viewpoint-east.org

A Ukrainian love affair

Category: guests, ukraine
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(Läsningstid: 2 minuter)

viewpoint-east‘s second guest writer is Maria Nilsson. She is 30 years old with a master in political science and she lived in Ukraine on and off between 2005-2007.

I have decided for once in my life to leave the politics behind and focus on something more readable as some of you might agree on. Instead of focusing on something like “Rethinking cultural identity in a post communist context – the case of Ukraine” my text is nothing but a declaration of love to a country I never thought I would fall in love with. A country that, where I m from is not known for anything apart from a nuclear power plant disaster 20 years ago, a track and field athletic called Sergey Bukka, a constant political turmoil together with a few plane crashes that makes every Swede nervous even by the sheer mentioning of the words domestic flights. I must confess that it is a love affair with obstacles. Ukraine is not an easy country to love there are no endless beaches with soft sand and blue ocean view (the views in Ukraine are mostly those of old plants), there are no fantastic sights like the ones in New York, no delicious cuisine like in France and frankly speaking Kiev does not stand a chance compared to London, Venice or Rome. The buses are not only never on time, there is not an existing timetable, the ordinary conversation tone is what other people would describe as bordering to arguing, Ukrainians have a fables for the most strange looking leather jackets combined in a worst case scenario with leather hats, they believe your femininity lays in the length of your nails and heels and vodka is consumed on the same occasions as milk are consumed in Sweden.

kyiv
photo by sophie engström

Still, there is not a day that goes by that I don’t miss Ukraine, if I were to live somewhere else than where I live now London, Paris or Rome does not stand a chance to certain Ukrainian cities like Kiev, Odessa or Kerch.

Ukraine has shown me that the great cultural heroines like Tjechov and Achmatova are never forgotten. As a country Ukraine has showed Europe that change is possible. Ukrainians have showed me what is like to live in a close community where people care for each other, where the next level on your career ladder is not the most important thing in life but friendship is. You have shown me that there are people willing to help other people even when they have nothing to offer but love and two strong arms.

Gender Equality in Ukraine

Category: sociala medier, ukraine, web 2.0
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(Läsningstid: 2 minuter)

wikigender is a very interesting and needed project. I agree with it, even though I often hesitate for more “separatistic” movements like that. When it comes to gender equality i think it should be mainstreamed, not separated form the general debate or issue. But if you are looking for certain information about gender situation I think it is a great project. (I also think wikiprogress is a really great idea! It is when I see projects like that i understand the extreme impact web 2.0 and social web actually have on IRL).

I also think the wikigender page about Ukraine is great, since you can find several interesting articles in the bottom, and especially then the gender watch.

But women’s representation in parliament, in Ukraine, really… well, suck. 7,1% actually makes me wishing I have had chosen an other field for my interest! But on the other hand, one might say that this only shows how smart women are compared to men; I mean, who wants to be in that swamp of corruption and stupidity anyway? And when it comes to real changes for greater gender equality my assumption is that both candidates (again) suck in that regard… I would even call Yulya Tymoshenko the worst gender equality enemy Europe has… well, possibly after Berlusconi : ))) But according to the lastest pull Yanukovych is leading with 10.5% over Tymoshenko. And since I don’t like any of them, I can’t say I feel much interest in who wins. The country need to make many changes, however, none of the two candidates are serious when they mean that want to change. And please prove me if I am wrong!

elua
Tymoshenko and Janukovych from todays Kyiv Post

Gothenburg’s Film Festival 2010 – without viewpoint-east

Category: armenia, by sophie engström, eastern europe, estonia, georgia, movies, russia, ukraine
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(Läsningstid: 2 minuter)

Gothenburg’s International Filmfestival will soon begin, from 29th of january to 9th of February. I will however not be in town since I will visit Kyiv instead to collect material and ideas for new articles for viewpoint-east and hopefully other journals/newspapers.

filmfestival

The annual filmfestival in Gothenburg is however one of the few events I really appreciate, so it could sound strange that I have decided to leave the city right during those days. But it is a matter of priorities and Kyiv won my mind battle this time. (I will however not focus that much on the Presidential election, but rather to take this as an opportunity to highlight other issues.)

Firstly, there are not even ONE Ukrainian movie this year in the programme, which is is a great disappointment. I thought we would at least find one, or to be more precise (and please DO correct me of I am wrong) that Las Meninas would be in the programme. It has never been shown in Sweden or at the festival. That is a movie that at least I would like to see.

Much more pleasing is that the festival has three movies from Georgia and at least five Russian movies. I am especially sad that I miss Russia 88 and Help Gone Mad. Help Gone Mad is probably a wonderful movie. I really enjoyed Boris Khlebnikov other movies (and especially “Free floating”).

There are two movies from Estonia, and among them Disco & Atomic War triggers my interest. That is also the only movie I have among my own resources and will watch as soon as possible.

And last and not the least, I am very sad I miss all four movies from Armenia, and then especially Border, which seems to be a very interesting documentary with a new approach. I do hope I will have the possibility to watch it in a not too distant future.

Border

ps. and don’t forget to check out the blog!

Ukrainians in Mozambique: An Historical Overview

Category: guests, ukraine, web 2.0
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(Läsningstid: 4 minuter)

viewpoint-east.org begins the new year with its fist guest author, Dmytro Yatsyuk. The article is about Ukrainians in Mozambique. Enjoy!

Early Ukrainian connections with Mozambique
One of the first people with a Ukrainian connection to settle in Mozambique was Leo Kröger. The son of a Ukrainian mother and German father, he was born in 1912 in Khabarovsk. His Ukrainian grandfather, Arseniy Shvorin, was a teacher in Kyiv. Arrested by the tsarist police for his participation in a populist political movement, he was deported to Russian Far East. After a long and very interesting life in China, Leo Kröger in 1954 moved to Mozambique with his family, where he pursued a career as a professional hunter. He died in 2004, just two months short of his 92nd birthday. The funeral service took place in the Greek Orthodox Church in Maputo.

Ukrainian businessman Mihaylo Tereshenko, the Minister of Finance in Kerensky’s Russian democratic government (1917), came to work in Mozambique in the mid-1950s. He worked for the Norwegian-owned company “Madal,” which was nationalized after 1975 and eventually collapsed.

There was also Pravda foreign correspondent Tomas A. Kolesnichenko (1930–2003), who, after receiving an invitation from the oligarch Jorge Jardim, an engineer and trusted friend of Portugal’s António O. Salazar, visited Mozambique at the beginning of 1960.

Also noteworthy is the 1997 visit to Mozambique of Miguel (Mihaylo) Guskow, the Vice-General Attorney of the Federal Public Ministry of Brazil. Mr. Guskow is the son of Oleksiy and Hanna Guskow, Ukrainians who immigrated to Brazil from the Odesa region of Ukraine.

Igor Sikorsky, a grandson of the famous Ukrainian helicopter inventor Ihor Sikorsky, also made Mozambique his short-term home. His business activities were related to the fishing industry.

First Mozambicans in Ukraine and first Ukrainians in Mozambique
Following an agreement between the Soviet government and the FRELIMO (Mozambican Liberation Front), the first Mozambicans came to Ukraine in the middle of the 1960s to obtain higher education. In 1964–71, António Lourenço Chade represented FRELIMO in Ukraine. Today he is an important Mozambican judiciary figure in the northern province of Nampula. Several of the Mozambican students married Ukrainian women, some of whom stayed in Ukraine while others moved to Africa. The latter included the Kyiv-born painter Maria Smoliar (artistic name: Maria Cenzani). Together with her husband Dr. Chicogo, she lived in several African countries before moving to Mozambique following its proclamation of independence in 25 June 1975. In 1990 Maria Smoliar won a prize in Japan at an art contest dedicated to ecological issues. Representing Mozambique, she sent a painting on the topic of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster.

The contemporary Ukrainian community in Mozambique
Today, the Ukrainian community of the country is made up of three different groups of citizens: medical personnel, university teachers, and women who married Africans and chose to live in Mozambique.
There are about 400 Ukrainians living in Mozambique (adults and children). The majority of them are the Mozambique-born or Ukraine-born offspring of African–Ukrainian marriages. In the last five years, several Ukrainians employed as medical personnel have left Mozambique because of the unfriendly political attitude of the Minister of Health, Dr. Ivo Garrido.

There are no officially registered Ukrainian community organizations in Mozambique. The majority of Ukrainians in Mozambique are Orthodox, and they attend the Greek Orthodox Church of Archangel Gabriel in Maputo. Until January 2007 a Ukrainian priest, Fr. George Zolotenko, served there; he is currently studying at the Ecclesiastical Academy in Greece.

There is no Ukrainian diplomatic representation in Mozambique. The closest Ukrainian Embassy is situated in Pretoria, South Africa, though Ukrainian citizens in Mozambique are served by the Ukrainian Embassy in Angola because Portuguese is the official language in both these two countries.

Political life in Mozambique
Mozambique is dominated by two political parties, the FRELIMO ruling party and the former anticommunist guerrilla movement RENAMO (Mozambican National Resistance).

The President of Mozambique is a FRELIMO candidate, Mr. Armando Emílio Guebuza. In the 1960s he received military training in Ukraine, at the 165th Training Center for Foreign Military Personnel, in the village of Peravalne, 20 kilometres outside of Simferopol. President Guebuza remembers his time in Ukraine with fondness and has not ruled out the possibility of visiting Ukraine and his old training center. These very facilities are now used by the 36th Special Brigade of the Coast Defense of the Ukrainian Naval Force and units of the National Guards of Ukraine.

First Ukrainian blog in Africa
Our blog was created on 15 January 2004, during the Orange Revolution, when we started to inform Portuguese-speakers in Angola, Brazil, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Portugal, East Timor, and Macau about events in Ukraine. This information was distributed as press releases in Mozambique, Portugal, and Brazil. As of 28 December 2009 our blog has been visited by almost 180.000 people.

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Blog’s address ucrania-mozambique.blogspot.com

Our blog also acts as a cultural bridge between Mozambique and Ukraine. And we interact with Ukrainian Web groups in Portuguese-speaking countries, among them pessoal.cefetpr.br/ucrania, which was created by fourth-generation Ukrainians in Brazil, and spilka.pt, the Web site of the Association of Ukrainians in Portugal.

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NOTE
This article first appeared in “Ukrainians Abroad: News and Views’ #40”, the newsletter of the Ukrainian Diaspora Studies Initiative at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.

On A Happy New Year, your delightful Christmas and my visit to Kyiv

Category: ukraina, ukraine
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(Läsningstid: < 1 minut)

Friends,

From now until 11th of january I will only post sporadically. I will however try to post a review of one of Sholem Aleichem‘s novels (the post will be in English).

ukrainian xmas

I therefor want to wish you A Very Happy New year, Holidays and Christmas!

soviet new year

I also would like to add that I will be in Kyiv from 26th of january to 9 of February. If you want to meet, talk about viewpoint-east.org or anything else likewise, please write me a email.

Who is who in Ukraine?

Category: by sophie engström, ukraina, ukraine
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(Läsningstid: < 1 minut)

Feel lost in the drama of Ukrainian political life? Never knows who is who and always sits with endless google-lists and wiki-links never know what is right or wrong? Try Who is who in Ukraine. I can’t anser for everything they write, but it is a great guidance for someone with limited knowledge in Ukrainian.

Is there a greater Scheme? – About Swedbank in Ukraine: Part 2

Category: business, by sophie engström, economy, swedbank, ukraina, ukraine
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(Läsningstid: 2 minuter)

Yesterday I wrote a short summery on what has been said in Swedish media about Swedbank’s engagement in Ukraine. Today I will continue with a possible interpretation of why Swedbank stays in Ukraine even though they loose a lot by staying.

On the 12th of December Dagens Nyheter, one of the leading newspapers in Sweden, denoted that Swedbank not only looses a lot by staying in Ukraine, but possibly also having a very unique position in comparison to other international banks. Through the the Finicial Cooperation for the World Bank, IFC, Swedbank has got a loan on about half a Billion Swedish Kronen (≈€48 000 000). And even the fact that Swedbank actually violates and working on a high risk level, IFC have no intension in breaking their cooperation with the Swedbank. For instance, 42% of Swedbank debts are risky or even bad. Moreover, the bank also has too much exposure and loans to one single customer. It is however not clear who it is it, but several observers mean it is Sergey Tigipko. This is a clear violation against the agreements with IFC. All this is very agrivating facts and also leads us to the question why Swedbank stays in Ukraine.

Knut Kainz Rognerud imples in his book Det stora bankrånet (The big bank robbery) that Swedbank, and many other Swedish banks, did in fact make the crash in the global finical crisis bigger because the banks gave unwise and very unstable loans. One might ask oneself if this could be the irony of it all. Today it looks like the banks are losing and actually risking a lot, but in a longer perceptive Swedbank will possibly be one of the only international banks left in Ukraine – and will possibly own a great deal of Ukraine’s resources. I would say that this interpretation is not too paranoid, but are only based on the simple fact, that no bank will stay in Ukraine just from pure generosity. Of course they have a greater plan with their engagement, possibly not a “scheme” but at least a plan. And that plan is not open for either of us, but concerns our well-being.

If you have any comments of thought about this let me know. It is possible you have some information I have not, and I would highly appreciate if you would share it with me.