Impressions of a Canadian from post-Ukraine: times were worse, but ...
Visited Kiev and surroundings. It has long been not more than two years, the last time - in September 2013. Shocked by what he saw and heard. If to summarize, then at the human level, - a catastrophe, from which no one sees, and even the very possibility of exit - they stopped believing.
The sharply falling incomes, the lack of work are often combined in the heads of Ukrainians with the belief that “America will force Russia and force the Crimea back.”
A representative of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada shared his impressions of a visit to the Ukrainian capital at a forum on the web, where he spoke about prices, people's moods and the condition of streets. Last time, the current resident of Canada was in the Ukrainian capital in September 2013, and noted that over the past two years, there have been dramatic changes. About this reports portal RusVesna.
At the very beginning of his story, the author honestly admits that he is shocked by what he saw and heard. On the human level, he writes, a natural catastrophe occurs, from which no one sees it, and there is not even much hope for it. Even in the 90-s, half of which the author lived in Kiev, the society did not feel such a moral decline. “Then there were more difficult problems, say, there was no gas at all for weeks, for months they did not pay pensions and salaries, but even then I don’t remember such a shame and such hopelessness in the votes,” the author writes.
During his trip, the author was able to communicate with a variety of people - young and old, poor and very well-off, Kievans and residents of the province, in other words, turned out to be “a fairly representative sample of Ukrainian society”. The optimist among these people met only one - he had the opportunity to move after his wife to Europe.
Going to the hairdresser and finding that prices here fell from 60 to 30 hryvnia, the author asked the hairdresser, a girl of 20 years, the question why nobody smiles in the city, and received a simple answer: “And why the hell are you smiling: everyone thinks where to earn at least some money to somehow survive. And no one knows what will happen tomorrow, but no one expects a good one. ”
This idea was later heard by the author many times from all sorts of people - taxi drivers, salesmen, friends and relatives: the financial situation has deteriorated a lot and there is no hope for improvement.
The author writes that now there is a lot of talk about politics, geopolitics, economics, but for some reason, ordinary people live in Ukraine, they are rarely remembered. “I will try to fill this gap even a little and tell about the genocide with the words of these people whom no one sees, no one hears.”
Further in the story are some characteristic sketches. In the morning after the flight, the author decided, without losing time, to go to Kremenchug - to visit the sisters and visit his father’s grave. While I was walking to the station in the Solomenka district, I saw a picture of complete ruin: potholes covered in asphalt, the hatches were covered with boards, rubbish was lying around, homeless people were digging in it.
“At the station itself is gray, but more or less. I found the bus for a short time - the price went up from 50 to 120 hryvnia in two years, well, in my pocket - even cheaper, it turns out, - the author writes. - And the price of gasoline, I must say, somewhere on the 20 UAH / liter, i.e. 1 Canadian is exactly the Canadian price as it was two years ago, i.e. definitely lost earnings. "
During the trip, the author noted that many cafes and gas stations appeared along the road: small business in Ukraine is well developed, better than in Canada - many establishments are open around the clock, Ukrainians work hard and try hard. True, whether they manage to earn a lot is another question, the author writes. Yes, the population is not passive, it works, but that's all positive news economies are running out. "For a quarter of a century, nothing new," the author writes.
At the bus stop behind Pereyaslav, the author entered the cafe, looked at the prices: around 40 hryvnia for the dish. After stopping, a soldier hooked up in a minibus, who was escorted by a pregnant wife with a small child. “A sad spectacle! Already in the minibus he got a mobile phone and started talking to someone for service, judging by his conversation, he is a simple rural man, and in part there are no the most basic things - that's what he was trying to solve with someone, ”writes traveler.
Two fresh graves struck the cemetery: the heroes of the ATO, 36 and 37 years. From conversations, the author learned that there are already about ten dead in the area - more than for the whole of Afghanistan.
The sister said that she had just been left without work, where she had previously received 3 thousand hryvnia, and did not know how to live. In her arms - the daughter of 11 years, no husband. We went to another sister, whose family lives up well by local standards, but even here they heard complaints: the business sank by several times. A second cousin, a big police officer in the area, went to the ATO. It lives well, but the complaints are the same: the salary has dropped to 300 dollars, the son (police officer) is in Donbas, there is no reason to talk about a quiet life.
In the evening, already in Kiev, the author went down into the subway and noted that the overwhelming majority of people speak Russian. There are phrases, words in Ukrainian, but mostly “around absolutely Russian people”, approximately 90%.
Another sketch is about the life of visitors in Kiev, who are trying to make money in the capital in order to feed the remaining family in the province. An Xerox stall worker in the transition, an 31-year-old native of the Vinnytsia region, said that at home he could find work only for 1200 hryvnias, in Kiev it turns out "like everyone else" - from 4 000 to 5 000 hryvnias. There are many problems in the provinces, one of them is with medicine. Earlier in each village there was an outpatient station and a medical assistant, but now there is only one left for the district. Free nothing is done, the birth of his wife cost in 8 000 hryvnia. The pressure pills for the retired mom cost 45 hryvnas in the spring, now 105 hryvnias. “With regard to pensioners, the tactics chosen are the following: the pension should provide bread and water, and the slightest health problems - and the end, or a serious blow to relatives. No help from the state at all, ”concludes the author.
Taxi drivers, of which there are many in Kiev, also tell a lot of interesting things. “Earnings fell to clean food and the most necessary repairs,” one said. - And two years ago it was bad, but now it’s all pipets. And the worst thing is that it’s not that there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, but there’s no hope at all — only worse and worse. ”
The opinion of taxi drivers was of interest to the author, not least because 2 a year ago, it was from a taxi driver that he heard detailed and emotional curses about the “gangster Yanukovich” and complaints about the devastation in Kiev, etc.
I also saw the author with college friends with whom 35 has been friends for years. At a meeting in a cafe (coffee - at quite Canadian prices, at 30 hryvnia), one of the old comrades said that already 2 of the year without work (previously he was a medium-sized official in the bank), is interrupted by small earnings. With the "tyrant" (as the author is ironically called Yanukovych), he received 8000 hryvnia, and now more than 3000 hryvnia does not give anywhere. The mood was depressed, and the author did not even remind his friend that 2 a year ago he excitedly talked about the brilliant prospects of Ukraine.
With the second comrade nearly got out a scandal. On the contrary, things are going well for him. The rhetoric is expected: “America will force Russia to a fortune-teller do not go, and they will force Crimea to return”, “America gives us 300 million, their instructor will teach our soldiers, give javelins,” if not for this bastard (Putin), then all it would be good, and we would be in Europe ", etc.
The report is accompanied by a number of fresh photos of Kiev. “For me, the Lugansk provincial, struck in 1981 with beauty and order, the present state of the city is a heartache,” the author comments on his pictures. There are potholes on the sidewalks, mud, while on the street and in the subway there are a lot of fresh advertising on the theme of the Holodomor and Maidan anniversaries.
During his stay in Kiev, the author visited his old bank chief. “From the postgraduate school he made a dizzying career, and, without exaggeration, in any Kiev office, he was not poor, but he kept quite modest. In the past five years, he faded into the background, his former subordinates run the National Bank, many commercial banks, sit in all the main offices of Kiev - he remains in the shadows, health problems have affected, and the time has probably changed. ”
Now this person is engaged in agribusiness, things are going well, the production of oilseeds for 15 has quadrupled, export has been adjusted. Ukrainian agribusiness generally concentrates very quickly. There is almost no free land, all of it is divided between agroholdings managing areas from 50 to 400 thousand hectares. The efficiency of land use has increased in comparison with Soviet times.
In a conversation about politics, the former head of the author said that the elite increasingly converges on the idea that it is better to cut off the Donbass and begin to put the remaining territory in order. At the personal level, everything remains the same: “They continue to steal. Moreover, if Petit is being stolen more or less rationally, then Senya and his team are pulling everything that is badly lying absolutely open and stupid. ”
Poroshenko, in his words, drinks "no more than usual by our standards." Then he started scolding Russia, Putin. “I was silent - if such porridge fits in the head of such an intelligent and experienced person, then there is only one explanation for this: the personal interest of the Ukrelita to which he belongs, in the continuation of the banquet at any cost,” concluded the author. “The conclusion to which he finally pushed me: ukrelita mentally cannot escape from a skillfully placed trap, in which, defending her right to milk the feeding territory, she will bring it to complete ruin, and herself to self-destruction.
The author also met with his nephew, whom he had once attached to the bank. He made a career, was promoted to the director of the department, but soon moved to Western Europe - after his wife, who was offered to move to the European office of her company. “The prospects for Ukraine are poorly visible if such people leave it - young professionals, absolutely prosperous and wealthy,” the author says.
Author childhood friend dealing with aviation business in Africa and business often in Ukraine, spoke about the situation in this industry. With the collapse of the Union, Ukraine received many IL-76s, ANs, as well as ANTK and aircraft factories. Now, “absolutely everything has been lost, the last remaining aircraft that have been flying off the resource that was originally laid down in them for a long time and only thanks to its endless extension are finalizing their resource.”
There have been worse times, but there was no mean things, the author quotes the classic. At a minimum, “even father and son Khmelnytsky, Doroshenko, Bryukhovetsky, etc., did not think that Ukrainians had returned to the“ full ”of Tatars and Turks did not think of such meanness as the current genocide of their own population.
“Thoughts of humorous Ukrainians that were sung by the Hetmans even sold their people into slavery, buying Tatar cavalry and Turkish troops, this is somehow understandable, and the current ones simply stupidly exhaust the people to purely reduce the expenditure items of the budget, and trade Ukrainian blood for the right to plunder the rest. Much like it, for my taste. "
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