Walter Kish
I have just returned from visiting Ukraine after an absence of some seven years and am struck by the paradox of how much it has changed and how much it has remained the same. During my ten days stay, I had the opportunity of visiting both Kyiv and Lviv, as well as the villages my parents came from.
I talked to relatives and friends from both eastern and western Ukraine, and was able to get a good feel for what life in this country in 2001 is like. I was particularly interested in the mood and views of the general population and I certainly got an earful. Today’s Ukrainian is making up for some seventy years of enforced quiet conformance with a loud vengeance.
The changes are most obvious in Kyiv. The city is bustling with activity fueled by an obvious abundance of cash. Though the origin of much of this wealth may be dubious, the effects are obvious. Kyiv’s Borispil airport has been modernized and is no longer an embarrassment to the flying Western traveller. The number of cars, particularly of foreign origin, has grown to such proportions, that Kyiv now has serious traffic problems despite its wide streets and boulevards. Mercedes, BMW’s Volvos, Opels and Toyotas abound.
The Ukrainian government invested a substantial amount of funds to “pretty up” the central core of Kyiv for the 10th anniversary independence celebrations, including putting up a new commemorative monument in Independence square (“Maidan Nezalezhnosty”).
Under the square itself, a huge retail, dining and entertainment complex is under construction.
There has been an explosion of stores of all kinds, carrying both foreign and domestic consumer goods. Fresh paint and neon are the order of the day. Even the once drab, dingy and poorly stocked grocery stores known as “Hastronoms” have been attractively revamped and teem with a large selection of meat, produce, as well as nicely packaged canned and bottled goods of every description. Many of these are now being produced in Ukraine and I can personally testify to the fact that Ukrainian ketchup and mustard are up to “western” standards of taste and quality. Small kiosks and booths proliferate in every neighbourhood and major intersection, selling everything from vodka and hot dogs to socks and toothpaste.
Even in the smallest “selo”, the local store now carries a good selection of most essential goods. Brightly coloured tents set up with patio furniture and umbrellas are a common sight, hawking local beers that are as good as any produced elsewhere in Europe.
Whereas some seven years ago when I was last in Kyiv the number of decent restaurants could be counted on the fingers of your two hands, there are now hundreds of restaurants that can satisfy any kind of taste. You want a Big Mac or Happy Meal at McDonalds. No problem – the golden arches are everywhere, many even providing drive-thru service.
A yen for sushi is easily satisfied. Pizza can be delivered piping hot to your door. Mexican, Italian, French, Chinese, Vietnamese, Georgian – you name it, and you can get it in Kyiv and most of the major cities in Ukraine. Oh yes – you can also get excellent Ukrainian food in countless restaurants ranging from plain cafeterias to ornately decorated recreations of Cossack forts.
Driving around Ukraine has become immeasurably easier, with a veritable explosion of gas stations everywhere. Seven years ago, any excursion of any distance, say from Kyiv to Lviv, required one to take along several canisters of gasoline, as filling stations were rare and the availability of fuel sporadic at best. Now, one can find gas stations every couple of kilometres along the major roads, with mini-marts, cafes and other facilities attached. The roads are still generally in terrible shape, but at least you won’t run out of gas, or have to satisfy urgent bodily functions behind a bush or tree by the side of the road.
The penetration of western style consumerism is pronounced, yet beyond the garish surface, the remnants and after-effects of seventy years of Soviet rule still hang like a millstone around the necks of the average Ukrainian. Much of the country’s infrastructure of roads, buildings, utilities, public transit and manufacturing plants are old and crumbling. Although collective farms have been broken up and the land distributed to those that once toiled on them, few of these newly independent farmers possess the capital required to acquire the machinery to enable them to make a decent living. Ironically from the point of view of progress, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of horses and horse powered farming implements in rural Ukraine.
The biggest problem in today’s Ukraine is unemployment. Although officially published statistics show single digit unemployment rates, it is generally acknowledged that the true unemployment rate in the country is somewhere in the range of thirty to forty percent. People eke out a subsistence income in many different ways. Those living in the countryside hawk eggs, milk, cream and the fruits and vegetables from their gardens by the side of the road, or in the bazaars that are ubiquitous in every town and city. Those living near Ukraine’s western border smuggle vodka, spirits and cigarettes to sell in Poland for where prices and taxes are much higher. Hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians have left the country and are working in Poland, Greece, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal and other countries, usually through what has become a large, illegal underground network. Although the risks are high and many fall victim to unscrupulous exploitation, they feel they have no other choice. They do the hard, dirty, demanding and sometimes dangerous jobs that locals shun, and send most of their monthly earnings back home through Western Union and other such agencies. The $300 to $500 a month that they typically earn may seem paltry by our standards, yet it is far superior to the $35 per month average pay back in Ukraine.
For those stuck back home, the poverty and lack of jobs has created an endemic problem with crime and alcoholism. Large numbers of unemployed young with nothing to do are a sure recipe for social dysfunction. Depression and suicide rates have escalated significantly, especially in eastern Ukraine.
Exacerbating all the existing structural problems, is the pronounced lack of socio-economic equality. Most of the country’s wealth, such as it is, is in the hands of an elite few, most of these being the partocrats and apparatchiks that wielded all the power during Soviet days. They have exploited the legal and political vacuum created in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union to seize most of the country’s wealth and assets. With the financial clout they now possess, they are able to control Ukraine’s political and media structures to preserve their privileged positions. The average Ukrainian feels dispossessed and powerless, and holds a strong and cynical distrust of the government and most politicians in general.
The other damaging side-effect of this oligarchic reality is the high level of graft and corruption that afflicts all aspects of doing business in Ukraine. Most North American companies have decreased or ceased their investment activity in Ukraine. The issue has been repeatedly emphasized by foreign business and government bodies as a major barrier to the further development of the Ukrainian economy, yet there has been minimal progress in this area over the past decade.
Virtually any kind of service requires cash. If you get sick, you pay cash up front to see the doctor. If you get hospitalized, you pay cash for all medicines, needles, intravenous tubes, etc. If you expect the nurses or doctors to check in on you, it will cost you. If you apply to any higher institute of learning, you pay cash up front to the tune of thousands of dollars to ensure admission. Any kind of government service requires a cash lubricant.
The other area in which there has been little progress is the creation of a viable and effective reformist, democratic alliance of political forces that can complete the task of transforming Ukraine into a truly democratic and functional free-enterprise nation state. Ukraine’s Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) is a fractious combination of some 30 parties more prone to anarchy and infighting, than to compromise and co-operation in the creation of constructive and effective legislation. This has been cleverly exploited by the President and his small entourage of powerbrokers to insure that true political power is centralized in their hands, and that Parliament, as a representative voice of the will of the people, plays no real significant rule in how the country is governed.
In summary, there is no shortage of things for Ukrainians to complain about, and complain they do. Most of the conversations I had during my stay were diatribes by the locals against the government and the trials and tribulations that had been imposed upon them. Ironically this is progress in a way. During Soviet times, such talk would have landed the speaker in serious trouble with punitive consequences.
For all the doom and gloom that does exist in Ukraine, there is progress, though often of an indirect and ironic sort. There are more consumer goods of every type available, even though the purchasing power of most people is quite constrained. There are no line-ups at the stores as there were twenty and even ten years ago. There is more cash floating around, though a lot is ill-gained and a substantial amount is flowing in from Ukrainians forced to work illegally in other countries. The fact that Ukrainians can travel beyond their borders to find work is progress of a sort. The backlog of pension payments to the elderly has been virtually cleared, however inadequate the pensions might be. Collective farms have been dismantled and the land given to the “peasants” however unfair the distribution system may have been, and however limited the new landowners’ capabilities may be to effectively cultivate their private plots. The Ukrainian language has become the official language of state and is becoming more entrenched, regardless of how poorly some of the politicians and locals may speak it. There are no serious “crisis” issues with Russia as there were only a few years ago over such things as the Black Sea Fleet. Despite all the weaknesses and ineffectiveness of the existing political structures, competent and honest politicians such as Yuschenko can attain positions of influence and make a difference. Should he succeed Kuchma as President a few years from now (and there is realistic hope that this can be achieved) then there will finally be genuine cause for some optimism for the country’s near term future.