Author Archives: RomanInUkraine

Forest Mushroom Potato Chips

This the second post in my ongoing series of strange potato chip flavors. See my first about red-caviar flavored chips.

Forest Mushroom Flavor Chips:

Arseniiivski Kvas

I love this stuff.

Live Arseniivski Kvas

What is Kvas? Wikipedia: “Kvass is a fermented beverage made from black or regular rye bread. The colour of the bread used contributes to the colour of the resulting drink. It is classified as a non-alcoholic drink by Russian standards, as the alcohol content from fermentation is typically less than 1.2%. Overall, the alcohol content is low (0.05% – 1.0%). It is often flavoured with fruits or herbs such as strawberries, raisins or mint. Kvass is also used for preparing a cold summertime soup called okroshka.

It is popular in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and other Eastern and Central European countries as well as in former Soviet states, such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where one can see many kvass vendors in the streets.”

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This brand is my favorite by far. Their website.

Me Working

Me Working.jpg

Lettuce from the super market comes in a little pot!

cool.

Lettuce in a pot.jpg

A Few Pictures From Kyiv, Spring 2012

[Show slideshow]

Queue to first McDonalds in Moscow in 1990

[youtube]amx-JHhtsHw[/youtube]

Papers, Please

I was stopped in the metro by the police. This happened once before, except that time, the cop took one look at my passport, said, in a disappointed voice, “oh, your American,” and let me go.

This time they took me to their office. There was one portly officer, and two adolescent boys with berets. They reminded me of young soldiers.

I probably could have avoided the whole thing, but I made the mistake of looking like I didn’t know where I was going. I was aware of their presence, and right in front of them, I looked from one sign to another, trying to figure out which line would take me to the Voksal metro station. My indecision was the opening they needed.

“You don’t speak Russian?” he asked.

“Just Ukrainian,” I said, smiling, “and English.”

I think he took this as a challenge because he said “spraken zi Deutche,” and after I said no, he looked satisfied, his superiority re-established.

He asked where I was going and why and where I was from and why relatives weren’t with me and how long I’d lived in America.

“I was born there,” I said, and he, like most Ukrainians, wanted to know how I came to speak Ukrainian. Then he said he’d have to take me to their office.

On the long escalator, I asked his name, and I could tell the question worried him. “Andri,” he said. I felt bad for him and didn’t ask for a last name.

We were cordial to one another and he asked whether life is better (economically better) in America or Ukraine. I told him in America but this might change. I used it as an opening to talk about fiat money. I said there might be a collapse of the dollar eventually, just like the Kupony collapsed in Ukraine, and then the whole world would change. He didn’t think this would happen.

In the office, the two young men disappeared, as soldiers do when we returned from a long field problem, eager for some alone time. Andrij took me to their office, and asked if I any weapons or illegal things, like drugs.

I emptied my pockets. “I don’t think this counts as a weapon,” I said, showing the tiny Swiss army knife on my key chain. I counted the money in my wallet before setting it down. He asked how much there was. I counted again and told him. He looked at my passport, and asked more questions. He did a quick pat down of my pockets, then told me to gather everything.

He brought up the subject of drugs and asked what I think about them. I told him they should be legalized. He said they ruin people’s minds and ruin society. I told him I agreed, and that’s why I don’t use drugs. I brought up the example of Portugal and told him that usage was down in the 10 years since decriminalization.

On the escalator back, I said that drugs should be treated by doctors and parents and clergy. The two adolescents seemed to enjoy our conversation. He talked about how easily they can kill a man, and I attributed this to the fact that they’re illegal. When alcohol was made illegal, I explained, in the Soviet Union in the 80s, or in the US in the 20s, there were also people dying from a contaminated product.

He have me excessively detailed direction on how to get to the Vokzalni metro station and bid me a good day.

Jim Rogers on expatriation: “JFK is a third world airport”

[youtube]Dz-njKUgpug[/youtube]

Cheating Taxis at Kyiv Borispol Airport

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.

Another Debit Card Stolen

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.

Happy May 1st – Victims of Communism Day.

R.I.P. forgotten millions….

Communist Old Lady at May Day celebration

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.

Many U.S. Immigrants’ Children Seek American Dream Abroad

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.

. . . .

Headlines March-April 2012

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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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$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

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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.

A eulogy for John Demjanjuk

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.

Luhansk-Lviv train for Easter

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.”

Grocery Price Comparison

broccoli, bread, chicken in Ukraine

.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

My Android Phone

Hardest thing to get used to with my new Android (Dual-Sim Smartphone PAE8 3.6): keeping my keys in the other pocket.

The GPS doesn’t work, but I love the dual sim. In Ukraine, it’s handy to have two numbers with two different mobile companies.

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Amazon Reviews

Ukrainian Area Codes

Some area codes reflect a region — 044 is Kyiv.

Others represent a mobile phone company — 066 is MTS, 097 is Kievstar

Approx. 6 months of headlines from Ukraine

Yatseniuk: Moratorium on land sales should be prolonged until 2014 in Ukraine

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Yushchenko: There cannot be two free trade areas on one territory
Oct 19, 2011 at 16:29 | Interfax-Ukraine
An agreement setting up a free trade area with the CIS countries has closed Ukraine’s path to trade integration with the European Union, as there cannot be two free trade areas – with the EU and the CIS – on the same territory, Ukraine’s third president (2005-2010), Viktor Yushchenko, has said.

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East Europe banking: It’s a wild, wild ride
Nov 10, 2011 at 22:34 | Jakub Parusinski
The past decade has been a rollercoaster of a ride for banks in Central and Eastern Europe, with Ukraine experiencing the “the sharpest ups and downs.”

These are the findings of a recent report by the world’s top business consultancy, McKinsey.

The report shows that the boom years of 2000-2007 saw a rise in the market capitalization of leading Central and Eastern European banks of 52 percent – the highest in the world – only to be followed by an equally outstanding crash of 67 percent during the next two years.

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Azarov: We must limit flow of luxury goods to our country
Nov 15, 2011 at 19:28 | Interfax-Ukraine
Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said that it is necessary to limit the flow of luxury goods to Ukraine.

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This is a story about another government enterprises functioning as siphons of tax payer money to politically connected Oligarchs.

Yanukovych: Losses on Naftogaz’s balance sheet almost come to $6 billion
Dec 19, 2011 at 20:20 | Interfax-Ukraine
The losses on national joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy’s balance sheet have come to almost $6 billion, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said at a press conference on the results of the EU-Ukraine Summit in Kyiv on Monday.

“Naftogaz currently doesn’t have a financial balance and Ukraine doesn’t have $500 million monthly to cover the losses. This means that means that in 2010, even though we received a $100 discount according to the Kharkiv agreement worth $3 billion, we now have almost $6 billion in losses on Naftogaz’s balance sheet,” he said.

Yanukovych added that these losses are “a burden on Ukraine’s financial system and state debt,” which is, in fact “the ruination of the country.”

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HA! I don’t believe this for a second:

Chief tax officer: Tax payment rate hits 96% in Ukraine in 2011
Feb 2 at 17:21 | Interfax-Ukraine
The level of the voluntary payment of taxes by Ukrainians in 2011 was 96%, according to the chief of Ukraine’s State Tax Service Oleksandr Klymenko.

“In 2011, the level of tax payments was 96%. This is a very good indicator – of course it’s not 100% yet, but we’re getting there. Even Europe cannot boast 100%,” he said in an interview with Ukrainian television’s Fifth Channel on Tuesday evening.

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Iran’s ships stopped from shipping Ukrainian grain
Feb 1 at 21:39 | Reuters
Traders are no longer booking cargoes on Iranian ships to transport grain exports from Ukraine because of difficulties with payments following European Union sanctions on Iran, traders said on Wednesday.

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Ukraine to pump $320 million into national space program in 2013-2017
Feb 19 at 18:55 | Kyiv Post
Ukraine plans to pump Hr 2.58 billion (around $320 million) into it’s national space program from 2013 through 2017, Interfax-Ukraine learned from the State Space Agency, which cited a a government program adopted last week.

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Naryshkin: Russia, Ukraine pledge simultaneous ratification of CIS free trade zone agreement
Feb 20 at 12:51 | Interfax-Ukraine
The Russian State Duma and the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada will simultaneously ratify the CIS free trade zone agreement.

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Corporate raiding hurts investment
Feb 3 at 00:04 | Jakub Parusinski
On Jan. 25, police raided the Odesa plant of Stalkanat Silur, a steel rope and wire producer, seizing documents from the plant’s administrative building.

When a special Sokol police unit returned five days later, workers fought back to defend the factory against what they said was an illicit corporate raid being used to take over the company.

“The police are just a tool” in an illegal attempt to take over the factory, which has annual revenue of Hr 900 million and employs more than 1,000 people, Stalkanat spokesman Vitaliy Niroshnikov said.

A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry office in Odesa said the head of the office was unavailable for comment.

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NBU confirms plans to include ruble as reserve currency in 2012

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Some good news, I think. The Ukrainian government is trying to centrally plan its money in a way that smarter than the central planners of the US:

NBU: Credit rates in Ukraine could fall
Feb 29 at 12:31 | Interfax-Ukraine
Measures taken by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) should produce a fall in credit rates in Ukraine in 2012, according to the director of the chief department for monetary and credit policy at the NBU, Olena Scherbakova.

“A trend of falling credit rates will be seen. The NBU and banks are trying to achieve this and working on this… This will be a trend as we gave a signal to the market,” she said at a roundtable on Tuesday.

She said that the application of quantitative easing in Ukraine is no longer appropriate: in contrast to the United States and united Europe, the application of such monetary approaches in Ukraine could affect inflation and the exchange rate pace.

“Quantitative easing could be used by developed economies… Our goal for this year is [to carry out] a stabilizing and reserved policy,” she said.

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Ukraine to complain to WTO over Russia’s restrictions on cheese import

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The authors of the graffiti “Death to Ukrainians” are searched in Dnipropentrovsk

The Dnipropentrovsk police officers search those, who painted the city with graffiti “Death to Ukrainians” and “Death to khokhly” (abusive name for Ukrainians).

As the “Segodnia” informs, these phrases began to appear in yards and back streets of the multistoried buildings of the Left bank in the beginning of the Donetsk highway. But several days later the authors of anti-Ukrainian slogans began to paint the city centre as well: “Death to Ukrainians” and “Death to khokhly” appeared on the facades of some buildings, and recently they appeared in the campus on the Gagarina prospect near the Dnipropentrovsk National and Transport universities.

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Poland Leads Wave of Communist-Era Reckoning

For all that Poland has accomplished since the fall of the Iron Curtain, it has long resisted fully coming to terms with its Communist past — the oppression, the spying, even the massacres. Society preferred to forget, to move on.

So it may come as a surprise that Poland and many of its neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe have decided the time is right to deal with the unfinished business. Suddenly there is a wave of accounting in the form of government actions and cultural explorations, some seeking closure, others payback.

A court in Poland last month found that the Communist leaders behind the imposition of martial law in December 1981 were part of a “criminal group.” Bulgaria’s president is trying to purge ambassadors who served as security agents. The Macedonian government is busy hunting for collaborators, and Hungary’s new Constitution allows legal action against former Communists.

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President gives the green light to precious metal production by central bank
Mar 3 at 15:31 | Interfax-Ukraine
Kyiv, March 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has signed law No. 4395-VI, regulating the National Bank of Ukraine’s activity in the prospecting for, mining, producing and using precious metals to replenish the gold and currency reserves, according to a posting on the presidential Web site.

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Akhmetov’s shopping spree
Jan 26 at 21:54 | Vlad Lavrov
The latest wave of non-competitive Ukrainian privatizations of multibillion-dollar energy assets has left at least one Ukrainian happy.

The auctions to sell stakes at three power generation and one distribution company has vaulted Rinat Akhmetov, the nation’s richest person, to the status of near-monopolist when it comes to generation, distribution and export of electricity.

Experts question the transparency of tender conditions that left little chance for foreign investors to compete with Akhmetov, a close ally and supporter of President Viktor Yanukovych and a lawmaker in the pro-presidential Party of the Regions.

As a result, they say, the selling price of the assets was considerably lower than the price Ukraine’s cash-strapped budget would receive if free-market mechanisms and competition were in place.

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Ukraine shuts down top file sharing website

Ukrainian police on Tuesday shut down the former Soviet republic’s most popular file sharing website, Ex.ua, accusing its owners of illegally distributing copyright-protected software, music and videos.

The move, which followed a crackdown by the United States on a similar but much larger website Megaupload earlier this month, was a result of complaints by software companies such as Microsoft and Adobe, police said.

“During a search at the website (owners’) office and data centers, police confiscated numerous computers… including 200 servers containing about 6,000 terabytes of information in total,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

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Social program could empty state coffers
Mar 8 at 20:50 | Jakub Parusinski
President Viktor Yanukovych pledged a whopping Hr 16 billion in handouts on March 7, kicking off the campaign of his Party of Regions for parliamentary elections on Oct. 28.

The program is ambitious, perhaps fatally so, and foresees a Hr 100 increase in pensions to over nine million pensioners and the return of Hr 1,000 to the six million deposit holders in the defunct Soviet Sberbank.

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Fantastic Photos of East Germany Before and After the collapse of Communism.

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World in Ukraine: Not all Swiss business is sweet in Ukraine
Mar 16 at 00:02 | Maryna Irkliyenko
Despite its attractive natural and human resources, Ukraine has been a disappointing investment destination for Switzerland, one of the world’s richest nations.

The mountainous country of nearly eight million people has earned its fortune primarily because of its financial sector.

Its policy of neutrality during both world wars helped it preserve and multiply the money stashed there.

Cumulative foreign direct investment from Switzerland to Ukraine as of 2010 stood at nearly $1.4 billion, according to figures from Switzerland’s central bank. But it could be much bigger, Swiss businessmen say.

Even though banking is usually the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Switzerland, the country’s biggest presence in Ukraine is with sweets and chocolates via Nestle, the giant food producer.

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Horrible rape & attempted murder by burning [now-murder, after the victim lost her two-week struggle] by children of Ukraine’s political class.

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Orthodox Church: Russia must stay “combat ready”

and you don’t speak Russian???

I was carrying a plastic bag in addition to my shoulder bag, so I think that helped me look Ukrainian. As is becoming my routine, I worked till 6:30 in the morning, then went to the gym, then went to eat. Mafia, a Japanese & Italian food franchise with good wifi wasn’t opening for another 10 minutes, so I went to the Videnski Bulochky (Viennese Buns) next door. I ordered in Ukrainian and the lady asked me something extensive in Russian.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand very well,” I said in Ukrainian.

She cocked her head and looked at me like I was teasing her. “You don’t speak Russian?” She asked, eyeing my clothes. I probably looked too modern for her guess that I’d just arrived from some village.

I would like to speak Russian. I studied it for two years in high school, but remember very little. I’m sure I’ll get better the more time I spend in Kyiv. People describe the Ukrainian – Russian divide as a west-east divide, and it is, generally, but it’s just as much a country-city divide. When I visited the Parkhomivka Art Museum in the countryside near Kharkiv, people spoke Ukrainian.

“No,” I said.

“You speak Ukrainian, but don’t understand Russian?”

“Yes,” I said, then, to assuage any belief that I might be teasing her, I added: “I’m from America.”

“You’re from America and you don’t speak Russian, but you speak Ukrainian?” she asked, now smiling.

“Yes.”

“I’ve before met anyone from America who speaks Ukrainian, but not Russian.” She confirmed that I wanted the omelet breakfast and asked if I wanted tea or coffee, green or black tea, then lemon or honey.

Good wifi here. :)