Hryts Speaks Up
By Walter Kish
Every two weeks or so, I call my cousin Hryts in Pidkamin, a fine
little selo of about two and a half thousand inhabitants located some twenty five kilometres south of Brody on the
road to Ternopil. Technically, it is part
of Lviv Oblast, though Hryts is not too crazy about being associated in any way
with Lviv; he thinks Lviviany are big city uppity people who forget
where their garlic and potatoes come from.
As he is fond of saying, people in the selo have their feet on
the ground, while the folks in the city perpetually have their heads in the
clouds.
Hryts has no desire to leave
the selo. When he was younger, he
did spend a few years studying at the Polytechnic in Lviv, but found the
experience not to his liking.
“Life in the city made no
sense to me,” he once told me. “You live
packed together like shproty (sardines) in a can, the air is dirty,
everybody is always in a hurry, someone is always trying to sell you something
you don’t want, or trying to get you to do something that inevitably gets you
into trouble. Not only that, but the women in the city can’t cook, you can’t
find decent salo worth eating, and the priests and politicians all think
they’re smarter than us working folk.”
“But Hrtysiu,” I exclaimed,
“Surely there are some positive things to be said about cities!”
“Only two things,” he
replied, “The churches are nicer and the stores never run out of beer”.
Hryts is never short of
strong opinions on virtually any subject, and though I can’t say I always agree
with him, his views are invariably interesting and often display an insight
that would have impressed Skovoroda himself.
In fact, Hryts emphatically insists that it is a known fact that
I particularly enjoy Hryts’
dissection of Ukrainian political affairs.
Last week, I asked him for his thoughts on whether the elections
President Yushchenko has called will actually take place in view of the fact
that Tymoshenko and Parliament are blocking approval of funds to hold an
election.
“Of course,” he chuckled, “But
only when Yulia is ready for an election.
She will first have Victor twist in the wind a bit, to show Ukrainians
who is really in charge. She will then
make sure that she has the money and the back room support to win convincingly,
and only then will the election be allowed to proceed. Victor’s chances of
coming out ahead on this are about as good as my chances of becoming Pope!”
Forsaking common sense, I
decided to forge ahead.
“But,” I continued, “I hear
Yushchenko’s got a plan – he’s formed a new centrist pro-Presidential party and
is trying to form a majority coalition without Tymoshenko…”
“Oy Bozhe!” Hryts
sighed audibly, “You’ve got sauerkraut for brains. I can see it now – take the
remnants of all the failed Ukrainian parties of the last decade and create a
new one. Let’s call it the Democratic
Union of Republican Nationalist Independent Ukrainians or DURNIU for
short. Maybe those folks in Lviv will
buy it, but I tell you, my garlic growing buddies here in Pidkamin will let our
President know that he should have stuck to being a beekeeper. He obviously
understands bees better than people.”
“Hrytsiu,” I replied, “As
always I bow to your superior wisdom.
You know, you should maybe consider a career in politics yourself.”
“It would never work,” he
responded dismissively.
“How so?” I asked.
“Well, for one, I don’t know
how to drive a Mercedes!”