trump follows suit in his own way. He<br />
says something [today] and will say something<br />
different in 24 hours. Putin isn’t totally<br />
sure how to handle Trump. I think he<br />
did what Trump usually does, that if he said<br />
that they had discussed ways to hold a referendum<br />
in Russia, it was his wishful<br />
thinking, although I don’t buy it.”<br />
● CAPITALIZING<br />
ON HISTORICAL ISSUES<br />
Iryna LADYKA, Ivan Franko National<br />
University, Lviv: “There existed a<br />
please-forgive-us-we-forgive-you consensus<br />
between our countries for a certain period<br />
of time. Our president used this formula<br />
addressing the Polish Sejm in 2014.<br />
However, no events in history, not even the<br />
most dramatic ones, can divide our nations.<br />
Polish politicians have been using<br />
such historical issues for political purposes<br />
of late. Why?”<br />
“I think it’s a balanced matter. You also<br />
have such politicians. Ukraine is a<br />
strategic partner of Poland. We know<br />
that a secure Ukraine means a secure<br />
Poland, and a secure European Union.<br />
Building a [better] future is the most important<br />
thing. You’ll have elections and so<br />
will we. Some politicians believe they can<br />
capitalize on historical issues and win<br />
more votes. There is a part of history that<br />
relates to the Second World War. There are<br />
many interpretations. I think this part<br />
should be discussed and written about, but<br />
our future is the most important thing. We<br />
must build a common future. President Andrzej<br />
Duda said that ‘our goal is Ukraine’s<br />
prospects for EU and NATO membership.’<br />
This is also Ukraine’s goal.”<br />
● A DIFFERENT CONCEPT<br />
OF HONORING THE MEMORY<br />
OF THOSE WHO HELPED<br />
EVERYONE AT A TIME<br />
OF ORDEAL<br />
Daria CHYZH, Borys Hrinchenko<br />
University, Kyiv: “Visiting Volyn, President<br />
Andrzej Duda said that some 100,000<br />
Poles died in that tragedy, compared to<br />
5,000 Ukrainians. This is a striking historical<br />
truth. However, a Ukrainian historian<br />
said in an interview that the Polish<br />
president had cited absolutely fictitious<br />
figures… Do you think that we should resort<br />
to such debates or leave the subject to<br />
historians?”<br />
“Like I said, you will have elections<br />
and so will we. As for the number of victims<br />
on both sides, I wrote an essay for the Lvivbased<br />
magazine ‘Yi.’ It was about Volyn<br />
[aka Volhynia. – Ed.], about Jedwabne, a<br />
Polish village where Jews were massacred<br />
during WW II, and about the war in<br />
former Yugoslavia. I demonstrated the<br />
same mechanism that triggered off such<br />
crimes, when villagers would be told that<br />
they could kill Poles living next door and<br />
take their property. We remember that the<br />
UPA [Ukrainian Insurgent Army – Ed.]<br />
wasn’t strong in Volyn, but the mechanism<br />
was there. The same was true of Jews in<br />
Poland and of interethnic conflicts in<br />
Bosnia. Everyone had to be killed, so there<br />
would be no eyewitnesses. This mechanism<br />
is so horrible, you can only try to imagine<br />
it. We must pay tribute to all victims, especially<br />
to all those mixed Polish-Ukrainian<br />
and Ukrainian-Polish families. They<br />
were traitors in the eyes of both sides. I saw<br />
the same thing in former Yugoslavia where<br />
a Serb married to a Croat or a Croat married<br />
to a Serb would be the first victim. The<br />
same is true of the Volhynia Massacre.<br />
There is a very good concept of honoring<br />
the memory of those who helped everyone<br />
at a time of ordeal. This concept exists in<br />
Poland and your president also says that<br />
one shouldn’t focus only on victims, but also<br />
praise those who helped fellow humans<br />
during that horrible war.”<br />
● EVERY EFFORT SHOULD<br />
BE MADE TO MAINTAIN<br />
A DIALOG<br />
Andriana BILA, Taras Shevchenko<br />
National University, Kyiv: “The Institute<br />
of National Memory resumed functioning<br />
in 2014, specializing in historical<br />
issues and historical legacy. For some<br />
reason, this institute is anything but popular<br />
in Poland. Does it really pose a threat<br />
to the Polish interests?”<br />
“I know Dr. Volodymyr Viatrovych<br />
personally and I don’t think that he can<br />
pose any threat. We speak to each other and<br />
speaking is necessary. I think that politicians<br />
can make rash statements now and<br />
then, but I also think that it is possible to<br />
speak with Mr. Viatrovych, just as it is possible<br />
to speak with the head of our Institute<br />
of National Remembrance [IPN]. I remember<br />
IPN head Jaroslaw Szarek’s visit<br />
to Kyiv last year. He met with Mr. Viatrovych<br />
and it was an enjoyable experience.<br />
They shook hands and spoke. Then there<br />
was a press conference and everyone agreed<br />
that we’d solve all problems. Everything<br />
was fine, but then things started happening.<br />
Every effort should be made to maintain<br />
a dialog. This is a very trying period<br />
for you and for us. We’re marking the 75th<br />
anniversary of the Volhynia Massacre.<br />
However, we take a joint stand in regarding<br />
Russia as a threat to our countries and<br />
to the Baltic states. We remember what<br />
happened in the past. When Poland,<br />
Lithuania, and Ukraine were at odds, Russia<br />
did as it pleased and divided those<br />
countries.”<br />
● TO DEVELOP AND<br />
IMPLEMENT A JOINT<br />
TOURIST PRODUCT<br />
Yana KHROMIAK, Borys<br />
Hrinchenko University, Kyiv: “Your<br />
country is actively supporting Polish<br />
culture in Ukraine. What is there to prevent<br />
a joint project like restoring the castle<br />
in Pidhirtsi where Polish nobility<br />
used to play host to kings, including the<br />
French one? There are many joint Ukrainian-Lithuanian<br />
projects. What about<br />
Ukrainian-Polish ones?”
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
DAY AFTER DAY No.<strong>41</strong> AUGUST 9, 2018 3<br />
“This is our common heritage. There<br />
is no dividing it into ‘ours’ and ‘theirs.’ All<br />
of it is ours and we must put our heads together<br />
to figure out how to go about it. We<br />
realize that you have no access to EU funds<br />
to arrange for the restoration of that castle,<br />
for example. We’re paying for the reconstruction<br />
of those beautiful frescoes in<br />
the Lviv Garrison Church that used to be a<br />
Jesuit cathedral. We’re interested in preserving<br />
this heritage and are willing to donate<br />
to such projects. There are many gorgeous<br />
castles in Lviv oblast – in Zolochiv,<br />
Pidhirtsi, Olesk where John III Sobieski was<br />
born. This could become an excellent tourist<br />
project and bring us very good money as an<br />
outstanding historic site. We should develop<br />
and implement a joint tourist product,<br />
so we could offer visitors from Europe,<br />
America, China, and Japan guided tours –<br />
like the Golden Horseshoe [popular tourist<br />
itinerary in Lviv oblast]. This takes infrastructure<br />
and investments. I’ve been to Pidhirtsi<br />
and I love the place. It’s the world’s<br />
most beautiful castle, but there is nothing<br />
to show to the tourists. Investments must<br />
be made and an exposition organized.<br />
There is an idea, but it is still to be implemented.<br />
The director of a gallery in Lviv,<br />
a friend of mine, wants to do something<br />
about it. He is a decent man with a European<br />
worldview. He visited the curator of the<br />
Wawel Royal Castle in Krakow and they<br />
held talks. In a word, cooperation has begun,<br />
but it will be quite some time before<br />
one can say ‘We’ll get the money and<br />
everything will be ready in a year.’ After<br />
WW II, the Soviet Union wanted to draw a<br />
clear line between the Ukrainians and<br />
Poles, making Ukrainians bad guys and<br />
Poles good guys. There was also a concept<br />
to the contrary. This Soviet tradition is still<br />
in our heads. I don’t think that you of the<br />
younger generation have any such concepts,<br />
but my generation was raised that way, and<br />
that was precisely how your parents were<br />
taught to treat the Poles. Today, we must<br />
simply change this old worldview.”<br />
● ACTIVE UKRAINIANS<br />
BENEFIT UKRAINIAN AND<br />
POLISH ECONOMIES<br />
Yana KHROMIAK: “What about the<br />
Polish Card? I’m half Polish, my grandmother<br />
was a full bloodied Pole. Can I receive<br />
the Polish Card?”<br />
“The Polish Card is an interesting element;<br />
it makes [the bearer] aware of being<br />
part of the Polish community at large.<br />
In Poland, this card ensures a number of<br />
advantages, including free tuition at Polish<br />
universities. As a matter of fact, a number<br />
of Poles originate from Lviv oblast,<br />
Ternopil, and Volyn. Their family roots<br />
were destroyed by the Soviet regime. Today,<br />
some two million Ukrainians live,<br />
study, and are investing in Poland, particularly<br />
in Krakow, my home town, Wroclaw,<br />
and Lublin. These active Ukrainians<br />
benefit the Ukrainian and the Polish economy.<br />
Ukrainians are earning money in<br />
Poland and sending them to their families<br />
in Ukraine. Someone told me it’s bad for<br />
Ukraine, that it’s brain drain. This is precisely<br />
what happened in Poland after the<br />
communist regime imposed martial law in<br />
1981, when the plummeting living standard<br />
and ration cards forced Poles to go to<br />
Ukraine to buy things they needed.”<br />
We know that you are a man of letters,<br />
author of the book Zapach aniola [Scent<br />
of the Angel] that was translated into<br />
Ukrainian in 2015. Aren’t you planning<br />
another book, this time about the Revolution<br />
of Dignity or what’s happening in<br />
the east of Ukraine, or the annexation of<br />
Crimea?<br />
“I’m thinking of writing another<br />
book, but the ambassador’s daily routine<br />
is such, there is simply no time left for anything<br />
else, although I keep making notes.<br />
I’ll probably write another book when I retire.<br />
I promise you that it will be about<br />
Ukraine and the Revolution of Dignity. I<br />
read the Cyborgs script. A very good one.<br />
The movie is still to be screened in Poland<br />
after just one screening in Warsaw. I also<br />
write poems and some have been published<br />
in Ukrainian and Polish.”<br />
Read more on our website<br />
The Summer School of Journalism<br />
is supported by the<br />
NATO Information and Documentation<br />
Centre in Ukraine<br />
“Sentsov has no vacations”<br />
As Ukrainian film director is still on hunger strike, activists<br />
are seeking new ways to support “Kremlin’s prisoners”<br />
By Mariia PROKOPENKO, The Day<br />
About 20 people – artists,<br />
human rights activists, and<br />
just concerned individuals –<br />
gathered near the Presidential<br />
Administration in the<br />
morning of July 31 to brainstorm<br />
new ideas of how to draw the world’s<br />
attention to “the Kremlin’s hostages.”<br />
The picketers also demanded that<br />
public administration bodies and<br />
President Petro Poroshenko inform<br />
the public about what is being done to<br />
save Oleh Sentsov and other<br />
Ukrainians illegally imprisoned in<br />
Russia and the occupied Crimea, about<br />
their condition and the possibilities of<br />
exchange or certain arrangements.<br />
“First of all, our goal is a dialog,” the<br />
picket’s co-organizer Anastasiia SE-<br />
HEDA says. “There should be a clear report<br />
to the public – not only about behind-the-scenes<br />
deals, even if they are<br />
really being made. Campaigns in support<br />
of Sentsov are very often held now – not<br />
every day, as before, but still… We<br />
managed to attract more people to this<br />
matter and increase publicity. We cannot<br />
come, break the bars open and free<br />
the people, but we can at least cause a<br />
stir so that the matter is discussed not<br />
only in Ukraine, but also abroad.”<br />
There were not many picketers<br />
due to either the heat or the vacation<br />
season. The upside is that this topic<br />
still remains interesting to radio and<br />
newspaper journalists – about 15 of<br />
them – came with cameras.<br />
● “THERE’S A DEAD CALM<br />
NOW”<br />
“I think it is especially important<br />
to draw attention to this topic in the<br />
off-season and at a time of vacations.<br />
Sentsov is still on a hunger strike, he<br />
has no vacations,” Mariia TOMAK, a<br />
coordinator at the Human Rights Media<br />
Initiative, emphasizes. “We know<br />
that Oleh agreed to take at least a few<br />
spoonfuls of nutritional mixture a<br />
day. But, of course, this is not enough<br />
for one to survive or function normally.<br />
Sentsov in fact continues his<br />
hunger strike, and we see no encouraging<br />
signals that he may be freed in<br />
the immediate future. At least, we<br />
don’t know about this kind of signals.”<br />
Human rights activists are trying<br />
to appeal to international organizations,<br />
but they also remain silent.<br />
“The latest large-scale event occurred<br />
in Helsinki – the summit of presidents<br />
Trump and Putin. There’s a<br />
dead calm now, and we want to hear<br />
ideas from society,” Tomak adds. The<br />
human rights activist recalls some<br />
ideas she saw in social media after the<br />
campaign had been announced, such<br />
as the proposal to exert pressure on<br />
the European Court of Human<br />
Rights, which is still to hand down a<br />
ruling in the Sentsov case, and the<br />
idea to invite the President of<br />
Ukraine to Labytnangi, where Oleh is<br />
serving his term.<br />
“Our diaspora in Switzerland<br />
and France has taken an interesting<br />
action: when Sentsov went on a<br />
hunger strike, they chose a day and<br />
began to jam the switchboards of the<br />
Russian consulates in those countries.<br />
Phoning there, they asked the<br />
same question: ‘When will Oleh<br />
Sentsov be freed?’ I think we can organize<br />
sort of a large-scale campaign<br />
to mark the anniversary of the conviction<br />
of Oleh Sentsov and Oleksandr<br />
Kolchenko,” Tomak says. The upcoming<br />
anniversary of the conviction<br />
is on August 25.<br />
Another “greeting from France”:<br />
a portrait of Sentsov was hung at the<br />
Paris city hall’s facade on July 30.<br />
The city mayor Anne Hidalgo supported<br />
this action.<br />
● “THE QUESTION OF<br />
FREEING ‘THE KREMLIN’S<br />
PRISONERS’ IS NOT BEING<br />
DISCUSSED ANYWHERE”<br />
Last week the Cabinet of Ministers<br />
resolved to disburse a lump sum<br />
of 100,000 hryvnias to the families of<br />
the Ukrainians held in Russia for political<br />
reasons. “I think this should<br />
have been done long ago,” Tomak<br />
comments.<br />
At the same time Ihor Hryb,<br />
whose son Pavlo was illegally arrested<br />
in Russia, was appointed to chair<br />
the department that deals with people<br />
deprived of personal liberty at the<br />
Ministry for Temporary Occupied<br />
Territories and Internally Displaced<br />
Persons.<br />
“We have also lobbied the establishment<br />
of the department Ihor<br />
Hryb chairs, but this is sort of a tactical<br />
structure which is supposed to<br />
be responsible for monitoring and<br />
collecting information for sanction<br />
lists, maintaining contact with relatives,<br />
etc. This does not resolve the<br />
problem of the absence of a negotiator.<br />
Hryb will not be dealing with this<br />
or searching for the ways of liberation,”<br />
Tomak says. “So this problem<br />
remains topical, for we can see that<br />
Photo by Yurii SAFRONOV<br />
PARIS, JULY 30. A PORTRAIT OF OLEH SENTSOV HANGS ON THE CITY HALL WALL. THE FRENCH CAPITAL’S MAYOR<br />
ANNE HIDALGO, WHO BACKED THE INITIATIVE, TWEETED ABOUT SOLIDARITY WITH SENTSOV: “WE ARE CALLING<br />
FOR FREEING HIM AND REAFFIRMING OUR ADHERENCE TO FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND RESPECT FOR<br />
DEMOCRACY”. THE INSCRIPTION READS: “FREEDOM TO SENTSOV; PUTIN – TO THE HAGUE”<br />
this question is not being discussed<br />
anywhere. Russia won’t meet our demands<br />
just like that, but we must<br />
pressure it. The point is that this<br />
question [of ‘the Kremlin’s prisoners.’<br />
– Author] was not raised in Minsk.<br />
We know Russia’s attitude – they<br />
claim they are observers in Minsk,<br />
where only the Donbas is being negotiated.<br />
OK. But I don’t see the reason<br />
why it is impossible to exert pressure<br />
on Russia via our Western partners<br />
and force them to speak, for example,<br />
about the humanitarian situation in<br />
Crimea and the release of the people<br />
illegally detained in Crimea and Russia<br />
on a certain alternative platform.”<br />
● ENVELOPES WITH<br />
A PORTRAIT OF SENTSOV<br />
Some well-known people are also<br />
coming up with the ideas of supporting<br />
“the Kremlin’s prisoners.”<br />
For example, writer Andrii<br />
KURKOV suggested in Facebook<br />
making postage stamps, a part of<br />
the proceeds of which could be used<br />
to help the families of the Ukrainian<br />
“prisoners of conscience” in Russia<br />
and Crimea. “Several times in my<br />
life, I’ve come across stamps whose<br />
price was indicated as a common<br />
mathematical formula without the<br />
‘equals’ sign, for example,<br />
‘3 crowns + 2 crowns.’ This means<br />
that the stamps were issued both as<br />
a means of postage and a means to<br />
raise funds for a certain good purpose.<br />
In other words, the second<br />
part of the value was intended for<br />
public good. And I thought: it would<br />
be a good idea if Ukrposhta [Ukrainian<br />
Postal Service. – Ed.] issued a<br />
series of stamps with portraits of<br />
the Ukrainian political prisoners<br />
who languish in Russian prisons and<br />
the inscription ‘3 hryvnias + 2 hryvnias’<br />
so that every two hryvnias<br />
could be used to help the family of a<br />
political prisoner. Besides, such<br />
stamps could be stuck to all the envelopes<br />
with letters sent to Russia<br />
so that Russian citizens could also<br />
know by sight those whom the<br />
Kremlin kidnapped and is trying to<br />
kill slowly,” Kurkov wrote.<br />
Interestingly, Ukrposhta immediately<br />
responded to this call. The<br />
company Kurkov also referred to on<br />
his Facebook page answered that the<br />
current Ukrainian law does not allow<br />
issuing this kind of stamps, for they<br />
carry an additional tariff. However,<br />
the answer says Ukrposhta has long<br />
been toying with this idea and, hopefully,<br />
the Provision on Postage<br />
Stamps will be updated this very<br />
year, which will make it possible to<br />
issue charitable stamps.<br />
● “EVERY UKRAINIAN MUST<br />
RISE”<br />
It is for about a month now that<br />
filmmakers have been carrying out<br />
the project “Reading Oleh Sentsov’s<br />
Stories Out Loud.” Everybody videorecord<br />
an excerpt from Sentsov’s<br />
book Short Stories and then make a<br />
big video out of these clips. Quality is<br />
not the object – you can simply put a<br />
phone with a switched-on camera in<br />
front of you and make a recording.<br />
The video is to be sent to the email address<br />
storiessentsov@gmail.com.<br />
Well-known Ukrainian, Polish, and<br />
British actors and directors are taking<br />
part in this project. Incidentally,<br />
girl students of the newspaper Den’s<br />
Summer School of Journalism also<br />
made this kind of video in July.<br />
“The main thing is that people<br />
now show interest in Oleh as not a<br />
person on a hunger strike but an<br />
artistic personality who must be<br />
freed from prison and continue his<br />
pursuit of art,” film producer Anna<br />
PALENCHUK says about the “Out<br />
Loud” project. “I hope Oleh will be<br />
released tomorrow and we will no<br />
longer gather here. We’ve been always<br />
expecting him to be freed very<br />
soon. Naturally, we will be making<br />
the final video, and not only the<br />
video, in order to constantly speak<br />
about Oleh and draw the attention<br />
of both the authorities and the public.”<br />
Incidentally, Anna, who knew<br />
Sentsov even before his imprisonment,<br />
is working together with director<br />
Tamara Trunova on staging<br />
his play Numbers. The premiere is<br />
scheduled for November.<br />
Anna says Oleh is very principled<br />
and believes firmly in certain ideals.<br />
“And it is not about his persuasions – it<br />
is about our common values. It is the<br />
values of freedom, the values of this<br />
country, it is about the fact that Crimea,<br />
Oleh’s homeland, is occupied,” the film<br />
producer continues. “I think that, from<br />
this angle, Sentsov is each of us. And<br />
when we all come to understand this, we<br />
will free him. There must be much<br />
more of us. Every Ukrainian must rise<br />
to free our citizens.”<br />
It will be recalled that, according to<br />
human rights activists, at least 70 citizens<br />
of Ukraine are being held in Russia<br />
and the occupied Crimea on politically<br />
motivated charges. Out of them,<br />
Volodymyr Balukh and Stanislav Klykh<br />
have been on a hunger strike for over<br />
140 days and over two months, respectively.
4<br />
No.<strong>41</strong> AUGUST 9, 2018<br />
CLOSE UP<br />
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
By Mariia PROKOPENKO, The Day<br />
some reason, when<br />
contemporary sci-fi writers<br />
send people to Mars or the<br />
Moon, they focus on human<br />
“For<br />
relationships, while Mars<br />
or the Moon itself is no longer a matter<br />
of science fiction for them. They<br />
consider a flight to the nearest star to be<br />
the most groundbreaking project. But,<br />
in my opinion, it is fantasy pure and<br />
simple,” planetary scientist Anatolii<br />
Vidmachenko says when I ask him<br />
which of the science fiction may soon<br />
become a science fact. Mr. Vidmachenko<br />
reads a lot, particularly the<br />
books of this genre, but he cannot<br />
single out one that especially impressed<br />
him in the last while.<br />
Mr. Vidmachenko, a professor and a<br />
doctor of sciences (physics and mathematics),<br />
works as chief research associate<br />
at the department of the physics of substellar<br />
and planetary systems of the Main<br />
Astronomical Observatory of Ukraine’s<br />
National Academy of Sciences. We talked<br />
about real, albeit remote, scenarios of the<br />
human colonization of such celestial bodies<br />
as Mars, the Moon, and Europa (natural<br />
satellite of Jupiter), as well as about<br />
the “asteroid taxi.”<br />
We spoke on the eve of Mars’ perihelic<br />
opposition on July 27. There is nothing<br />
bellicose in the name – at this period<br />
the Sun, Earth, and the “red planet” form<br />
a straight line during the course of their<br />
orbits, and the distance between Earth<br />
and Mars becomes minimal. This occurs<br />
once in 15 years on the average. It is the<br />
most convenient time to launch space<br />
missions to Mars, for this will reduce the<br />
spacecraft’s flight path by several dozens<br />
of millions of kilometers. This May, too,<br />
NASA launched the InSight landing<br />
module accompanied by CubeSat<br />
nanosatellites MarCO-A and MarCO-B<br />
(“Purely Ukrainian names!” Mr. Vidmachenko<br />
jokes) which will explore the<br />
ground and seismic activity on that<br />
planet. The module is expected to land on<br />
Mars on November 26, 2018, and the accompanying<br />
satellites will fly on. There<br />
are a lot of things to explore. The only<br />
problem is that Ukraine may end up<br />
short of planetary scientists due to the<br />
scanty funding of research. The following<br />
interview with Anatolii Vidmachenko<br />
is about this and other, more space-related,<br />
things.<br />
● “VOLCANOES ON MARS<br />
MAY BEGIN TO ERUPT<br />
IN THE NEAR FUTURE”<br />
The CubeSat nanosatellites, now flying<br />
to Mars, will explore its soil and seismic<br />
activity. What arouses the greatest interest<br />
of scientists in this matter?<br />
“There are about two and a half dozen<br />
volcanoes on Mars – the ones we are accustomed<br />
to, cone-shaped, where something<br />
erupts on top and lava flows down. It<br />
was believed previously that they are very<br />
old. But it turned out that the age of the<br />
rock on the slopes of the four highest of<br />
them, which was supposed to be billions of<br />
years, was in fact not more than a billion.<br />
This means that, in geological terms, a huge<br />
high-temperature mass flowed from there<br />
very recently. And this aroused interest in<br />
studying the planet’s seismicity – for if<br />
there are seismic tremors, these volcanoes<br />
can still erupt. One of the models shows that<br />
these volcanoes ‘slept’ for several hundred<br />
million years, then they ‘were fed up’<br />
with this and decided to get up. And they<br />
may begin to erupt again in the near future<br />
– at least some of these two and a half<br />
dozen. These eruptions are preceded by seismic<br />
activity – Mars-quakes. Therefore,<br />
one of the main objectives is to see whether<br />
or not Mars is seismically active.<br />
“Before this there was only a small instrument<br />
on one spacecraft, which allowed<br />
finding out whether there were any<br />
Mars-quakes.”<br />
Speaking of the colonization of Mars,<br />
can seismic activity be a complicating<br />
factor?<br />
“To prevent it from being a complicating<br />
factor, one should not land on these<br />
volcanoes. There are two and a half dozen<br />
of them, but there is also the remaining territory.<br />
The diameter of Mars is only half<br />
that of Earth, so you can find a place to live.<br />
The only trouble is rather a high radiation –<br />
it is almost twice as high as in the orbits of<br />
manned stations. Besides, the astronauts<br />
who orbit Earth are also protected by our<br />
planet’s magnetic field. There is no protection<br />
at all on Mars, for it has almost no<br />
magnetic field.<br />
“An astronaut can be exposed to a<br />
lethal dose of radiation in the seven or eight<br />
months of flying to Mars, when the probability<br />
of his survival is 50 to 50 even if solar<br />
activity is as low as it is now and there<br />
are practically no ejections on the Sun. And<br />
if some people have landed on the planet,<br />
they must immediately dig into the ground<br />
or hide in a cave. The flight to Mars is<br />
planned for 2022 [Mars One project. – Author],<br />
when solar activity will be at its highest.<br />
In such periods, astronauts tend to refrain<br />
even from flying around Earth. So it<br />
is better to do this either before 2022 or after<br />
2025.”<br />
● HOW MICROORGANISMS<br />
CAN “TAME” MARS<br />
Jupiter’s moon Europa: a place to live in tomorrow?<br />
Professor Anatolii Vidmachenko on the likelihood<br />
of colonizing Mars, the Moon, and other celestial bodies<br />
PLANETARY SCIENTIST ANATOLII VIDMACHENKO STANDS NEXT TO THE PAVILION FOR THE CELESTRON-40<br />
TELESCOPE AT THE MAIN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF UKRAINE.<br />
CELESTRON-40 IS USED FOR WATCHING STARS WITH EXOPLANETS, ECLIPSING BINARY STARS, AND DISC STARS<br />
els were fitted with three or two only. Incidentally,<br />
some of these vehicles have<br />
been working on Mars for about ten years.”<br />
Speaking with journalists about the<br />
colonization of Mars, you once said favorable<br />
conditions could be created there by<br />
way of terraformation, “Earth-shaping.”<br />
How can it look like? How long will it last?<br />
“We must wait for two hundred thousand<br />
years or so (laughs). Indeed, it is quite<br />
a long process. Our team is now toying with<br />
the idea of disseminating microorganisms<br />
in Mars’ atmosphere, which could feed on<br />
carbon dioxide and discharge as much<br />
oxygen as possible. We believe that several<br />
dozens or hundreds of nanosatellites<br />
filled with special biomaterial, i.e. microorganisms<br />
that consume carbon dioxide,<br />
can work there for several dozens or hundreds<br />
of years, and, as a result, it will become<br />
warmer on Mars, water will begin to<br />
flood over some bottom lands, and atmospheric<br />
pressure will go up. For in the first<br />
several hundred million years the pressure<br />
on Mars was 0.4 bars, whereas it was 1 bar<br />
on Earth [now the pressure near Mars’ surface<br />
is 160 times lower than on Earth. – Author].<br />
This means it is possible to try to<br />
raise it again.<br />
“Viking spacecrafts searched for life on<br />
Mars’ surface from the mid-1970s onwards.<br />
We wished they would at least dig<br />
Photo from the website NASA.GOV<br />
MARS, AUGUST 5, 2015, ON THE EARTH CALENDAR. NASA’S CURIOSITY MARS<br />
ROVER IS TAKING A SELFIE IN THE BUCKSKIN AREA. IN MARCH 2018, THIS<br />
MARTIAN LABORATORY “MARKED” 2,000 SOLAR DAYS OF WORKING ON THE<br />
“RED PLANET.” CURIOSITY’S NUMEROUS SELFIES, WHICH HAVE HIT THE<br />
HEADLINES ALL OVER THE WORLD, HELP SCIENTISTS WATCH THE ROVER’S<br />
CONDITION<br />
Photo by Artem SLIPACHUK, The Day<br />
You once said in an interview that<br />
Mars is covered with very harmful and<br />
very powdery dust…<br />
“It is the so-called perchlorates. These<br />
chloric compounds are really very dangerous<br />
for breathing and very small-sized.<br />
While our dust, say, on the table is hundreds<br />
of microns, and some particles can<br />
even be a millimeter in size, the size of perchlotates<br />
is less than a micron, i.e., a<br />
thousandth part of a millimeter. Accordingly,<br />
they penetrate into all cracks and<br />
clog all kinds of filters. Only completely airtight<br />
stations can work on Mars. If a station<br />
has wheels, the latter usually have<br />
some fissures which these perchlorates<br />
will fill up. And while some of the Mars<br />
rovers initially had six wheels, later moddeep<br />
enough to reach ice. As it turned out<br />
later, they were very close to this. Their<br />
scoops could dig five to seven centimeters<br />
deep, while, as it is known now, frozen water<br />
lies at a depth of more than 15-20 centimeters.<br />
If they had reached water, the<br />
strategy of future explorations could have<br />
been essentially changed at that very time.<br />
Instead, everybody searched for water there<br />
from the late 1970s until the early 2000s.<br />
Now that water has been found, it is necessary<br />
again to search for life [incidentally,<br />
there is ice at Martian poles, and it became<br />
known in late July that there are under-ice<br />
lakes with liquid water on the planet. – Author].<br />
In 2009 or so, designers began to develop<br />
spacecrafts that can search for any<br />
kind of life, at least microbes.”<br />
● THE MOON’S VOLCANOES<br />
AND MINERAL RESOURCES<br />
I read that Ukrainian scientists are<br />
taking part in international Moon exploration<br />
projects which can be a steppingstone<br />
for more advanced explorations on<br />
Mars.<br />
“What is interesting in this case is the<br />
work of China. They decided: yes, Mars is<br />
good, but one must learn just to survive in<br />
conditions other than those on Earth. So<br />
they showed a very nice residential and research<br />
complex in Antarctica and said<br />
they would first test this kind of system on<br />
the Moon and then would take it to Mars.<br />
In other words, they are willing to participate<br />
in Mars-related projects, launch<br />
spacecrafts to and explore the planet at a<br />
short distance, but they postpone colonization<br />
for a later time.<br />
“A number of scientists have examined<br />
ongoing changes on the lunar surface at the<br />
Main Astronomical Observatory and the<br />
National Karazin University of Kharkiv.<br />
Those who worked at Karazin University’s<br />
Astronomy Research Institute mostly applied<br />
spectrophotometric and spectropolarimetric<br />
methods. And, for example,<br />
Vitalii Kysliuk explored the Moon’s figure<br />
at our observatory.<br />
“Besides, we have made several suggestions<br />
on how to watch the Moon change<br />
the tilt of its rotation axis by astronomical<br />
methods, installing a telescope in circumpolar<br />
areas or near the equator. We repeated<br />
the work of the 1960s, employing a<br />
new method, and showed that what used to<br />
take dozens of years to research something<br />
can only take a year now.<br />
“In addition, resources on the surface<br />
of Earth are running out, but they are<br />
available in outer space. The first source is<br />
the Moon. There are also a few asteroids flying<br />
not so far from Earth, and they can also<br />
be used to good advantage. Moreover, in<br />
some of them the deposits of metals –<br />
iron and nickel – exceed those in the half<br />
of Earth’s mines. And these asteroids are<br />
not so big. You can pull and work with them<br />
here. But it is also possible, instead of<br />
pulling over the whole rock, to fly there, extract<br />
what you want, and get the readymade<br />
material right on the spot. For example,<br />
you can make there and bring home<br />
several container-loads of microchips.”<br />
Can there still be any seismic activity<br />
on the Moon?<br />
“There is some volcanic activity there.<br />
When Apollo spaceships were flying to<br />
the Moon [there were six missions from<br />
1968 until 1975. – Author], they left some<br />
seismometers there. These devices recorded<br />
that, in addition to the usual volcanic activity,<br />
when the crust quakes, there is also<br />
the so-called impact activity – a space<br />
meteoroid hits the surface with a bang. Incidentally,<br />
seismic activity on the Moon’s<br />
far side, which we can’t see, is several times<br />
higher than on the side we can see.<br />
“In most of the lunar volcanoes lava<br />
flowed out into crust cracks and spread<br />
about, hardening on the surface. In 1999,<br />
a volcano was found on our satellite, which<br />
is a cone about six kilometers high with the<br />
Compton-Belkovich Crater. Lava could<br />
flow out of it about 800 million years ago,<br />
i.e. very recently in geological terms. Interestingly,<br />
what flowed out contained radioactive<br />
element thorium – a huge quantity<br />
of it was found on this volcano’s slopes.”<br />
● IN SEARCH OF LIFE<br />
ON EUROPA<br />
You and a colleague of yours spoke at<br />
the international scientific conference<br />
“Astronomical School of Young Scientists”<br />
in May about the possibility of colonizing<br />
Jupiter’s moon Europa. One of the<br />
advantages is water under a thick layer of<br />
ice. At the same time, it is difficult to reach<br />
Europa. Could you say more in detail<br />
about the advantages of this celestial<br />
body for colonization? What explorations<br />
of it are being carried out now?<br />
“It was known long ago that there is a<br />
10 to 12 kilometers deep ice layer on Europa<br />
and still deeper, from a few dozen to,<br />
maybe, hundreds of kilometers, there is water.<br />
However, ice may thaw in some places,<br />
which forms a small-size lens with water at<br />
a certain depth. As salt freezes in ice,<br />
melt water will be unsalted and practically<br />
potable. Therefore, it is possible to drill<br />
just in this place and get water. Gravitation<br />
is there in fact the same as on the Moon –<br />
one sixth of that on Earth. Hence, a float-
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
CULT URE No.<strong>41</strong> AUGUST 9, 2018 5<br />
ing island can theoretically be made in this<br />
water lens. You can extract some oxygen<br />
and nitrogen out of it, while ammonia is already<br />
available there, – so you can live.<br />
Jupiter shines above you through the ice,<br />
and the Sun glows far away.<br />
“And it turned out in 2012 that Europa<br />
has not only water, but also fissures<br />
through which it is ejected into the surrounding<br />
space – geysers. This means water<br />
is in fact on the surface. If you search<br />
for life at 12-kilometer intervals, you’ll<br />
have to drill very much. But if there are<br />
such geysers, you just fly by, quickly grab<br />
a few kilograms of this water, pack it into<br />
a container, and examine whether there<br />
is life on Europa.”<br />
● “LYING LOW” ON MERCURY<br />
If people wished to live somewhere<br />
else, which celestial body should they begin<br />
with?<br />
“Three colleagues of mine and I spoke<br />
at the ‘Astronomical School of Young Scientists’<br />
about where to search for life and<br />
which territories to choose for living in.<br />
The first conclusion is: man must not be exposed<br />
to asteroid-related danger and must<br />
live on Earth only. It is necessary to carry<br />
out the so-called repopulation. For example,<br />
we choose a few asteroids. There are<br />
about 5,000 asteroids now, which periodically<br />
come close to Earth. We have selected<br />
several dozen asteroids two to three kilometers<br />
in diameter, which have water,<br />
iron, silicon, and other mineral resources.<br />
Some of them fly circles and others have<br />
elongated orbits and periodically fly near<br />
Earth or near the chosen asteroids that fly<br />
circles. Accordingly, we land on such an asteroid,<br />
bury ourselves under its surface,<br />
disengage oxygen from water, and colonize<br />
this celestial body. When we launch a couple<br />
of dozen of such stations, we will have<br />
dozens of what may be called fixed-route<br />
taxis for communication with Earth.<br />
“We believe it is possible to ‘get on’<br />
some asteroid that is flying into the direction<br />
we need, fly up to another one and<br />
land on it. You don’t have to fly millions<br />
of kilometers – instead, you calculate a moment<br />
to fly up to your final destination on<br />
an ‘asteroid taxi’ and then you transfer, so<br />
to speak, from one asteroid to another in<br />
just a few days on a small spacecraft.<br />
“For a longtime colonization, it’s necessary<br />
to choose asteroids that have nickel-iron<br />
ore, extractable water, and rare<br />
chemical elements. There is even gold and<br />
platinum on some. In this case you can easily<br />
live and work in their caves, extract mineral<br />
resources, and produce the goods humankind<br />
needs. ‘Taxi managers,’ life support<br />
personnel, etc., will stay there permanently,<br />
while narrow specialists needed<br />
for a given asteroid factory may well work<br />
on a rotational basis. Naturally, there<br />
should be permanent communication between<br />
stations. Two or three dozens of<br />
such space ‘fixed-route taxis’ will be enough<br />
to colonize the space from Earth, through<br />
the asteroid belt, up to Jupiter. And after<br />
living there for several years, people get<br />
back to Earth, and we examine changes in<br />
their organism and decide whether or not<br />
we can move there for good.<br />
“The second place is the abovementioned<br />
Europa and a few more moons of<br />
Jupiter and Saturn. Europa is very close to<br />
Jupiter. Its magnetic field is too strong for<br />
us, and we may be exposed to excessive radiation.<br />
So we should reach Europa and immediately<br />
get under the ice, where there is<br />
good water – please swim and bathe<br />
(laughs). There is also Ganymede, an icy<br />
moon of Jupiter, which is farther away<br />
from that planet. There’s less radiation<br />
there and enough water. There are three or<br />
four objects around Saturn, which can also<br />
be colonized. And, quite unexpectedly,<br />
it is Venus.”<br />
It is sultry there – more than 400 degrees<br />
Celsius on the surface…<br />
“Yes, but temperature varies from<br />
zero to +30 Celsius at the altitude of 50-60<br />
kilometers. The pressure is one atmosphere.<br />
But atmosphere consists of carbon<br />
dioxide. On the other hand, this gas includes<br />
oxygen – so take it, break down, and<br />
isolate oxygen. Moreover, there’s also a lot<br />
of water vapor, and it’s possible to extract<br />
nitrogen. Now let us imagine: if you make<br />
a ball one kilometer in diameter, fill it with<br />
a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen or, as the<br />
Americans do in their spacecraft, helium<br />
and oxygen, the inner and outer pressure<br />
will be the same – one atmosphere. Yet the<br />
Earth-type atmosphere will be slightly<br />
lighter than the outer one. Besides, our ball<br />
has certain buoyancy. About a hundred<br />
thousand people can settle there in several<br />
tiers. Gravitational acceleration, which<br />
is 9.8 meters per second on Earth, is 8.9<br />
there – very close. Your bones will be intact,<br />
no osteochondrosis at all (laughs). So<br />
this is an interesting object of colonization.<br />
“And here is one more option. Scientist<br />
Oleksii Steklov has calculated depth-related<br />
temperature changes on various bodies. For<br />
example, it is quite hot on Mercury [340<br />
Kelvin degrees. – Author]. But Mercury’s<br />
axis has no tilt and does not vary<br />
with rotation. There are a lot of craters at<br />
the poles, where the Sun never shines, and<br />
the temperature there is 90 K or much less.<br />
There is even water there, for comet nuclei,<br />
which almost completely consist of ice, used<br />
to fall in those areas. It is estimated that<br />
frozen water will suffice for millions of<br />
years there. And temperature is always<br />
from zero to +20 degrees at the depth of only<br />
three to thirty meters. So it is always<br />
warm in the polar regions – from the latitude<br />
of 70 degrees up to the poles. There’s<br />
water next to you. So you’re welcome to<br />
hide at a low depth, live, watch the Sun, and<br />
warn terrestrials if there’s been a major<br />
flare on it.”<br />
● LIGHTNING AND CHANGE<br />
OF SEASONS ON JUPITER<br />
You have explored Jupiter and Saturn<br />
very much. Lightning occurs in Jupiter’s<br />
atmosphere much more often than on<br />
Earth. To what extent does it resemble<br />
ours?<br />
“Lightning on Jupiter somewhat resembles<br />
the one I saw in Kyiv the other day.<br />
We have seen nothing of the sort for a long<br />
time. The Dnieper flows six kilometers or<br />
so from the observatory, and the sky is<br />
clouded there, but here something seems to<br />
be roaring in the sky all the time. This has<br />
been happening continuously. Usually,<br />
thunder booms, lightning strikes, and<br />
that’s all. But here it was roaring for almost<br />
an hour. Almost the same occurs on<br />
Jupiter – multiple-discharge lightning<br />
can ‘roar’ for 40-50 hours in a row. There<br />
are also the so-called continuous flashes.<br />
For example, the Galileo spacecraft recorded<br />
that something like lightning shone all<br />
the time at a 1,000 by 300 kilometers<br />
place, and this lasted for years.”<br />
You were the first to record natural oscillations<br />
in the atmospheres of Jupiter<br />
and Saturn, and then you and your colleagues<br />
found seasonal changes in the atmospheres<br />
of those planets. Can these<br />
seasonal changes be compared with those<br />
on Earth?<br />
“There are seasons on Earth owing to<br />
the tilt of the terrestrial axis – 23.44 degrees.<br />
The axis of Saturn is tilted by<br />
26.7 degrees. There are seasonal changes<br />
there as well, but you must watch them<br />
very long because the period of this planet’s<br />
revolution around the Sun is 29 something<br />
years [29.46 years. – Author]. We discovered<br />
and registered them. Jupiter’s<br />
period of revolution is 11.86 years. It<br />
took us seven years to see that there can be<br />
seasonal changes there, and we recorded a<br />
difference between summers in the southern<br />
and northern hemispheres. But the tilt<br />
of Jupiter’s axis is three degrees only.<br />
Whence is the change of seasons? We<br />
found that the magnetic and the geographic<br />
axes form an angle of 12 something<br />
degrees. For this reason, if you add these 12<br />
to the three-degree tilt, you will have 15.<br />
And the situation will be just the reverse<br />
six terrestrial years, or Jupiter’s six<br />
months, later. This means that the geographic<br />
and the magnetic poles have the<br />
same impact as geographic inclination<br />
alone has in our case.<br />
“As we examined the upper layers of<br />
Jupiter’s atmosphere, it turned out that<br />
3 plus 12 degrees of tilt are enough to bring<br />
about seasonal changes. Besides, the orbit<br />
is more elongated that that of Earth.<br />
When Jupiter’s northern hemisphere is<br />
closest to the Sun, it receives 40 percent<br />
more heat than it will do six years later,<br />
when the southern hemisphere is exposed<br />
to solar rays. This alone is supposed to trigger<br />
changes in the atmosphere, and we<br />
recorded them.”<br />
Read more on our website<br />
THAT’S HOW THE ZVENYHOROD PARK IS GOING TO LOOK LIKE<br />
Princely Zvenyhorod to be revived<br />
Scholars are launching<br />
a historical-cultural park in Lviv region<br />
By Oksana HRUBA, Lviv<br />
Photos by Vitalii HRABAR<br />
Ukraine’s first historicalcultural<br />
park “Ancient<br />
Zvenyhorod” will be launched<br />
in autumn not far from<br />
Lviv, based on a nationwide<br />
archeological site. It will cover an<br />
area of approximately 38 hectares. The<br />
project is a brainchild of the<br />
Department of Architecture and<br />
Urban Development at Lviv Oblast<br />
State Administration. The project<br />
won in the competition of the regional<br />
development initiatives. Approximately<br />
12 million hryvnias will be<br />
allotted for its implementation within<br />
the EU sector budget support<br />
program. The project envisages the<br />
regularization of the site and the<br />
central square of the village,<br />
conservation of the sites of the<br />
principality time with the aim to<br />
preserve them for future research,<br />
marking the most significant<br />
buildings of the principality time with<br />
the help of modern artistic and<br />
technical means, laying out the roads<br />
of the ancient settlement with the<br />
purpose of outlining the late medieval<br />
and early medieval fortifications, the<br />
visual reconstruction of the unique<br />
defense system of the 18th century,<br />
creating the basic touristic<br />
infrastructure around the historicalcultural<br />
park “Ancient Zvenyhorod,”<br />
tourist routes, etc.<br />
Zvenyhorod was one of three<br />
capitals of the principality, where<br />
the Ukrainian statehood emerged in<br />
11th and 12th centuries in the Transcarpathian<br />
region. According to<br />
archeologists, the research of<br />
Zvenyhorod started back in the mid-<br />
19th century and is still underway.<br />
The largest excavations took place<br />
in the 1950s-1990s. The impressive<br />
collection of the archeological artifacts<br />
that counts for tens thousands<br />
of findings, shows Zvenyhorod as a<br />
big economic, cultural, and spiritual<br />
center.<br />
THE ZVENYHOROD MUSEUM DISPLAYS OVER 300 ITEMS DATED 11th-12th CENTURIES<br />
The co-author of the project, a<br />
Zvenyhorod researcher, junior researcher<br />
at the Archeological Rescuing<br />
Service Nataliia VOITSE-<br />
SHCHUK commented to The Day:<br />
“The question of launching a preserve<br />
in Zvenyhorod was raised after<br />
the collapse of the Soviet Union. But<br />
while the documents were drafted in<br />
1995 Ihor Svieshnikov, who was the<br />
mastermind and the moving force of<br />
the process, died. In the 1990s the<br />
preserves in Halych and Belz were<br />
launched, however a different fate<br />
awaited Zvenyhorod. But I think<br />
history doesn’t like unfinished cycles,<br />
and now the time has come for<br />
me and our team with the support of<br />
concerned citizens to create this<br />
touristic-cultural and educational<br />
center. We have already applied the<br />
documents and are waiting for the<br />
decision. Last year, not to waste our<br />
time, we filed a project application<br />
for the grant program for the adaptation<br />
of the sites of cultural heritage<br />
for tourist activity. And we decided<br />
to create a preserve. But the<br />
question is not about just launching<br />
a preserve, but continuing to develop<br />
it. Because we already have the<br />
preserves that remain only as the<br />
names on the administrative map.<br />
We have no preserve yet, but we<br />
have the opportunity to bring the<br />
territory in order, so we have decided<br />
to launch a park. This will be a<br />
recreational area with tourism as its<br />
main activity. The park will conserve<br />
and preserve the site with minimum<br />
intrusion into its historical<br />
landscape, we are not planning any<br />
construction, we will only renew the<br />
external borders of the fortifications<br />
that have been preserved.<br />
While walking in the park, the person<br />
will learn the interesting facts<br />
from the history of the Zvenyhorod<br />
Principality, and partially it will be<br />
done through the game, because the<br />
project is meant not only for adults,<br />
but for children as well. We want to<br />
create a competitive tourist project<br />
in the Ukrainian market to fulfill<br />
the main task, preserving the site<br />
for the future generations,” Voitseshchuk<br />
says.<br />
“We’ve made a film about the<br />
history of Zvenyhorod, from ancient<br />
time till today. We’ve also launched<br />
an exhibit at the Zvenyhorod Museum<br />
to make people learn about our<br />
town of the principality time, it’s<br />
called ‘Ancient Zvenyhorod – coming<br />
back from oblivion’ and showcases<br />
over 300 items from the 11th-12th<br />
centuries. It will be open till December<br />
1. There are very few archeological<br />
exhibits, as this is a very specific<br />
sphere of museum activity, because<br />
it’s not easy to display the archeological<br />
items, moreover to add some informational<br />
background. We display<br />
the most interesting items from historical<br />
viewpoint, which were found<br />
in Zvenyhorod in the period between<br />
the 19th century and 2010, when the<br />
last excavations took place. Most of<br />
the items were found during the significant<br />
studies, which lasted in the<br />
period between 1971 and 1986, the<br />
boyar quarter which was excavated<br />
to more than a half. Unique remains<br />
of a wooden building, which had been<br />
well preserved due to the qualities of<br />
the peat soil as a conserver of organic<br />
materials, were found there,” Nataliia<br />
specifies.<br />
Certainly, the touristic potential<br />
and prospect of famous Zvenyhorod<br />
are huge, but, most importantly, the<br />
scholars must start<br />
regularizing and<br />
framing it on a serious<br />
level. Voitseshchuk<br />
states: “Unfortunately,<br />
we have<br />
no favorable conditions<br />
to implement<br />
cultural and historical<br />
projects. Culture<br />
is the last thing to be<br />
cared about. We must<br />
change the approach,<br />
there must be an exploration<br />
with the vision<br />
of ourselves and<br />
understanding why<br />
we are doing this.<br />
And there should be<br />
the understanding<br />
that either you make a<br />
high-quality product<br />
and compete or you<br />
cease to exist. Actually,<br />
there must be a<br />
professional academic<br />
management.”
6<br />
No.<strong>41</strong> AUGUST 9, 2018<br />
CLOSE UP<br />
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
By Khrystyna SAVCHUK,<br />
Anastasiia KOROL, Den’s Summer<br />
School of Journalism, 2018<br />
The Ukrainian team which will<br />
compete in the Invictus Games in<br />
Sydney at the end of October<br />
started its second training session<br />
on August 7. Let us recall that our<br />
team will participate for the second<br />
time in this international competition for<br />
wounded soldiers which was founded by<br />
Prince Harry. Overall, various sports<br />
events for veterans are held almost on a<br />
weekly basis, because this is the best and<br />
most accessible way of rehabilitating<br />
wounded soldiers. Presidential<br />
Commissioner for Rehabilitation of<br />
Wounded Anti-Terrorist Operation<br />
(ATO) Soldiers Vadym Svyrydenko<br />
talked to Den/The Day about it before.<br />
And recently, Svyrydenko joined his<br />
assistant Kostiantyn Vinnichenko as<br />
they became lecturers at Den’s Summer<br />
School of Journalism.<br />
This conversation was special in<br />
that we heard many frank stories that<br />
helped us understand how and why people<br />
become soldiers, risk their lives in the<br />
war, and how they then return to peaceful<br />
life. Back during the meeting, an idea<br />
emerged of creating – together with<br />
students of the Summer School – a club<br />
of sports journalists, dedicated to telling<br />
about the veterans’ competitions. Indeed,<br />
their victories inspire not only other<br />
soldiers, but also ordinary people. So<br />
watch out for this initiative developing.<br />
In the meantime, read about the transfer<br />
of experience between different generations<br />
of soldiers, people finding their<br />
vocations at the front, and why there is<br />
always a place for the creation of new<br />
things in war.<br />
● “PEOPLE WHO HAVE BORNE<br />
ARMS UNDERSTAND EACH<br />
OTHER”<br />
How to get out of the war’s grip<br />
Vadym Svyrydenko and Kostiantyn Vinnichenko talked about<br />
it using real-life examples at Den’s Summer School of Journalism<br />
Olha KRYSA, Ivan Franko National<br />
University of Lviv: “The membership<br />
of the Ukrainian team, which is<br />
to compete in the Invictus Games in Sydney<br />
this fall, is already known. There is<br />
a certain association in people’s minds<br />
which sees men alone as participants of<br />
such competitions. But they are not<br />
alone in it, and the national team includes<br />
women as well. Can you tell us<br />
more about female participants in international<br />
veteran competitions?”<br />
Vadym SVYRYDENKO: “We even<br />
ask women to apply for such competitions<br />
as much as possible. Women can<br />
take part in the Invictus Games as well.<br />
Olha Benda was among them, having<br />
served as a cook of the 72nd Separate<br />
Mechanized Brigade and lost her leg. She<br />
had a sports prosthetic leg made. She got<br />
interested in participating in the selection,<br />
but wanted to go back to the front<br />
line again, so she did not even plan to go<br />
to Australia at first.”<br />
Anastasiia KOROL, Vasyl Stus<br />
Donetsk National University: “Why is<br />
it important for you to get Ukrainian<br />
soldiers to participate more actively in<br />
such competitions?”<br />
Kostiantyn VINNICHENKO: “First<br />
of all, this country had no experience of<br />
military operations since independence.<br />
The state should provide all the resources<br />
so that a wounded soldier would<br />
not only get adapted to peaceful life, but<br />
could as much as possible take care of<br />
themselves, be an equal member of society.<br />
They did not pay attention to it in<br />
the Soviet time. They created dedicated<br />
residential facilities for people who became<br />
disabled. It was only on May 9, the<br />
Victory Day, that they spoke about the<br />
veterans’ heroism. But international<br />
experience has come to Ukraine thanks<br />
to sports. This is the first such huge platform<br />
providing our lads with a way to<br />
understand each other, and this is not a<br />
political system. Through sports, war<br />
veterans can adapt quickly, get help<br />
and understand that they can become<br />
equal members of society within a short<br />
period of time.<br />
“Wounded lads do not just need<br />
help. They need the opportunity to<br />
choose any path they like, access any profession,<br />
new knowledge. When they will<br />
get it, we the public will get a new impetus.<br />
Civilians also get certain signals<br />
when they see the emotional experience<br />
of lads who have been through tough<br />
times. They team up around veterans,<br />
and so changes may begin in Ukraine.”<br />
Mariia PROKOPENKO: “By the<br />
way, do the Afghan war veterans join<br />
your initiatives?”<br />
V.S.: “We do not draw any dividing<br />
lines between people who have gained<br />
combat experience. There are various<br />
communities. Some of them are closed,<br />
made of people who do not want to join.<br />
A certain number of ATO veterans had<br />
fought in Afghanistan as well. People<br />
who have borne arms understand each<br />
other. And when legislative changes are<br />
made regarding war veterans, they affect<br />
them all, both ATO and Afghan<br />
war veterans. But everyone has their<br />
own adaptation experience. The ATO<br />
veterans are just acquiring it. And<br />
sports offer the first strong opportunity<br />
to become a full member of society<br />
for any serviceperson returning to<br />
peaceful life.<br />
“In general, the Afghan war veterans<br />
have contributed a lot to the ATO.<br />
Soldiers of the volunteer battalions were<br />
still young in the beginning, and the<br />
Afghan war veterans were already battle-seasoned,<br />
they taught younger lads,<br />
and thanks to them, many people survived<br />
the war. They taught them how to<br />
behave during shelling, how to properly<br />
hide. And when we got our first killed<br />
in action, it was Afghan war veterans<br />
who provided psychological help.<br />
“When I had lost my limbs and was<br />
still in intensive care, the first person to<br />
come and tell me what I needed to eat and<br />
how to do the first exercise was an<br />
Afghan war veteran. Today we are best<br />
friends, and it can be said that I covered<br />
my first three kilometers with him.”<br />
● “THE PRESENCE OF<br />
DISABLED PEOPLE<br />
IN THEATERS IS A GREAT<br />
INDICATOR OF<br />
ACCESSIBILITY”<br />
Daria CHYZH, Borys Hrinchenko<br />
University of Kyiv: “Can Ukraine provide<br />
you with quality prosthetics? And<br />
how do you evaluate the conditions in<br />
this country for the people with special<br />
needs?”<br />
V.S.: “Domestic producers make<br />
sport prosthetics both for running and<br />
for crossfit exercises. We have a joint<br />
project with a NATO trust fund which<br />
pays for training our specialists. They<br />
buy equipment, and our specialists learn<br />
how to do it while practicing on our lads.<br />
These are very positive and significant<br />
steps forward. But, unfortunately, our<br />
infrastructure is not yet ready for such<br />
changes.<br />
“I travel a lot in Ukraine, so I can<br />
confidently say that Kharkiv is the most<br />
advanced city regarding the situation of<br />
the people with special needs. They install<br />
many ramps and retrofit stairs<br />
there. There is still a lot of work to do in<br />
Kyiv. I do not know why it is so. It is difficult<br />
to even compare it with foreign<br />
countries, because these latter have elevators<br />
in the subway even.<br />
“For me, the presence of disabled<br />
people in theaters is a great indicator of<br />
accessibility. We come there, and four or<br />
five people sit by themselves there, they<br />
are not afraid of anything, they have<br />
adapted cars and elevators, steps. One<br />
would not even ask oneself how it is possible<br />
to get there. As soon as they have<br />
a desire, they go there. I think this is a<br />
model for us. We must change not only<br />
the city, but also the society.”<br />
● “WE ARE PROUD TO BE<br />
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH<br />
DEN/THE DAY”<br />
Yuliia DOVHAICHUK, Taras<br />
Shevchenko National University of<br />
Kyiv: “What practices do we need to borrow<br />
from Western countries to increase<br />
the level of rehabilitation assistance to<br />
soldiers and enable Ukrainians to get rehabilitated<br />
at home instead of having to<br />
go abroad?”<br />
K.V.: “This year, the National Council<br />
for Sports Rehabilitation of Defenders<br />
of Ukraine was launched. Commissioner<br />
Svyrydenko heads this organization.<br />
The special feature of this National<br />
Council is that unlike other<br />
Ukrainian projects that target soldiers,<br />
its management is entirely made of<br />
those who fought in the ATO, got wounded<br />
there, and understand the topic well.<br />
“Our goal is to create opportunities<br />
for training of specialists and trainers,<br />
create clubs of any sport recognized in<br />
Ukraine. Moreover, we want to see emergence<br />
of sports management, marketing,<br />
administration bodies. So, if some lads<br />
want to create a club in a small town,<br />
they get a complete package of necessary<br />
assistance from the National Council.<br />
NATO also provides educational support.<br />
“Our goal is to provide opportunities<br />
for creating sports businesses. This<br />
practice is widespread abroad, where it<br />
involves various partners and sponsors<br />
who want to provide dedicated support<br />
in this field. When lads get wounded,<br />
they do not want to go beyond the limits<br />
of the veteran milieu, but such businesses<br />
offer opportunities to get a job,<br />
earn money, and stay fully involved in<br />
the community, be useful.<br />
“Den/The Day newspaper is a partner<br />
of ours, and we are very proud that<br />
we can support each other. Our meeting<br />
is a great opportunity to create a student<br />
sports journalism club. You represent<br />
different cities and colleges. So, you have<br />
the opportunity to talk about all these<br />
programs in your regions, talk to students,<br />
veterans, to your organizations.<br />
Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day<br />
There are civilians who seek to help the<br />
wounded, and they also need information<br />
that you can convey as well.”<br />
● “I ALWAYS WANTED TO JOIN<br />
THE MILITARY, EVEN WHEN<br />
STILL A SCHOOLCHILD”<br />
Sofiia POSTOLATII, Sumy State<br />
University: “In June, President of<br />
Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed into<br />
law a bill amending the military service<br />
regulations. You went to serve as a mobilized<br />
soldier yourself. How, according<br />
to your observations, is the military<br />
service in Ukraine changing?”<br />
V.S.: “The military is changing. I<br />
joined the military when I was 20 years<br />
old, served in the border guard troops<br />
and qualified as combat medic. When the<br />
war began, I clearly knew that I would be<br />
there, because I was a combat medic, a<br />
border guard, and these are the first people<br />
to be called up. When I got my callup<br />
papers, it being as late as the third<br />
wave of mobilization, I was not afraid.<br />
I knew that I had to go and fight if I was<br />
serious about taking such a responsibility.<br />
Also, when you hear: ‘first soldiers<br />
killed in action,’ ‘first soldiers wounded<br />
in action,’ then you understand that<br />
they need you there, that you may not<br />
stay put. My friend Maksym was eager<br />
to join the ATO, but they refused to recruit<br />
him. And when I got my call-up papers,<br />
he went to the military recruitment<br />
office, sat there and said: ‘I will not leave<br />
until you enlist me.’ So, he got into the<br />
72nd Brigade.”<br />
K.V.: “I know that some lads went<br />
through almost the same situation. Indeed,<br />
lads had died during the Maidan<br />
protest, there were changes, and people<br />
went to war. When I heard that the<br />
first Russian troops entered our territory,<br />
I ran to the military recruitment office<br />
that same day. I was getting told:<br />
‘wait, we will call you back,’ ‘you have<br />
already been taken off the reserve roll,’<br />
‘you are too old.’ And it went on for a<br />
long time, I could not get recruited.<br />
Then I heard that there were first volunteer<br />
battalions being created. And I<br />
thought, ‘I have a family, how can I tell<br />
them?’ And then I got a 10-year US visa<br />
and told the family that I would go<br />
there to earn some money. I did not go<br />
west, though, but east instead, and was<br />
assigned to the 1st Battalion of the National<br />
Guard, which is known as the General<br />
Kulchytskyi Battalion now. My<br />
family did not know, nobody knew it.<br />
And it so happened that my aunt was at<br />
her country home, bad people called her<br />
and said, imitating my voice, that I was<br />
gravely wounded and needed money for<br />
treatment. She did not understand what<br />
it all was about, since she thought I was<br />
earning money in America. There were<br />
a lot of TV reports about soldiers then.<br />
My family members saw personal details<br />
of Halyna Almazova, a volunteer who often<br />
traveled to eastern Ukraine, and<br />
called her. She said: ‘I saw him three days<br />
ago. He is alright. If you get any such<br />
calls again, make sure you do not trust<br />
them and do not keep in touch with<br />
these people.’<br />
“This is one story among many thousands<br />
like it. It was 2014, and everyone<br />
seemed to have come to understand that<br />
the country was in danger. And when the<br />
time comes that something depends on<br />
you, when you defend your family, you<br />
feel yourself needed. It was a great discovery<br />
for me that very different people<br />
came to fight in the war, as they differed<br />
in their careers, social status, education,<br />
age, and experience.<br />
“From the very beginning of the<br />
war, I kept a diary, recorded things, photographed<br />
them, filmed videos. Lads<br />
from the Kyivan Rus’ Battalion thought<br />
that I was writing something about<br />
someone, so they treated it with caution.<br />
Then one of my friends wanted to read<br />
what I had written there. He was older<br />
than me, and having read it, he asked<br />
himself why he himself was not writing<br />
anything, as he was a professional historian.<br />
It was even difficult to understand<br />
why he went to war at all: he had<br />
bad vision, he did not even hit the target,<br />
and got lost easily. And it provided him<br />
with an understanding why he was<br />
there. He began to tell other lads why<br />
they were there, why Russia was fighting<br />
us. It involved regular lectures,<br />
psychological support, and a personal diary,<br />
he delivered these materials through<br />
volunteers. That man launched his own<br />
mechanism. When you return from the<br />
war, you realize that each person is<br />
unique, they carry something that can<br />
make each of us happier.”<br />
V.S.: “In fact, everyone has their own<br />
path, everyone chooses who they are going<br />
to be. Much depends on upbringing,<br />
on family priorities. My parents were always<br />
Ukrainian-speaking, I always defended<br />
girls. We have to go there, the<br />
front needs men. I am all for gender<br />
equality, but we need men in the war.<br />
“I always wanted to join the military,<br />
even when still a schoolchild, but when<br />
I came of age, the Soviet Union collapsed.<br />
I watched my elder brothers go<br />
to serve at first, saw them graduating<br />
from a military school, and I decided that<br />
I did not want to go there after all, but<br />
the dream of being a soldier still remained.<br />
I am convinced that many lads<br />
are such confident and focused young<br />
men now. The military profession, in my<br />
opinion, is for males. Also, the government<br />
must promote patriotism, get people<br />
to speak Ukrainian after all. I wish<br />
greatly that in the future, when a wounded<br />
soldier would walk down a street, nobody<br />
would ask him: ‘Are you an ATO<br />
veteran?’ and then say that he had it<br />
coming as he walks away.<br />
“I had an interesting case in America.<br />
I walked across a park, and they raise<br />
the flag and play the US anthem there at<br />
8 a.m. A lad, a soldier, stood to attention<br />
even though he saw no one around. That<br />
is, he is a patriot, he honors his nation and<br />
memory of the fallen. It would be very<br />
good to see such a patriotic upbringing<br />
taking place in this country as well, so<br />
that people simply love their country.”<br />
● “PEOPLE’S FIRST<br />
PSYCHOLOGISTS ARE THEIR<br />
WIVES, MOTHERS, SISTERS”<br />
Evelina KOTLIAROVA, Taras<br />
Shevchenko National University of<br />
Kyiv: “New rehabilitation centers are<br />
being created in Ukraine. However,<br />
how far are soldiers open to cooperating<br />
with specialists? And how to convey to<br />
fighters the idea that seeking help is an<br />
acceptable and correct decision?”<br />
V.S.: “We organize veteran meetings.<br />
People come to us, we try to leave<br />
our friends among veterans. When we<br />
know that people have had very strong<br />
injuries, contusions, then we involve psychologists.<br />
“We have centers for neurological<br />
rehabilitation. We work in this direction<br />
with hospitals in Lviv, Irpin, and<br />
Kyiv. The NATO trust fund allocates<br />
funds for this. We talk about our<br />
wounds and the positive effect of rehabilitation<br />
centers. It does not take
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
much motivation here, we need just<br />
to talk to veterans.”<br />
Viktoriia HONCHARENKO,<br />
Dnipro Law School: “How have your<br />
life values changed after your injury<br />
and rehabilitation period?”<br />
V.S.: “My principal value is life.<br />
No one has the right to deprive anyone<br />
of it. My values have not<br />
changed, I have just grown to feel<br />
stronger about them. Many soldiers<br />
face issues after getting wounded, so<br />
I meet with their families and ask<br />
them to help them undergo rehabilitation.<br />
Subsequently, after they get<br />
whole again, the soldier will consider<br />
his family to be his everything. It<br />
is for the family that the soldier will<br />
turn the world upside down. Therefore,<br />
the key values for me are the<br />
family and our homeland.”<br />
K.V.: “The first victory of any veteran<br />
is the victory in the family, because<br />
when lads go to war, the whole<br />
burden of family support gets to rest<br />
on women’s shoulders. And then lads<br />
return home with the idea that they<br />
are masters of their homes. It is very<br />
important for wives to be psychologically<br />
ready to accept the fact that<br />
their husbands return as changed<br />
men. Lads themselves must also understand<br />
that not only they, but the<br />
entire families, who lived without<br />
them for a certain time, got changed.<br />
“It is often said that there is no<br />
family rehabilitation in Ukraine.<br />
But this is very important. People’s<br />
first psychologists are their wives,<br />
mothers, sisters who meet returning<br />
soldiers.”<br />
V.S.: “I even believe that the<br />
medals we receive are not ours but our<br />
wives’.”<br />
● “CREATIVITY AND WAR<br />
GO TOGETHER”<br />
Solomiia NYKOLAIEVYCH,<br />
Lesia Ukrainka Eastern European<br />
National University: “Mr. Svyrydenko,<br />
you worked for a newspaper<br />
for 10 years, engaged in its<br />
promotion. Do you plan to return<br />
to this line of work in the future?”<br />
V.S.: “When I went to war, I<br />
had my job protected, and after being<br />
wounded, I was invited to return<br />
to that job as well. But at the<br />
same time, I was asked to work<br />
where I really could be useful, especially<br />
for our veterans. When I<br />
returned from the Marine Corps<br />
Marathon in Washington, DC, I<br />
met with the president of Ukraine,<br />
and it was then that I realized that<br />
I had to help others get rehabilitated.<br />
There are many such organizations<br />
today, so there is strength in<br />
unity, as they say. We solve complex<br />
issues together.”<br />
Mariia PROKOPENKO: “In a<br />
conversation within the framework<br />
of the Wounds Project,<br />
Mr. Svyrydenko shared his opinion<br />
that there is more to the war than<br />
killing, as one can create new<br />
things there as well. How exactly<br />
do you understand these words?”<br />
K.V.: “I will try to answer. I<br />
know about some lads setting up<br />
their own radio station at the<br />
front. There are also those who<br />
write poetry, draw things on empty<br />
ammunition boxes. Creativity and<br />
war go together. On their return,<br />
lads look for ways to realize their<br />
creativity. My friend Yurii<br />
Neroslik draws military posters,<br />
and we have held exhibitions together<br />
at Kyiv City Hall and the<br />
Ukrainian House exhibition center.<br />
A lot of his images have spread<br />
over the internet, and not all users<br />
know that he is their author. We<br />
must not forget those who have not<br />
returned. All of them also dreamed<br />
about something.”<br />
The Summer School of<br />
Journalism is supported<br />
by the NATO Information<br />
and Documentation Centre<br />
in Ukraine<br />
By Igor YAKOVENKO,<br />
Moscow, special to The Day<br />
The obvious things include the<br />
very fact of the killing, its<br />
timing and location. Also,<br />
numerous witnesses have<br />
corroborated the purpose of the<br />
crew’s trip to the Central African<br />
Republic (CAR), it being making an<br />
investigative film dealing with the<br />
activities of Wagner’s private<br />
military company (PMC). It is the<br />
main thing that is unclear: who killed<br />
them and why.<br />
The Russian official line has it all<br />
backwards. The Ministry of Foreign<br />
Affairs (MFA)’s spokesperson Maria<br />
Zakharova posted on Facebook: “I am<br />
hearing and reading this nonsense<br />
about some ‘investigations’<br />
concerning PMCs<br />
in the CAR.” What exactly<br />
Zakharova regards as<br />
“nonsense” is not entirely<br />
clear: the statement that<br />
the journalists killed<br />
were conducting an investigation,<br />
or one about<br />
Wagner’s PMC being active<br />
in Central Africa?<br />
“There is nothing sensational<br />
about the presence<br />
of Russian instructors in<br />
the CAR, nobody has been<br />
hiding anything,” Zakharova<br />
asserted, and advised<br />
people to consult<br />
the MFA’s website. Following<br />
her advice, let us<br />
consult it. The MFA of<br />
the Russian Federation<br />
reported back in March<br />
2018 that at the request<br />
of the president of the<br />
CAR, military and civilian<br />
instructors had been<br />
sent to that country. It<br />
has not a single word to<br />
say about Wagner’s PMC,<br />
which is just a common<br />
gang according to Russian law, since<br />
there is no law providing for PMCs in<br />
Russia, and therefore, any armed formation<br />
that operates outside the<br />
Russian uniformed services is just a<br />
gang and nothing else.<br />
“What were they really doing in<br />
the CAR, what were their objective<br />
and tasks – these questions are still<br />
unanswered,” spokesperson of the<br />
Russian Federation’s MFA Zakharova<br />
continued her mendacious message,<br />
despite being undoubtedly well aware<br />
of the killed journalists’ objective<br />
which brought them to the CAR. In<br />
fact, she confirmed it, when recalling<br />
the “nonsensical” investigation of the<br />
PMC activities.<br />
TOPIC OF THE DAY No.<strong>41</strong> AUGUST 9, 2018 7<br />
Dancing on journalists’ bones<br />
Concerning the tragedy that befell the film crew of journalists Orhan Dzhemal, Kirill<br />
Radchenko, and Alexander Rastorguev, who were killed in the Central African Republic<br />
on July 31, 2018, some things are obvious and proven, while others are still unclear<br />
The day after the journalists’<br />
killing, TV channel Russia 1 broadcast<br />
its 60 Minutes program, which featured<br />
a merry dance on the bones of<br />
the dead. Of course, the leader of the<br />
Liberal Democratic Party was invited<br />
as the principal dancer. I have long<br />
stopped asking questions of media<br />
troops soldiers. These are people of a<br />
different profession that has nothing<br />
to do with journalism. However, they<br />
call themselves journalists and sometimes<br />
try to pretend they are. In this<br />
case, I became interested in how Olga<br />
Skabeeva and Evgeny Popov would explain<br />
the presence of Mr. Zh. (Vladimir<br />
Zhirinovsky) in a program discussing<br />
a killing of journalists. Is<br />
Zh. a journalist? Or is he a specialist<br />
in journalistic investigations? That<br />
man is known for his fierce hatred of<br />
journalists, cases of direct violence<br />
against them, and urging his guard<br />
live on the air to rape a journalist.<br />
Inviting Zh. to that program was a<br />
provocation as vile as, for example,<br />
inviting an open and known anti-<br />
Semite to the funeral of a rabbi.<br />
And Zh. fully justified the confidence<br />
of Skabeeva and Popov.<br />
“There is no need to go anywhere!”<br />
Zh. screamed as soon as he was asked<br />
to speak. “Mikhail Khodorkovsky is<br />
an enemy of Russia, and we should<br />
not help his hirelings!” Zh. stated<br />
when responding to Zakharova’s<br />
Next, Khodorkovsky explained<br />
the reasons and extent of his involvestatement<br />
that the MFA had stood<br />
ready to assist the journalists. After<br />
that, Zh. was flinging dirt at the<br />
dead for quite a long time: “Thrill<br />
addicts!”, “They were involved in illegal<br />
business! These were illegal<br />
diggers!”, “They went there to engage<br />
in illegal pursuits, and now the<br />
public has to pay for them?” Skabeeva<br />
tried in every way to show that<br />
she did not share Zh.’s stance. It<br />
looked as if Zh. was invited to her<br />
program by some strangers, completely<br />
unknown people, and she had<br />
nothing to do with it.<br />
Zakharova emerged as a pure<br />
source of the most reliable information<br />
on the big screen in the studio,<br />
and reported the following. Firstly,<br />
“the official stated purpose of this<br />
group’s trip was tourism.” Secondly,<br />
“they carried expired journalistic certificates.”<br />
Thirdly, “they never contacted<br />
the MFA.” And fourthly, “had<br />
they declared their true purpose,<br />
everything could have been different.”<br />
“An exhaustive presentation!”<br />
was Skabeeva’s enthusiastic response.<br />
And she added: “We must understand<br />
who will be held responsible for it.”<br />
Actually, the respondent defendant<br />
was already known. “Political<br />
scientist” Dmitry Abzalov said that<br />
“the problem is in the very ap-<br />
proach” and asked indignantly:<br />
“Why was there no accreditation?”<br />
Following that, he pronounced the<br />
verdict: “People were thrown into<br />
this system!” Employee of Komsomolskaya<br />
Pravda Alexander Kots<br />
was more specific: “They had with<br />
them over 8,000 dollars. Security<br />
personnel can be hired for 300 dollars<br />
there.” Skabeeva immediately<br />
and understandingly exclaimed:<br />
“They economized on that business<br />
trip!” Employee of the VGTRK<br />
broadcaster Sergey Pashkov and employee<br />
of the Kommersant newspaper<br />
Maksim Yudin said, both claiming<br />
experience in the field, that the<br />
killed men’s failure to inform the<br />
Russian embassy in the CAR of their<br />
arrival was a fatal mistake.<br />
I have no doubt that all the participants<br />
of the 60 Minutes program<br />
only pretended to be idiots when<br />
claiming to not understand the reasons<br />
why Dzhemal, Rastorguev, and<br />
Radchenko had preferred not to deal<br />
with representatives of Russia and<br />
minimize contacts with local authorities.<br />
It would be weird to go to investigate<br />
the activities of a gang which is<br />
closely connected with the Russian<br />
and local authorities, and ask for<br />
their approval regarding the purpose<br />
of the business trip at the same time.<br />
This is stated in some detail in the report<br />
of the Investigation Control Centre<br />
(ICC) on Khodorkovsky’s Facebook<br />
page: “Orhan Dzhemal, Alexander<br />
Rastorguev, and Kirill Radchenko<br />
came to the CAR on tourist<br />
visas and were not accredited with the<br />
Russian embassy and consulate. This<br />
was due to the object of the investigation<br />
being Wagner’s PMC. If the hypothesis<br />
of the investigation team<br />
was correct and Wagner’s PMC acted<br />
in the CAR as a mercenary combat<br />
force with the unofficial support of<br />
the Russian authorities, contacting<br />
the Russian diplomatic bodies would<br />
have made the investigation meaningless.”<br />
End quote.<br />
I would like to deal separately<br />
with no less idiotic advice to hire local<br />
guards. What guards? Local gangsters?<br />
Or members of the local security<br />
forces, who are likely to be connected<br />
with Wagner’s PMC? Or should the<br />
journalists have brought with them a<br />
platoon of armed fighters from Russia?<br />
Khodorkovsky answered in his<br />
blog those who directly or indirectly<br />
blame him for the deaths of the journalists:<br />
“As for security, it would<br />
have been strange, on my part, to impose<br />
my solution of this problem on<br />
professional war reporters with a<br />
great deal of experience. They were<br />
among the best specialists in Russia.<br />
All they needed was discussed directly<br />
with the editor-in-chief, and the resources<br />
needed were provided.”<br />
ment in the investigation during<br />
which the journalists were killed. “My<br />
personal involvement in the Russian<br />
Mercenaries project was limited to<br />
funding it. The project was developed<br />
by a group of professional investigative<br />
journalists and presented to me by<br />
the editor-in-chief of the ICC. I consider<br />
it important, because in this<br />
country, the government often likes to<br />
conceal its illicit affairs by referring to<br />
‘private individuals.’ In Russia, mercenary<br />
activity is not regulated by law<br />
and non-transparent, and it is a criminal<br />
offense as well. However, top leaders<br />
of the state are not ashamed to<br />
speak approvingly about this practice,<br />
which makes the situation particularly<br />
dangerous. From now on, my involvement<br />
in the investigation will be<br />
much deeper.” End quote.<br />
“Those who are born to crawl cannot<br />
fly.” People who have served the<br />
regime and lied all their lives cannot<br />
understand those who seek the truth.<br />
In particular, the truth about the<br />
regime’s crimes. I have no questions<br />
to ask of the employees of the VGTRK,<br />
Russia 1 TV channel, NTV, Komsomolskaya<br />
Pravda, and other Putinist<br />
media. I have one wish to convey to<br />
them, though: do not call Dzhemal,<br />
Radchenko, and Rastorguev your colleagues.<br />
It is very disgusting to hear.
8<br />
No.<strong>41</strong> AUGUST 9, 2018<br />
TIMEO U T<br />
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA<br />
By Dmytro DESIATERYK, The Day, Odesa – Kyiv<br />
“Where disinformation is named, it does not exist.<br />
Where it exists, it is not named.”<br />
This statement of French culturologist and<br />
philosopher Guy Debord could be used as epigraph to<br />
Serhii Loznytsia’s new film Donbas.<br />
Only one of this picture’s 13 novellas is not set in<br />
the occupied territories. The rest portray the bloody<br />
humdrum routine of “Novorossiya” (“New Russia”) in<br />
a fictional eastern Ukrainian town (the film was shot<br />
in Kryvyi Rih). Yet the film is not so much about the<br />
“Russian World” itself as about its main weapon –<br />
propaganda, whose mechanisms Loznytsia analyzes<br />
with characteristic mercilessness.<br />
● MANIPULATIONS<br />
This begins with the first scene. A<br />
burly talkative woman (Tamara Yatsenko)<br />
argues the makeup artist in<br />
the film crew van. In the next scene,<br />
she and actors, disguised as<br />
chance passers-by on the<br />
street, will have to pose as<br />
“eyewitnesses” of enemy shelling<br />
against the background of the previously<br />
blown-up trolleybus and car.<br />
There is a now popular term – posttruth<br />
– to describe what “Novorossiya” propagandists<br />
do. Although it appeared as far back<br />
as 1992, it became particularly topical in 2016 during<br />
Donald Trump’s election campaign and the UK<br />
Brexit referendum. At that very time, Oxford Dictionary<br />
named post-truth as word of the year, defining<br />
it as follows: “Relating to or denoting circumstances<br />
in which objective facts are less influential in<br />
shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal<br />
belief.”<br />
Post-truth is being spread by the mass media and<br />
Internet social networking sites, and it is filled with<br />
the last century’s major mythologemes. Trump has<br />
“Make America Great Again,” in the case of Russia and<br />
the Donbas it is the cult of victory (“victory hystreria”),<br />
the great USSR, Orthodoxy, struggle against “fascism”<br />
(when ethnic origin alone is enough for one to be branded<br />
as fascist), and political paranoia (enemies are all<br />
around). Reality is twisted in slogans. Time and<br />
space lose integrity in this warped reference frame, human<br />
lives serve as consumables, and a leader or a boss<br />
substitutes the hero. For this reason none of the stories<br />
can finish and, accordingly, Donbas is structured<br />
fragmentarily.<br />
In each new scene, manipulation becomes more<br />
brazen and masterly. At the maternity home, blabbermouth<br />
Mykhalych (Borys Kamorzin) makes a show<br />
for white-smocked women extras, demonstrating the<br />
foodstuffs and medicines hidden in the office room of<br />
a thievish director – the latter is sitting quietly in the<br />
room next door and will then return the showman’s favor<br />
in the shape of rather a thick envelope. A group of<br />
Mongoloid-faced military keep telling a German journalist<br />
that they are “locals,” but they cannot recall their<br />
village’s name. A Ukrainian prisoner with a nameplate<br />
reading “punishment” is being tied to the post near a<br />
bus stop for a mob trial. A taxi minibus is cut to pieces<br />
by Russian Grad rockets, after which an ambushed hit<br />
squad guns down the separatists’ accompanying vehicle<br />
on a nighttime highway. The prologue troupe is really<br />
killed for the sake of another spot report, as the concluding<br />
credits appear in a static long shot – lies bite<br />
themselves on the tail.<br />
● LITERATURE<br />
Post-truth is literary owing to continuous propagandistic<br />
agitation: footage produces a greater effect<br />
if there is a necessary comment. The three scenes<br />
about “Novorossiya’s” ruling castes show literariness<br />
one way or another.<br />
Visitors, who have brought miracle-working<br />
icons of Churilas Plenkovich and relics of Theodosis<br />
of Kherson, approach the boss, a serious-looking<br />
man with conspicuous tough-guy manners and a virago<br />
secretary. These saints are the film director’s invention<br />
that resembles the Gogolian motif of outlandish<br />
names, which produces almost full namesakes of<br />
Nikolai Gogol’s comedy Marriage in one of the following<br />
scenes of separatists’ wedding ceremony: Ivan<br />
Pavlovich Yaichnitsa (“fried eggs”) and Anzhela<br />
Tikhonovna Kuperdiagina form “the Yaichnitsa couple,”<br />
while Novorossiya MP Oksana Potsyk welcomes<br />
the newlyweds.<br />
The satire with religious travelers, quite in the<br />
spirit of The Government Inspector, gives way to the<br />
flogging of a “Cossack” marauder by his comrades, as<br />
church bells are ringing. It is a clear allusion to Leo Tolstoy’s<br />
short story After the Ball, where a soldier is punished<br />
with the running of a gauntlet on Forgiveness<br />
Anatomy<br />
of post-truth<br />
in Serhii Loznytsia’s<br />
Donbas<br />
The chronicle<br />
of a world<br />
turned inside out<br />
Sunday. But, in contrast to the original<br />
source, there is no reflecting narrator<br />
here because is nobody to sympathize<br />
with. A gloomy irony: butchers scourge<br />
themselves.<br />
All the “new Russian” things are both literary<br />
and ritual: adoration of relics, passage between two<br />
rows of men, and wedding. Bringing life into line with<br />
a prearranged plot and protocol is an integral part of<br />
dictatorship – individuality is not essential, there are<br />
no irreplaceable people, and you can fall victim on the<br />
boss’s whim. This is why those who contrast with the<br />
authorities’ arbitrary rule are not fighters or at least<br />
jesters but sufferers.<br />
They are town residents who hide from shelling<br />
in a damp, dark, and musty basement, and passengers<br />
of the bus separatists stopped at the checkpoint, the<br />
simple-hearted businessman Senia who came to collect<br />
his stolen car from the militants, an old woman who,<br />
instead of laying into the captured Ukrainian “punisher,”<br />
meekly inquires when the bus is coming because<br />
she must go to see her daughter.<br />
Almost everybody has their fair share of humiliations.<br />
An aggressive blonde, the secretary in the scene<br />
with the relics, bursts into the basement to take her<br />
mother to a comfortable house the bandits gave her.<br />
She showers the underground dwellers with brutal obscenities.<br />
Some men are taken from the bus, frisked,<br />
and forced to undress under supervision of the wicked<br />
female commander who spurts out a stream of consciousness<br />
about a “fatherland in danger.” The militants<br />
rob Senia of his car for good and exact a 150,000-<br />
dollar tribute from him.<br />
In every case, people neither keep silent nor resist.<br />
Restrained reactions are in sharp contrast with<br />
theatrical lamentations at the pace of staged attacks,<br />
as well as with the revelry of the “new Russian” crowd<br />
in the scene of the wedding and the hysterical guffaw<br />
in the scene with prisoners of war. However, the literary<br />
motif in the film develops sequentially – to the<br />
proverbial and logical, almost like in The Overcoat,<br />
sympathy with little people. But, in the last analysis,<br />
it is not they but those who rule them who will turn out<br />
to be ghosts.<br />
OlenaStarikova’ssilvermedal<br />
PHOTO FACT<br />
Photo courtesy of the Odesa International Film Festival<br />
● OPTICS<br />
Internet video footage provided material for the<br />
Donbas script. Candid photography in the Internet is<br />
a matter of information, not film making. Accordingly,<br />
Oleh Mutu, who worked in all of Loznytsia’s feature<br />
films, subjects his individuality of a cameraman to<br />
dramaturgy. He is reincarnated as a bouncing TV camera<br />
in the bomb shelter, as a phone in the hands of a<br />
light-minded woman car driver on the road under<br />
shelling, as a motionless observer in very long shots.<br />
This kind of dissociation does not rule out the author’s<br />
ethically clear position – this is the only way to testify<br />
to what eschews testimony and to make real the factory<br />
of unreality.<br />
It is not a document, not a drama, but quite a wide<br />
anatomical table – there can be perhaps no other optics<br />
for the hell of post-truth.<br />
No one has ever suggested this view before.<br />
After the Donbas premiere at the Odesa Festival,<br />
Serhii Loznytsia met Den/The Day’s correspondent.<br />
● “I TRIED TO SHOW VARIOUS ASPECTS<br />
OF THIS OUTRAGE”<br />
How was the film born? Was there any concrete<br />
nuance?<br />
“It is difficult to say how and when ideas emerge,<br />
but do you remember what was going on in this country<br />
four years ago? I closely watched the events and<br />
looked for information in the Internet. Some videos really<br />
struck me. I suddenly wished to work with this material<br />
because it seemed to me that it contained some<br />
very important things that influence our existence. In<br />
peacetime, you live in a routine, no events occur, and<br />
you don’t know the consciousness and subconsciousness<br />
of people next to you and in the neighboring region.<br />
And suddenly these ‘flowers’ blossomed there,<br />
and you get it in this form.”<br />
What exactly was interesting there for you?<br />
“It is the combination of things that usually do not<br />
combine in our mind, when the tragic and the funny,<br />
even the grotesque, simultaneously come side by<br />
REUTERS photo<br />
side. So, it seemed interesting to me to work with this<br />
tragifarce.”<br />
Speaking of grotesqueness, the ironical interpretation<br />
of Donbas is quite a new method for you.<br />
“Yes, it is new. Obviously, I haven’t tackled this<br />
kind of topic or taken on this pattern before. (With a<br />
smile) I may be developing, though.”<br />
What caused a fragmentary structure, without<br />
a recurring character?<br />
“The idea. I strove to describe this space and show<br />
various aspects and manifestations of this outrage, this<br />
feast of disobedience, these Saturnalia, this hell. A recurring<br />
character, a single conflict would only hinder<br />
me. I thought up nothing new. There are similar in cinema.<br />
Luis Bunuel’s Phantom of Liberty and Sergey<br />
Eisenstein’s Strike are illustrative examples. As for<br />
documentaries, I have long been making films where<br />
there is no protagonist but there are masses. It was interesting<br />
to try this form in fictional films. I gathered<br />
13 novellas and managed to combine them with each<br />
other. As it is in Bunuel’s film, a character passes to<br />
an episode, this episode unfolds, then another hero<br />
moves into the next episode – the only thing is that the<br />
audience should not get lost. I’ve already had an almost<br />
similar script of Babyn Yar. I failed to film that script,<br />
but I’ve made Donbas. This structure suggests a<br />
broad view – I get an opportunity to look at society as<br />
a whole and get a general picture.”<br />
It seems to me this form quite fits in with this very<br />
type of events.<br />
“Of course it does.”<br />
What was the most difficult thing in this work?<br />
For you can’t see the documentary footage on which<br />
your script is based without a veil over your eyes – it<br />
draws a too strong emotional response…<br />
“If had a veil over my eyes in the course of work,<br />
I would perhaps have to change profession. But I keep<br />
a certain distance from these events. A few steps aside.<br />
If there is no distance, you will be so much biased that<br />
you won’t be able to say a word. For this reason, I can<br />
watch these clips, they have an impact, of course, but<br />
I cut off my emotional links – it is perhaps just a professional<br />
quality.<br />
“The point is different: as we filmed in Ukraine,<br />
it was difficult to organize the process. I invited department<br />
heads, a cameramen, a sound engineer, an<br />
editor, a line producer from various countries, where<br />
the film industry in very well developed. The director’s<br />
first assistant is a profession that I think does not exist<br />
in Ukraine. Local specialists had to learn administering<br />
and other things on the job. Unfortunately,<br />
there are so far no skills in ethics, working relations,<br />
and decision-making. So, it was not so easy to launch<br />
this process so that the film crew worked like clockwork.<br />
And don’t forget that this crew consists of more<br />
than 100 people. Yet we managed to do so.”<br />
How long did the whole process last?<br />
“We shot this difficult film in 31 days. We had<br />
no funds for a longer time, and I think what we had was<br />
enough. It took us about 3.5 months to prepare for<br />
work. I came to Ukraine on November 2 and left on<br />
March 31. I stayed here on location in Kryvyi Rih except<br />
for New Year’s Day. Otherwise, it was easy. If you<br />
know what you want, work with splendid actors,<br />
know how to work with non-professionals, can find<br />
beautiful places and talented people, the rest is a technical<br />
matter. So, six months were enough for us to complete<br />
the whole cycle.”<br />
Read more on our website<br />
The Ukrainian cyclist has already won a second medal at the summer sports European Championships<br />
The European Championships continue in the<br />
Scottish city of Glasgow. In the track cycling program,<br />
Ukrainian cyclist Olena Starikova won a<br />
silver medal in the 500 meters time trial (an individual<br />
timed race), www.sportonline.ua reports.<br />
This is Starikova’s second silver in these<br />
European Championships.<br />
Earlier, she won silver in the team sprint<br />
event while paired with Liubov Basova. Thus,<br />
the medal count of Ukraine’s team as of the<br />
morning of August 7 included 13 medals, with<br />
4 golds (1 in swimming, 1 in synchronized<br />
swimming, 1 in cycling, and 1 in diving), 8 silvers<br />
(2 in cycling, 1 in rowing, 4 in synchronized<br />
swimming, and 1 in swimming), and<br />
1 bronze (in rowing).<br />
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