Roman in Ukraine

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Every since I paid an outrageous 250 UAH for my first trip from Kyiv Borispol Airport, I’ve been ignoring the cabbies.

They seem to accept my body language, and no longer even try to take me for a ride. I call one of two taxi companies who quote a price over the phone. It’s nice, though they are sometime rude. The girls will hang up on you if they don’t understand you, and hang up again when you call back.

Anyway, the price is usually 130 UAH.

Recently, just out of curiosity, I approached the official looking black and yellow taxi booth in Terminal B.

“How much to the center?” I asked.

“What street?”

I told her.

Without consulting any computer or chart, she thought for a moment and said 260 UAH. I laughed out loud.

I expect many soccer fans to get cheated during Euro Cup 2012.

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Before I returned to Ukraine, a American who’s lived here for almost a decade advised that it’s not for everyone, “the toilet paper is definitely softer in America.”

He was talking about all the little things which are more difficult in Ukraine. These are no big deal in my opinion, but they are interesting.

First, the reasons I prefer Ukraine:

All in all, I feel safer in Ukraine than in the US, especially from violent crime.

Toilets work. See Jeffrey Tuckers, The Relentless Misery of 1.6 Gallons.

The market is still emerging. There are many possibilities.

People don’t expect any help from their government.

Now, the bad:

Opening a door. There seems to be a 50/50 chance that the door will bump into another door, or a closet, or a person standing by the sink of a restaurant’s bathroom. Things aren’t designed as well in Ukraine.

Turning on a light. In most apartments that majority of light switches are centrally located. It’s as if the home’s commissar, following in the great socialist tradition, wanted a commanding height from which to bestow the blessing of light upon his subjects who are obviously too stupid to do it themselves. The result — I spend frustrating seconds switching lights on and off until I see, through the cracks of a door at the end of the hallway, that the proper switch has been flipped.

Browsing the internet. It has to do with how IP addresses are assigned. When I unplug one laptop and switch the ethernet cable to the other, I have to wait for 30 minutes before I can use it. (This was solved when I got WIFI.) Also, if you misspell your password just once on a Ukrainian website, you’re immediately confronted with a Captcha verification. No second chance.

Showering. Hot water is unreliable, even in my gym. It’s getting much more reliable, though! Some building have gigantic water heaters beside them — again the Soviet lust from centralized control — but little by little, people are installing private water heaters in their homes. Many bathrooms are small and crowded, and many showers are handheld, with the fixture for fastening the nozzle above you broken. I’m learning to wash single-handed.

Going to a restaurant. There is the generally poor customer service which I’ve written about before. On some nights, there seems to be a common practice of labeling every table “reserved.” A place will be half empty, but every seat and table will be marked “reserved,” and you’ll get scolded for sitting there. (What the fuck?) You’d think they’d welcome your money. They don’t even offer to sell you a reserved table. Perhaps it’s up to me to offer them money, but I don’t even understand them well.

Going to a restaurant 2. It may be locked during normal business hours, with no explanation. Or, one door may be locked and you’ll never realize that only the other door is open.

Finding your way around. Street signs are not located at intersections. They are *sometimes* located on little placards on buildings. I’ve walked a quarter mile trying to figure out the name of the street I had turned onto.

Checking a movie listing. One time, while walking through Kyiv sounding out the names of stores, I noticed a ‘kinoteater,’ a theater. There was no brightly lit sign depicting movie listings as one may find in the US, so I went inside. I studied the various posters and announcements above the ticket booths, but found no listings until a crowd off to one side attracted my attention. They peered over each other’s shoulders to study an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper taped to the wall below eye level on which the listings were printed in black & white. Hunger Games was not playing

Shopping. In Soviet times, shops were run by the government. The clerk, much like the clerks Americans interact with at the Department of Motor Vehicles, is a government employee who enjoys a monopoly on the “service” they offer. They were rude as hell, and asserted their authority by abusing customers. The legacy of this is that some retail people assert their authority by being rude. This is changing slowly. The free market takes time. Businesses with bad customer service has to go bankrupt or change. The best ones will slowly increase their market share. The further a market is from free, the slower this process. Also, you have to pay for your bag and bag your items yourself.

(I’ll likely be expanding this post as more things occur to me.)

I like to describe Ukraine as not quite designed for humans . . . yet. Socialism is not designed for humans, and Ukraine, given the perversion and distortion that characterizes it’s two decades of lurching away from the Soviet system, is recovering slowly.

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There were a bunch of transactions on it in Moscow.

4th time I had my debit/credit card stolen. 2nd time they resulted in ATM withdrawals in Moscow.

ffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Anybody know how this happens? What should I do differently?

Here is a map of where it was used in Moscow:

The orange marker shows the ATM where 4 transactions were made. The other markers show “Victoria” supermarkets. At one of them, a $300 transaction was made.

I’m pretty sure my info was stolen when I made an ATM withdrawal in Kyiv at Mezhyhirs’ka street 54.

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R.I.P. forgotten millions….

The thing is, in a free society, people can voluntarily create communes. They can pool their resources and elect a chairman to direct the use of those resources. I wish all these red-banner waving idiots would try that.

The madness lies in that communists don’t want to pool their resources voluntarily. They want to pool everybody’s resources BY FORCE.

It doesn’t work the other way. You can create voluntary communist organizations within a free society, but you can’t create free organizations within a communist society.

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Many of these Americans have been able to leverage family networks, language skills and cultural knowledge gleaned from growing up in immigrant households.

Jonathan Assayag, 29, a Brazilian-American born in Rio de Janeiro and raised in South Florida, returned to Brazil last year. A Harvard Business School graduate, he had been working at an Internet company in Silicon Valley and unsuccessfully trying to develop a business.

“I spent five months spending my weekends at Starbucks, trying to figure out a start-up in America,” he recalled.

All the while, Harvard friends urged him to make a change. “They were saying: ‘Jon, what are you doing? Go to Brazil and start a business there!’ ” he said.

Relocating to São Paulo, he became an “entrepreneur in residence” at a venture capital firm. He is starting an online eyewear business. “I speak the language, I get the culture, I understand how people do business,” he said.

Calvin Chin was born in Michigan and used to live in San Francisco, where he worked at technology start-ups and his wife was an interior decorator. Mr. Chin’s mother was from China, as were his paternal grandparents. His wife’s parents were from Taiwan.

They are now in Shanghai, where Mr. Chin has started two companies — an online loan service for students and an incubator for technology start-ups.

. . . .

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/us/more-us-children-of-immigrants-are-leaving-us.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2&smid=fb-share

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President Books A Huge ‘Proffit’

In the five years after President Viktor Yanukovych made the spelling error on a application for his failed 2004 presidential bid, he wrote four books with titles such as “A Year in Office” and “How Ukraine Should Live On.”

In his income declaration for 2011, published on April 14, the president said Donetsk-based publishing house Noviy Svit had paid him Hr 16.4 million, or more than $2 million, for the copyright to those four books and any future works. This payment constituted 95 percent of his total declared income for the year.

Many Ukrainian writers and publishers say it is impossible to make anything close to this sum through sales for the few books that he published. They said it looked suspiciously like an attempt to disguise other income by laundering it as book royalties.

“In Ukraine, no one gets such royalties for a book,” said Dmytro Kapranov, a writer and a co-owner of publishing house Zelenyy Pes.

U.S. President Barack Obama made nearly $2.5 million in royalties in 2008, the year he shot to global fame, for his two books. Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and current U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pulled down $8 million advances each, but they were outdone by the late Pope John Paul II, who got $8.5 million for a 1994 book.

Kapranov said authors in Ukraine earn around 5-10 percent from sales of their publications. According to his basic calculations, this would mean each of the four books’ circulation should have reached at least a half-million copies, a figure unheard of on Ukraine’s book market.

Kapranov said the most recent publications by the country’s bestselling authors Lina Kostenko and Vasyl Shkliar reached 100,000 copies. The popular Ukrainian translations of books about Harry Potter had a slightly smaller circulation.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/126324/#ixzz1tc991c34

Donbas seems to be a place with no future

I recently came across the saddest commentary on Ukraine’s eastern provinces that I have ever encountered. It’s a video blog by one Stanislav Tsikalovsky from the city of Luhansk. The 34-year-old Tsikalovsky goes by the name of Proctologist. His slogan is: “Believe me, because madmen always speak the truth.”

The truth that recently caught the attention of some 30,000 Ukrainians came in a video Tsikalovsky made after a trip to Lviv, in western Ukraine. Here’s what he had to say: “I would like to dedicate this video blog to the city of Lviv, which I visited, and to those people who hosted us, showed us their city, and told us about its beauty and prospects for the future.

I wasn’t sure what to say until I sat down in the Lviv-Luhansk train and arrived in my native Luhansk. I disembarked and understood that, besides crying in front of a camera, I wouldn’t succeed in describing the beautiful city of Lviv. And not because there’s nothing to say.

You understand that quite well, if you’ve seen my photographs. There are, I’m ashamed to admit, many, many, many interesting things there. But when I stepped onto my native Donbas-Luhansk land and looked around, I saw and understood that we don’t even have a future. We have no city authorities and no provincial authorities. And it’s not even a question of having no prospects of large-scale change. We have no prospects of any kind of change whatsoever. All that’s left for us, for you, is at a minimum for us, the Donbas, to be enclosed with barbed wire and not be let out, so as not to interfere with normal people’s efforts to develop themselves and build a good country. And at a maximum, I guess, simply to drink ourselves silly. Bye.”

The bit about hopelessness and lack of future prospects is depressing enough. But for a native of Luhansk to recommend enclosing the Donbas with barbed wire is enough to drive one to drink.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/125549/#ixzz1tc9PqwhQ

Demographic crisis will stunt growth, harm pensions, create labor shortage

The grim demographic milestones that Ukraine will reach by 2020 is pushing population issues to the forefront of the nation’s economic debate as it could see growth stunted due to labor shortages with debt implications for its pension and health systems.

Consumer market strategy researcher Euromonitor International stated in a recent report that Ukraine will experience the largest absolute population loss in Europe between 2011 and 2020, which will adversely impact the country’s long-term economic growth.

Having already experienced an 11.8 percent population decline between 1991 and 2011, from 51.6 million to 45.5 million, Euromonitor reported, Ukraine’s population stands to fall by about 200,000 annually, dropping to 44.5 million people by 2020 due mostly to the long-term trend of the death rate exceeding the birth rate.

In an even more dramatic forecast, the United Nations projects that Ukraine’s population will decrease to 35 million by 2050. Despite two years of economic growth, the birth rate was 1.4 in 2011, still below the replacement level of 2.2.

Outgoing migration, principally among the young working age population in the 1990s has also exacerbated population decline. And the smaller birth generation during the 1990s that has recently joined the labor force coupled with few incoming labor migrants is fueling the present and future labor shortages.

“Every year 200,000 thousand more people die (in Ukraine) than are born,” said Rumane Verikaite, a Euromonitor data analysis manager.

The report said a large number of deaths are due to increasing life expectancy, an aging population and high young and working age male mortality. Men in Ukraine can expect to live 10 years less than women due to smoking, accidents at work and high incidence of suicides for men younger than 65.

Read more: http://www.kievpost.net/news/business/bus_focus/detail/125560/#ixzz1tc9xVe7C

NBU reserves dwindle to US $26-27 bn

After alarming statements about the necessity of urgent restructuring of foreign debts last week, the government suddenly changed the course. Several days ago, Deputy Minister for Economic Development and Trade Vadym Kopylov spoke about the intention of postponing repayment to the IMF by 10 years. Now, Ukraine is ready to empty its pockets to immediately satisfy the creditor. “We confirm the intention to stably fulfill the liabilities, including to the International Monetary Fund within the established timeframe,” read a statement released recently by the Ministry of Finance. According to the ministry’s preliminary estimates, the condition of state finances and domestic financial market provides a possibility to fulfill the program of borrowings and maintain the level of the state debt of a safe level

Independent economists do not share the optimism of the government officials. According to their estimates, it will be practically impossible to refinance the accumulated debts that require repayment this year. Favorable outcome is possible only in case the cooperation with the IMF is renewed or Ukraine manages to re-sign gas contracts with Moscow. The chances for realization of such scenario, however, remain minimal. “As the parliamentary elections approach, the probability of reviving the credit program of the IMF is dropping substantially. That is why credit ratings of Ukraine will remain under pressure until the government reaches considerable decrease of the cost of import gas by signing a new gas agreement with Russian,” says Olena Belan, chief economist at Dragon Capital.

The total amount that Kyiv must repay foreign creditors in 2012 exceeds USD 6 bn, taking into account the part of the debt to be paid from the NBU reserves. Payouts to the IMF only this year should amount to US $3.719 bn. The deadline for repayment of repeatedly prolonged credit from Russian VTB amounting to US $2bn is June.

http://kyivweekly.com.ua/pulse/finance%20&%20markets/2012/04/02/153541.html

$30,000 Watch Vanishes Up Church Leader’s Sleeve

Facing a scandal over photographs of its leader wearing an enormously expensive watch, the Russian Orthodox Church worked a little miracle: It made the offending timepiece disappear.

Editors doctored a photograph on the church’s Web site of the leader, Patriarch Kirill I, extending a black sleeve where there once appeared to be a Breguet timepiece worth at least $30,000. The church might have gotten away with the ruse if it had not failed to also erase the watch’s reflection, which appeared in the photo on the highly glossed table where the patriarch was seated.

The church apologized for the deception on Thursday and restored the original photo to the site, but not before Patriarch Kirill weighed in, insisting in an interview with a Russian journalist that he had never worn the watch, and that any photos showing him wearing it must have been doctored to put the watch on his wrist.

The controversy, which erupted Wednesday when attentive Russian bloggers discovered the airbrushing, further stoked anger over the church’s often lavish displays of wealth and power.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/world/europe/in-russia-a-watch-vanishes-up-orthodox-leaders-sleeve.html?_r=2&smid=rdt

Expats in struggle to file Ukrainian tax declarations

Ukraine’s tax administration has gone out of its way this year to warn foreigners residing in the nation that they are required to file tax declarations and pay their fair share. But compliance has proven incredibly difficult.

A combination of unclear legislation and disarray at tax administration offices across Ukraine has made filing tax returns for foreigners difficult. Those who manage to navigate past the administrative hurdles could find that their tax returns are filled out incorrectly – especially if they followed instructions from the tax authorities themselves.

The problems lie in several areas, experts say.

Local tax districts are refusing to receive tax returns from foreigners claiming they are not in their databases, warns Oksana Lapii, who manages expatrate tax issues at auditing giant Ernst & Young’s Kyiv office.

Read more: http://www.kievpost.net/news/business/bus_general/detail/126593/#ixzz1tcBrHPbg

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The newspaper headline reads, “Nazi dies, avoiding jail time.” By any measure, John Demjanjuk was not a Nazi.

By his worst accusers he was a prisoner of war forced to work in a Nazi concentration camp. The article concludes: “Demjanjuk was the first man in Germany to be convicted for serving as a guard at a death camp – but without evidence of being involved in any specific murders.” How consistent! Over 36 years there was never any evidence.

Following his May 11 German conviction and sentence, the German government placed him in a nursing home. The court lifted the warrant of arrest stating that further incarceration would be unlawful pending the appeal and that John would not be a flight risk because of age, illness and the lack of a passport. They were simply waiting for him to die. In any event, under German law, a defendant is not considered convicted until all avenues of appeal have been exhausted. Demjanjuk died before his appeal was heard.

Yet another example of the facts not supporting the headlines!

But then this was the nature of Demjanjuk’s 36-year ordeal. The facts never did fit the accusations either. Demjanjuk was an enigma for his accusers. The accusations simply did not stick despite fraud, perjury, cover-up and incessant pressure.

Over the summer, my son who was entering high school was assigned to read “Night” by Eliezer Wiesel, an overwhelmingly moving memoir of Wiesel, a Jewish inmate at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp. Wiesel was brought to Auschwitz from Romania. He wrote of unspeakable horrors including one where a Jewish acquaintance who was deemed fit for work, was forced to work in the crematorium and pushed his own father into the oven.

Wiesel suffered at German concentration camps from May 1944 until January 1945 at Auschwitz and then at another camp until early April 1945 when the Americans liberated him, a total of some 11 months.

I knew about the notorious Auschwitz camp from my father who was a Ukrainian prisoner there from December 1941 until January 1945. My father suffered at German concentration camps for more than three years.

Demjanjuk was a Red Army soldier, essentially Stalin’s fodder at the battlefront, considered by his commander-in-chief less important than munitions. He was captured and endured life as a German prisoner of war.

The end of the war brought little respite since being from the USSR, John had to evade repatriation to the USSR, a nefarious scheme of the Yalta conference where the Allies became complicit in Stalin’s crimes.

Finally, he managed to emigrate to America and lived there generally peacefully until that peace was disturbed in 1976. What followed was 36 years of persecution by new tormentors, including Jews and Americans, and old ones, Russians and Germans.

I knew Demjanjuk and his family. I met him several times. He always impressed me as being warm, good-natured and of remarkable hopefulness. I met him last in the Munich prison in November 2009 on the eve of his trial.
Frankly, neither he, nor his son, nor his German attorney nor I fully understood the charges against him. I suspect that the entire legal world marveled when the verdict came down against him. Similar charges had not been leveled against any human being.

In fact, ethnic German had been amnestied from similar prosecution by the German government in the 1960s. Here was a case that flew in the face of basic tenets of jurisprudence – selective prosecution, unequal treatment before the law, etc.

I am not suggesting that John Demjanjuk was a saint, after all he was a human being and, I am sure had faults.

I do consider him a martyr. He was a victim of German cruelty, Russian perjury, American irresponsibility at the very least and possibly criminality, and the immorality of the Jewish-Holocaust industry. Certainly he has gone to a better place where the judge is not beholden to anyone, where therefore justice is even-handed, and Demjanjuk should be rewarded for his egregious suffering.

I am proud to have known him.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/124728/#ixzz1tc8Ue9n2

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I bought a bag of “warm, fresh” vareneky for 12 uah ($1.50) from a lady who boarded during a brief stop. On this trip, I spoke with my fellow kupe passengers. Ivan had been traveling all the way from Luhansk and was already reclined comfortably on his bedroll when I boarded &entered the kupe in Kyiv. He said they make better vareneky here in the west, that their dough isnt right out east, that he was traveling home for Easter, and that the mentality in the east leaves young people asking for free education, a pension, free heathcare from the government, while in the west they ask only to be left alone. Interesting to me that its noticed, though Id heard almost the exact opposite before.

The kid in my kupe was so noisy & unruly that a lady came from another kupe to argue with his mom. I’m told we were delayed near Broviv when a passenger fell down between the cars and was killed. I was sleeping the whole time we were halted. A second official said “they’re not telling us what happened… maybe its Spring repairs that caused the delay.”

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.49 kg Broccoli = 18.61 UAH
———> 37.98 UAH/Kg ———-> $2.16 / lb (In the US it’s about $1.50)

.44 kg Chicken Drumsticks(4) = 22.98 UAH
———-> 52.22 UAH/Kg ———-> $2.97 / lb (In the US it’s about $2.50 — right?)

Loaf of bread (medium quality) = 12 UAH
———-> $1.50 (In the US it’s about $2.50)

Please post if I didn’t get the US prices right. The verdict is:

Imported produce: MUCH more expensive
Chicken: about the same
Bread: cheaper

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