Welcome to 2019

Well, here it is - welcome to 2019. The first day of the new year and I start my blog. I called it Ukraine and Ukrainians. There are a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, because I am a Ukrainian, secondly, but still extremely important, I would like to tell people all over the world about my country. You would think: what possibly can she tell us about Ukraine? One can easily go to Wikipedia, Youtube or Google and find out enough about this country. However, as a Ukrainian that lives for past 3 years on the other side of the world, I understand that “dry” statistics or somewhat twisted news for the sake of scoop do not reflect what Ukraine is really about. So I decided to start this blog hoping that I will be an interesting storyteller and will be able to answer all your questions and inquiries. I hope that after reading my blog you will get interested in Ukraine and maybe when next time you will plan a trip to Europe you will put Ukraine on your list.

So let me start with telling a little bit about myself. I was born in Volodymyr-Volynskyi

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volodymyr-Volynskyi). As I mentioned earlier, unfortunately, an article in

Wikipedia will not tell you everything about this town: it will not show you the sun disappearing behind the Luha river and coloring its waters into purple just for a couple of moments, or describe you the taste of all the pastries you can buy in a small confectionary not far from the central city square. I was always very proud of the fact that I was born in this particular town. It is one of the oldest towns in my country. It was mentioned in records from the 10th century, however, the settlements existed there way earlier. And the river was used for navigation which boosted its trade and relationship with many other cities in Kyiv Rus, the kingdom existing on the territory of modern Ukraine. My parents and I lived in Volodymyr not very long. My dad is an architect and in soviet union times, young specialists were sent to work to different parts of the country after graduating the university. So after 3 years of working in Volodymyr he was sent to work in another town. We moved, but I still spent a lot of time in Volodymyr, where lived my grandparents (my mother’s parents) and my great-grandmother.

Since I was born in the 80s of the last century, I witnessed the last decade of soviet union existence and its collapse. Then Ukraine became independent and we went through other crazy times of the first decade of independence that we call “wild 90s”. But during all this time I used to come to Volodymyr every summer and for a couple of weeks in winter, and spent a lot of time gardening, talking to my grandparents, sunbathing, riding a bicycle, playing badminton, hanging out with friends, reading books, picking strawberries, attending musical festival, eating ice-cream, swimming in the river, taking care of chickens and many other fun things. Does it remind you of your childhood? Oh! I forgot to mention that there were no nintendos or playstations or xboxes in my childhood. There were no computers either. My first computer I got when I was in the 8th grade, my first computer game I played when my computer was upgraded and could support at least some primitive games. Many people think that living in a socialist society is a great thing. I can tell you that it sucks. It’s cool to have free medicine and education, but I understood one thing for the rest of my life: anything we get for free is usually of very crappy quality.

So the first ten years of my life coincided with the collapse of the soviet union and Ukraine getting its independence. What do I remember from this period? Actually quite a lot, I was always interested in history and, though it sounds funny, as a kid I was interested in politics. So these ten years we had completely empty stores. Food products were brought to food stores according to a schedule and we usually knew when to go there if we wanted to buy bread, sour cream, milk, and butter. The same situation was with clothes, shoes, toys, home appliances and everything else, but with one big difference - there was no schedule when these things would appear in the stores. So in most cases, you were supposed to know somebody who worked in a store so that they let you know when they would receive anything from the list that we called “deficit”.

When I was 9 years old my grandfather gave me as a present a book. It was the pretty usual thing to get a book as a present for me since my grandfather had “connections” in one of the bookstores and as soon as they would get some good quality books they would give a call my grandfather. The book was pretty unusual, I have never seen a book like that before. Usually, he would get me fairy tales with beautiful illustrations. I still have those books at my parents’ place. However this book was nothing like that: it had no pictures, but it had a lot of maps and portraits of some people. The book was The History of Ukraine-Rus by Mykhola Arkas. I was fascinated by this book but I was only in the 2nd grade and some things in this book were pretty hard to understand. Though I was lucky because my great-grandmother was there to help me with the things I couldn’t understand. I went through this book very quickly and that’s how my interest in the history of my country started growing bigger. The maps in the book showed different periods in the history of Kyiv Rus, a state that existed on the territory of modern Ukraine, the portraits were the kings, queens, and hetmans that ruled my country centuries ago. Many historians like to say that it would be not very correct to call Kyiv Rus as Old Ukraine. I disagree, and not because it will make my country younger and maybe less experienced, but because all countries in the world consider ancient tribes and kingdoms that existed centuries ago on their territory as the beginning of their modern states.

So here is a little bit about me. I hope I didn’t bore you too much. I will really appreciate comments and questions!

Have an awesome day!

The view on 1000-year-old Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God in Volodymyr Volynskyi from the Luha river, the photo was taken by my father. All the rights reserved.