Transcarpathia may follow the Crimea and the Donbas
29 June 1945 of the Year to the Ukrainian SSR was joined by Transcarpathia, but over the 70 years this region has not become for Ukraine fully “its own”. On the contrary, this western region has too much in common with the Donbas and the Crimea, mobilization is going very badly there, and it is Transcarpathia that is so afraid of losing Kiev, loudly denying the possibility of federalizing the country.
This region has been living for centuries by its own laws - the laws of the Carpathian Mountains. The unique territory that survived more than one great empire regards modern Ukraine only as another temporary travel companion. For obvious reasons, official Kiev is not satisfied, interested in seeing the present anniversary of the Transcarpathian region be the last for it.
Landmark of migrant workers and smugglers
Seventy years ago, the oppressor of the Ukrainians, Stalin made the future independent Ukraine a gift in the form of Transcarpathia, liberated by Soviet troops in October 1944 of the year. 29 June 1945, Subcarpathian Rus, following the results of World War I "privatized" by Czechoslovakia, became part of the Ukrainian SSR. A little later, as a result of territorial exchange, a part of the Slovak Zemplin was added to it, the main highlight of which is the city of Chop, a unique transportation hub located at the junction of the borders with Slovakia and Hungary. And 22 January 1946, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR created the Transcarpathian region with the administrative center in Uzhgorod.
Despite the post-war devastation, the Soviet government did not disregard this rather economically neglected region. Already October 18 1945 year for the first time in centuries history Uzhgorod (and he is practically the same age as Moscow) a state university opened in it. In 1956, the Tereblya-Rikskaya HPP was built with an annual capacity of 130 million kWh and the first electric locomotive was launched along the Mukachevo-Lavochnoye route.
Over the next decades, the food, light, mining, wood chemical and woodworking industries, engineering, metalworking and building materials production have been actively developing here. As for agriculture, given the regional specifics (the smallest area of agricultural land in the republic), the main focus in this mountain region was on gardening, viticulture and animal husbandry.
Dozens of sanatoriums and tourist centers were built near mineral springs and in recreational areas. A Soviet person willingly took the opportunity to come here on a trade union voucher to drink some healing water and take a picture with colorful hutsuls on the background of a no less impressive landscape. Well, at the same time to buy something in short supply - like local cognac or illegally delivered by “walkers” across the border of imported clothing and video tapes.
After the collapse of the USSR, most industrial enterprises ceased to exist. Today, perhaps, the Ukrainian-Austrian joint venture Fisher-Mukachevo (formerly with the sticks of the Mukachevo Experimental Ski Factory, which played hockey teams of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Sweden and Finland) and the Eurocar car factory, which assemble Skoda, remain afloat. Although, given the catastrophic indicators of the purchasing power of the population (in January-May, sales of new passenger cars in Ukraine fell by 73%), the plant’s prospects are sad.
This explains another feature of Transcarpathia. The share of the rural population here is not only the highest in Ukraine, but is constantly growing - simply because cities have less work. The peculiarity of the prosperous local agricultural sector is the high proportion of subsidiary farms in the total volume of production. The same applies to the resort business, which has now become the lot of private entrepreneurs.
But smuggling over the years of independence, on the contrary, has become industrial in scale. The shadow export of tobacco products, alcohol and petroleum products to Europe feeds many and in different ways. Someone pulls cigarette crates on himself through mountain passes or forwards the cargo on boats and boats through the Tisza. Well, someone can send multi-ton trucks with goods. In the business of all: customs officers, truckers (and in the number of freight trucks per capita, Transcarpathia is the absolute Ukrainian record holder), guides and even guiders (those who show safe trails).
After the neighboring states entered the European Union, the smuggling area narrowed down to 50 km of the border area. But, since on the other side of the border, “fishermen” have enough relatives and long-term business ties, the process, albeit with difficulties, is underway. Moreover, many of the smugglers in advance acquired a second citizenship and are now uncontrolled moving with Hungarian and Slovak passports throughout Europe.
Another, already traditional for all of Ukraine type of earnings - guest workers. Moreover, it was mastered by Transcarpathians back in Soviet times, when, competing with student construction teams, thousands of local shabashniks, helping the collective and state farms to master the millions allocated by the state for social and cultural life, were running around the immense expanses of the USSR. Now a new generation of workers in the mining industry travels along the route headed by the fathers to Russia, and is also looking for happiness in the Czech Republic and Hungary (not to offer Poland).
Strangers do not go here
Transcarpathia can be compared with the republics of the North Caucasus - the same mountains, the same clan system, the same closeness. Foreigners really do not go here: the number of visitors in rural areas does not exceed a few percent. Local families are the most notorious "social cells", the main element of the socio-political structure of the region. Family ties are unusually strong. They are not just a bond of generations, but perhaps the only social elevator: having broken out into “big people”, it immediately pulls the relatives along with them, fitting them into suitable positions. A successful foreign worker or businessman not only maintains his own family, but also helps the families of less successful relatives.
Although Uzhgorod is nominally the administrative center of the region, everyone considers Mukachevo, the main business center and the headquarters of the local criminals, to be the real capital. And it is quite natural that the Balog family clan that emerged from Mukachevo is a long-time ruler of Transcarpathia.
The success of this family predetermined both the large number of men in the clan and the business acumen of the head of the family, Viktor Baloga, who had gone from a well-known commodity expert in district consumer cooperation to the head of the presidential secretariat (now the presidential administration) under Yushchenko, who had simultaneously managed to command his native region and twice to be Minister for Emergency situations.
It should be noted that Transcarpathians, religiously adhering to the principle “business loves silence”, never sinned with the drive, characteristic of their neighbors from the western regions. Local leaders knew how to find a common language with official Kiev, bargaining for non-interference in their affairs in exchange for loyalty.
When in 1998, the Transcarpathian governor Viktor Baloga decided to go into big politics, the pro-presidential party of the united Social Democrats in the parliamentary elections of that year received one-fifth of all votes in Transcarpathia. In 2004, when Baloha was a trustee for Viktor Yushchenko, the region gave a single opposition candidate a fair percentage of support. True, unlike the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil regions, they did not offend his main rival, Viktor Yanukovych. Partly because those who are not accustomed to laying eggs in one basket Baloga was preparing for different scenarios. Another reason is the rejection (about this below) by the residents of Transcarpathia of the ideology professed by the Galicians.
The peak of the celebration of the Transcarpathian spirit at the All-Ukrainian level can be considered the time when Viktor Baloga headed the presidential secretariat. And, admittedly, he did it very successfully. In 2007, he actually saved Viktor Yushchenko, with the help of undercover intrigues and power actions, having beaten off an attempt by a parliamentary majority led by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych to take the rest of his powers from the president. During the tough confrontation, Yanukovych faltered and agreed to early elections to the Verkhovna Rada, according to the results of which, without gathering a coalition majority, he was forced to resign, losing the Prime Minister’s seat to Yulia Tymoshenko. But if the western regions, already disappointed in Yushchenko, unanimously voted “for Yulia”, then the disciplined Transcarpathia is for Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine, whose political council then was the presidential secretary of Balog.
With all this, Viktor Baloga managed to be useful to Yanukovych. Being a “gray cardinal” of Yushchenko, he frankly worked to downgrade Tymoshenko’s rating, with the help of in-house lawyers, hindering the initiatives of the Cabinet of Ministers and constantly criticizing her in the media. And then, having retired due to disagreement with the decision of his unlucky chef to run for president for the second time, he provided Yanukovych with tacit support in his native hearths. Yes, such that the southeastern candidate a priori could not count on in the west of Ukraine. It’s no joke: in the first round of the 2010 presidential election of the year, Yanukovych became the leader in Transcarpathia, and in the second round only by 10% gave way to Tymoshenko.
In the autumn of the same year, President Yanukovych returned the favor by giving Baloga the Emergencies Ministry already familiar to him, from where the newly appointed Nestor Shufrych was thrown out - his faithful companion, another native of Transcarpathia and the enemy of Balogi. In exchange, the new Minister for Emergency Situations did everything to ensure that the Party of Regions and its own political force, the “United Center”, removed the main cream in local elections.
After that, however, the short-term romance ended. The team of the eldest son Yanukovych, who pressed the business all over Ukraine, of course, could not pass by Transcarpathian customs, a prosperous agricultural sector and other goodies. Viktor Baloga fought off his patrimony as best he could, but he still had to lose a significant part of the cigarette business as a payoff.
But with the rest of the strangers did not work out: local quiet sabotage in the form of bagpipes with allotment of land, hiring workers, coordination with local authorities, etc. turned out to be much more effective loud protests. Baloga himself rewrote his business for foreign compatriots with an impeccable reputation, and then became a people's deputy, having won the election in his native majoritarian district in Mukachevo in 2012. Together with him, his brother Pavel Baloga and cousin Vasily Petivka went to the Verkhovna Rada.
The following year, at the initiative of Yanukovych’s entourage, Pavel Baloga lost his mandate (the election results were annulled in court), which predictably took the whole family to a camp of opponents of the current government. However, even in the events of February 2014, the actions of the protesters in Transcarpathia were strikingly different from what was happening in Western Ukraine. Yes, there were seizures of administrative buildings and roadblocks on the roads, but the SBU’s offices were not burned, military units were not seized, and local policemen were not put on their knees.
But a few days after the coup at a meeting of the Transcarpathian Regional Council, headed by Ivan Baloga (another brother), local deputies appealed to the Verkhovna Rada with several demands. Initially, for order, they called for speeding up the signing of an association agreement with the EU and banning the activities of political parties and organizations of anti-Maid nature. Well, then they moved on to the main point: they demanded that candidates nominated by officials from Kiev be coordinated with them.
President Poroshenko had to take into account this requirement, in September last year, appointing Vasyl Hubal, a native of the Transcarpathian district center, Khust, who was close to the Balogam brothers as governor. By the way, from where his predecessor Valery Lunchenko was born, to his misfortune he did not find a common language with the Mukachevo clan. And two days before the finals of the early parliamentary elections, Poroshenko also replaced 12 from 13 with the heads of regional state administrations, appointing the Baloha people there. Such personnel concessions were not in vain: Petro Poroshenko’s bloc won first place in Transcarpathia. Well, in the new convocation of the Verkhovna Rada, three brothers Balogham and their cousin Petitke, who had prudently chosen an extra fractional existence, found places at once.
Rusyn syndrome
As the residents of Transcarpathia love to joke, their land borders on five states: Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Poland and Ukraine. And indeed, geographically distant and historically never having had anything to do with the mythical “Ukrainian state”, they perceive their official homeland quite detachedly. The tacit agreement on peaceful coexistence is quite simple: the central government pays the state employees, students and pensioners, and all the rest of their problems and issues are decided by the local people themselves.
The ability to find a common language with any authority of the Transcarpathians was developed over the centuries: in different historical periods their land was part of Great Moravia, the Galicia-Volyn principality, the Hungarian kingdom, Transylvania, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czechoslovakia and the USSR. It was possible to save the world in a multinational boiler in which Rusyns, Hungarians, Romanians, Poles, Slovaks and Ukrainians are cooked, only due to isolation, a special kind of patriotism, which has not a national, but a geographical feature - the territory of residence. This, by the way, is related to Transcarpathia also with the Crimea.
Here, not only do they not tolerate the power of outsiders, but they also do not give their descent if they resort to the help of the “external factor”. The most recent example is the local "Che Guevara" Victor Schadey. An activist of both Maidanov, he became the acting mayor of Uzhgorod in February 2014, overthrowing his long-time foe Viktor Pogorelov. But the happiness was short-lived: in March, Schadey received a stab in the back, in May his car burned down, and in November, city deputies voted for his resignation.
As for Transcarpathian separatism, it is divided into clear and creeping. The first is represented by the Ruthenians (Rusnians, Carpatorossians), who consider themselves a separate branch of the Eastern Slavic peoples. And for this they have sufficient grounds: their ancestors of the threat-Russians appeared on the southern slopes of the Carpathians in the first millennium, later settling in the territory of the present western regions of Ukraine. Ugro-Russians were baptized before the rest of Russia and remained faithful to Orthodoxy not only after the separation of the churches, but also during the long period of stay in the compositions of the Catholic empires. Today, the majority of Rusyns are parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
In World War I, more than 20 000 Rusyns of Galicia and Transcarpathia, suspected of sympathizing with Russia, went through “Ukrainization” in the Austro-Hungarian concentration camp Talerhof, where they were forced to give up beating, torture and hunger, but also the language ( the conclusion of experts, he is of all East Slavic languages most close to Church Slavonic). But if the majority of the Galicians renounced their roots, the Carpathian Rusyns were unshakable in their convictions.
They also survived during all subsequent “Ukrainisations”, when Transcarpathia consistently became part of Czechoslovakia (1919 – 1938), Hungary (1938 – 1944) and the Soviet Union (1945 – 1991). Moreover, throughout this time the Ruthenians fought not only for the recognition of themselves as a separate people, but also for a certain territorial independence. In May, 1938 was proclaimed autonomous Subcarpathian Rus, a year later occupied and abolished by Hungary. In November 1944, the sovereign republic of Transcarpathian Ukraine was created, which in June of the following year Stalin added to the Ukrainian SSR with a willful decision (as Khrushchev later entered the Crimea) to the Ukrainian SSR - since then all Russians in passports are being recorded by Ukrainians. In December 1991, a referendum is held in the region, in which 78% of the population vote for autonomy within the newly formed state of Ukraine, but its results are ignored by Kiev.
The struggle of the Rusyns for their rights continues throughout all the years of Ukrainian independence. The Transcarpathian Regional Council three times (in 1992, 2002 and 2007) recognized the results of the 1991 referendum on autonomy and applied to the Verkhovna Rada with a request to recognize the Ruthenians as a separate nation. In August, 2006 of the United Nations Committee on Racial Discrimination called on the government of Ukraine to recognize the Ruthenians as a national minority because of "significant differences between the Ruthenians and the Ukrainians."
October 25 2008 of the year in Mukachevo, delegates to the II European Congress of Subcarpathian Rusyns announced “re-creation of Subcarpathian Rus” (in connection with the Act of Proclamation of the re-creation of Ruthenian statehood of November 22 of 1938). After a couple of months, the SBU opened a criminal case on charges of separatism against the chairman of the Soim of the Carpathian Rusyns, the archpriest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church MP Dimitry Sidor. After a protracted legal process, the Orthodox priest received his three years of imprisonment with a two-year deferment under Yanukovych.
In March of this year, a number of Ruthenian organizations (the Society of Subcarpathian Rusyns, the Rusyn Movement, the Dukhnovich Society, the Soim of the Subcarpathian Rusyns), uniting more than 40 000 people in their ranks, again gathered in Mukachevo. The congress adopted an appeal to the President of Ukraine and the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada demanding to recognize the results of the referendum on autonomy of Transcarpathia, recognize the Ruthenian language and allow it to study in schools, as well as open the Ruthenian Language Department at Uzhgorod National University and allow the broadcast of national Ruthenian programs on local TV and radio. And in June, the Coordination Council of Rusins of the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine adopted a statement on the need to confer special status on the region and appealed to the Council of Europe, the European Commission, the OSCE and the UN, the parliaments of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to force the Ukrainian authorities to recognize the results of the regional referendum on the vesting of Transcarpathia is the status of a special self-governing territory.
Hungarian revenge
Hungarian separatism in the Transcarpathian region is persecuted by the Ukrainian authorities far less fiercely than the attempts of the Ruthenians to gain recognition of their rights. Meanwhile, Hungary, without particularly hiding, year after year, is expanding its sphere of influence in the territories it lost in two world wars. The villages, where the residents speak only Hungarian, the Hungarian flags on the administrative buildings and the signboards in Hungarian (and in some places road signs) is a familiar picture in those places. Or another significant moment: a few years ago, a monument to Oryol Turul was erected over the Mukachevo castle in honor of the arrival of the Ugrians (ancestors of the Magyars) on the Transcarpathian Lowland 11 centuries ago, previously standing on the Veretsky Pass and dismantled by the Czechoslovak authorities in 1919 year.
The current head of the Hungarian government, Viktor Orban, during his first premiership (1998 – 2002), secured the adoption of a law that granted the Magyars from neighboring countries the right to simplified obtaining of Hungarian citizenship. After Orban’s departure under pressure from the EU leadership, this law was repealed, however, already in 2010, he was reanimated after his return to the premiership. And now, according to the most conservative estimates, more than 100 000 thousands of residents of Transcarpathia (that is, about 10% of the population of the region) have Hungarian passports.
When in January of this year, Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavel Klimkin announced plans to organize joint customs inspection at the Ukrainian-Hungarian border in order to identify citizens of Ukraine with dual citizenship (this contradicts the Ukrainian Constitution), Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Shemien immediately denied this information. “Mister Ukrainian Foreign Minister can be absolutely sure that Hungary will not be a partner who could put the interests of the Hungarians in Transcarpathia at the slightest threat,” he said.
The interests of the Transcarpathian Magyars are indeed in the area of attention of Hungarian politicians. They constantly watch over the Democratic Union of Hungarians of Ukraine and the Society of the Hungarian Culture of Transcarpathia, whose representatives sit on all local councils. In the city of Beregovo, a Hungarian university is opened, teaching in the Hungarian language is conducted in several dozens of schools, television and radio are broadcast on it, newspapers are printed.
In 2012, the Hungarian ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Bayer, in an interview with the Ukrainian edition of Weekly.ua, called for the creation of Hungarian national autonomy, as well as a "Hungarian" electoral district in the Verkhovna Rada. “Ukrainian Hungarians would like to create autonomy and manage their own affairs in Ukraine themselves. Earlier in Transcarpathia there was a majority district in which the Hungarians constituted the majority of voters. Now it is not. Transcarpathian Hungarians are asking for its restoration, and the Hungarian government supports it, ”the Hungarian diplomat unequivocally outlined the position of his leadership.
In the same year, Hungary received a new Constitution, in which the following wording is contained: “Hungary, guided by the idea of unity of the Hungarian nation, is responsible for the fate of Hungarians living outside its borders” and “Every Hungarian citizen has the right to protection of the Hungarian state during his stay abroad". And already last year, speaking in parliament after taking the oath of the head of government, Viktor Orban said: “We consider the Hungarian issue as a European issue. Hungarians living in the Carpathian region have the right to dual citizenship, to the rights of the national community and to autonomy. ”
But if Prime Minister Orban, while defending national interests, still has to look back at the EU, then the Hungarian politicians from the opposition camp can afford not to stand on ceremony. “Our movement“ For the Best Hungary ”has, since its inception, emphasized the importance of the right to autonomy of Transcarpathia, since 200 000 of Hungarians live on this territory. The peace agreement signed in Trianon and ending World War I unjustly severed these people from their historic homeland, ”said the leader of the Hungarian Jobbik Party in an interview with PolitNavigator, Gabor Von.
“Hungarians and Rusyns in the west of Ukraine also have the right to autonomy, like other peoples of the world. 1991 held a referendum in the region on this issue, and the overwhelming majority voted for autonomy. The European Union is simply obliged to support any manifestation of the will of all the peoples of Europe without using double standards (to consider as legitimate the will of only those peoples that are currently beneficial for it), ”the politician emphasized.
In February of this year, the youth organization HVIM and Jobbik staged a torchlight procession in the center of Budapest in protest against the mobilization of Hungarians in Transcarpathia, carrying an empty coffin and a black banner that says “This is not our war” by parliament to the Foreign Ministry building. “Unfortunately, the official position of the Hungarian government is that Hungarians living in Ukraine should not be mobilized into the Ukrainian army in greater proportion to the total population of Ukraine. Our position is that not a single Hungarian should be drafted into the Ukrainian army and forced to fight in a foreign war. This is not their war and the war of Hungary. Peace must be established. But this can be achieved only by putting pressure on Kiev, which must respect minorities and stop waging war against its own population, ”said the Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Hungarian Parliament and the PACE delegate Marton Diendiesi in an interview with the Free Press.
Ukrainian zugzwang
The SBU predictably responded to the Hungarian performances and statements, banning the vice-chairman of “Jobbik” Istvan Savoy and several of his associates for five years from entering Ukraine. However, this is unlikely to affect the quality of the next wave of mobilization: draftees in the Carpathian region and without the influence of the Hungarian “Jobbik” look unlit.
The plan of the previous, fifth, mobilization Transcarpathian region fulfilled only 44%, giving up less than 400 people to the war, which is one of the worst indicators in Ukraine. And even the Mukachevo 128 th mountain and infantry brigade after the losses incurred while leaving the Debaltsevsky boiler, now have to be replenished at the expense of recruits from Lviv, Ternopil and Chernihiv regions.
“There are a number of reasons why this happened. But those who are hiding from the delivery of agendas are improving their methods. Do not let in apartments, hide. Chairs of village councils and the like are not working enough, ”said a few days ago at a press conference in Uzhgorod and. about. military commissar of the Transcarpathian regional military commissariat Oleg Vinnitsky.
Earlier, the greatest problems in mobilization activities occur in the Transcarpathian region, said the head of the mobilization department of the Main Directorate of Defense and Mobilization Planning of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleg Boyko. According to him, there were recorded cases of traveling abroad by entire villages: “There is a report by the chairman of the village of Kosovo district, according to which the local population hired two buses and drove them to the Russian Federation. At the border, military servicemen paid for her crossing. ”
In turn, rural heads and local military committees explain the “staff turnover” by purely local traditions. They say that the draft population abroad is not flowing away from the war, but for seasonal earnings, “because they have already had agreed places with work contracts for a long time”. Their passivity is quite understandable: being themselves relatives, neighbors, or acquaintances, they are by no means eager to make enemies in this land with its feudal-clan structure. Where the law is taiga, bear is a prosecutor, and the chances of becoming a fire or missing in a hunt are extremely high.
Everybody remembers a year ago the protest against mobilization, when hundreds of women blocked the international highway Kiev - Chop near the village of Rokshino, as well as highways in Irshava, Beregovo, Khust, Mizhgir and Tyachiv districts. As they blocked the traffic in the center of Mukachevo and even tried to storm the draft board. Then frightened local officials, in order to calm the rebellious, promised to continue to call only on volunteers. Later, under pressure from Kiev, the regional leadership “corrected” the promise, saying that it was not about ceasing mobilization in principle, but only about suspending the issuance of summons until the explanatory work with the population. And, judging by the subsequent sad reports of the military commissars, this “explanatory work” is carried out again in full accordance with the local tradition of quiet sabotage.
The war in the east of the country and without mobilization carries risks for a tacit agreement on coexistence between Ukraine and Transcarpathia. If Donbass receives a special status on which Russia and Europe insist today, they will demand exactly the same advantages here, again updating the idea of autonomy. If the rebel areas secede, the centrifugal tendencies in this region may become irreversible - especially if the central government loses its ability to meet its social obligations.
Pacify the edge of the "eastern version" will not work. First, with the current state of the Ukrainian army, it is practically impossible to fight effectively in the highlands. For centuries, legendary sprays have been successfully partisan against the forces of the forces where they are more viable and more threatening than modern Ukraine. Secondly, the European Union is unlikely to support such a development of events in the territory where the end point of the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod gas pipeline, which is strategic for it, is located. And thirdly, we should not forget about Hungary, which will surely have enough determination to intervene in the situation before the next ATO is there.
Understanding all the futility of force in this region, Poroshenko, inspired by the victory over Kolomoisky, apparently decided to go the same way as his hapless predecessor Yanukovych. To begin with, take the local elite into circulation, crushing its business interests. Thus, in June, Maidan’s activist and volunteer Roman Krutyak, Assistant to the People’s Deputy from Blok Petro Poroshenko Robert Gorvat and not a stranger to the ex-governor of Transcarpathia (now also a member of parliament) Valery Lunchenko was appointed acting head of the Transcarpathian Customs. The new owner of the customs has already promised "decisive and fundamental" changes, as well as an end to all the old connections and schemes. What can be regarded as an unambiguous "black mark" for the clan Balog.
The next step could be the abolition of the Transcarpathian region. The administrative reform, the discussion of the prospects for which the Rada will take up in July, among other things, involves joining this region to the Lviv region. Formally, the need for such changes is explained by economic considerations. In reality, they want to transfer the unreliable region to “re-education” by ideologically correct Galicians. Fortunately, those who have the relevant experience: during the Second World War, it was the residents of the western regions who were entrusted to “Ukrainize” Transcarpathian Rusyns and Hungarians in the “Dume” concentration camp near Rakhov.
How the next attempt to drive this distinctive region into the framework of a mono-national state will end is not hard to guess. Judging by what is happening today in the country, President Poroshenko during his student years was studying foreign languages much more diligently than domestic history. Ukraine is very at risk to choke on Stalin's gift, which she did not manage to digest. It is unlikely that the Transcarpathians would be overly upset, for already a decade living in local, not “Kiev” time, and knowing firsthand that every parting is just a reason for a new anniversary.
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