Friday, November 30, 2018

A week of turmoil and love in Ukraine



It's been a horrible week for President Petro Poroshenko. The Russians captured Ukrainian ships and sailors in non-territorial waters and no one will come to Ukraine's aid. They took 24 prisoners. Oh, the US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who has already resigned her post, denounced the move. Angela Merkel denounced the move, too, but fell short of condemnations or urging NATO support because she needs Russian gas. And Russia is building an undersea pipeline to bypass Ukraine.

Trump yesterday cancelled his scheduled meeting with Putin in Argentina - because of the conflict with Ukraine, yeah right. He cancelled the meeting because he would have to explain the Cohen guilty plea about what he did and knew about Russia dealings during Trump's campaign for President. And he'd have to stomp on Putin for Ukraine digressions which he is loathe to do. So he cancels the meeting. No meeting, no problems.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian women in other parts of the country were making their own news. Miss Ukraine 2018, Veronika Didusenko, was disqualified from her title because she has a son. And she has taken to Instagram to fight this prejudice which she says she faces every day. This beautiful young woman has launched a global campaign to end discrimination against women who have children.

Miss Universe Ukraine, Karina Zosan, is on her way to Thailand for the worldwide competition. Her extraordinary outfit "Tree of Life" delivers a stark contrast from the war in Donbas and on the Black Sea. This stunning young woman comes from Odessa, Ukraine's main Black Sea port.

Thank you for the positive feedback about our national costume!🌺
This dress is decorated with traditional elements of Ukrainian ornament.
The mallow flower has been decorating the Ukrainian houses since ancient times.
Red color symbolizes the love of Ukrainian people to their land, to their families, to the Motherland. White color indicates the purity and holiness of the Ukrainian soul.
10 masters of different areas of crafts, decorators, seamstresses, and blacksmiths worked over the embodiment of this idea.
The manufacturing took more than 90 days.
The number of silk threads used for decoration is almost 11 kilometers that were made by the hands of masters of 50 flowers.




On yet another world stage, UKRAINE'S Junior Eurovision contestant, 11-yo Darina Krasnovetska, opened the event in Minsk with her high voltage 'Say Love'. She came in fourth after Poland, France and Australia. I have a feeling we haven't heard the last of her. 

So here are the men fighting wars again and the women fighting injustice, building trees for life and singing songs of love. "Those Ukraine girls really knock me out, they leave the west behind." 

Friday, October 12, 2018

Chornobyl, a wasteland of hope



This BBC feature article tells a very sobering reality of life in Ukraine. For the people of Chornobyl (Chernobyl to the uninformed*) who stayed after the nuclear disaster, and for those now finding the answer to war in its outskirts, it's clear that hope has a different composition. To find cheap land, a home free of bombardment and war, a place to start again, where peace is found in perfect stillness, that is the where hope is found. In this place, radiation is not the issue. Survival until tomorrow is. So people from the war ravaged towns of Eastern Ukraine flee to a place where the air is now free of radioactivity but the soil still carries its contamination threat. It's a matter of least of two evils.

"Radiation may kill us slowly, but it doesn't shoot or bomb us," says Maryna. "It's better to live with radiation than with war".



*Π§ΠΎΡ€Π½ΠΎΠ±ΠΈΠ»ΡŒ – Ukr. – ancient Ukrainian town, first mentioned in chronicles in 1193. In compliance with international rules (UNCSGN & UNGEGN), the transliteration of names of settlements is made only from the country state language, where the object is located. Accordingly, the only correct transliteration from Ukrainian state language - Chornobyl.


Sunday, October 7, 2018

Pierogi Day



National Pierogi Day is tomorrow in the US. Pierogi is, of course, a Polish word. The Ukrainian equivalent is pirohy. Whatever you call them, these delightful dumplings filled with potatoes and cheese (what the Polish call ruski pierogi but they are really Ukrainian not Russian) are to die for. I'd better start making them now. Tomorrow is just a few hours away.

This is pretty much the same recipe as my mom's that I make.

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

#KyivNotKiev

Campaign asks foreign media to change their spelling of Ukraine’s capital

UkrainianΠšΠΈΡ—Π² 
Kyi, Schek, Choryv and sister Lebed who founded Kyiv*


With the Center for Strategic Communications, StratCom Ukraine, the Ukraine Foreign Ministry plans to post on Facebook and Twitter a request to international media, such as Reuters, the New York Times, the BBC and others, to use versions of Ukrainian place names transliterated from Ukrainian, not Russian, into English. The name of the capitol, Kyiv, come from it's founders name Kyi. Hence Kyiv not Kiev.

It follows an effort to alert media and the world that calling Ukraine the Ukraine is more than a grammatical error. It's an insult that stems from the era when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union rather than a sovereign state. Read an article about there here.
For that matter, why is Ukraine spelled that way rather than Ukraina, which is its name in Ukrainian?

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Holodomor during Dublin Festival of History

The following information is about a discussion about Stalin's famine in Ukraine scheduled to take place in Dublin as part of the Festival of History.  The newspaper article I added from the web. I believe all the talks will be posted as podcasts after the festival is over.

Read an article about Stalin and Holodomor in the New Republic. 

Image result for holodomor


Monday, September 17, 2018

Russia was born out of Ukraine


"It happened so that although it was Russia that was born out of Ukraine, and not the other way around, due to systematic distortion of historical facts to serve ideological needs (just consider the concept of ‘great Russia’) the entire world (alas, including Ukrainians themselves) grew to believe in this distorted picture of history and culture, believe in the ‘big brother.’ But Volodymyr the Great, Baptist of Rus’, Volodymyr Monomakh, and many other ‘founders of the Russian nation and culture’ were of Ukrainian, not Russian origin!"

Sunday, August 19, 2018

Russians can be nice


I have never been prejudiced that I know of. I have always treated individuals with respect, regardless of what they looked like or what stereotype they fit into. At least I believe I have.