How is Ukraine being changed? “Walking in opposite directions is easier said than done”

Ukraine is taking some sort of shape; it is changing. The Day tries to keep track of these dynamics. Our journalists have replied to questions about the kind of changes Ukraine is undergoing. After that quite a few have appeared willing to share their own ideas.

Bohdan HAVRYLYSHYN, member of the Club of Rome, Chairman of the Board of the International Center for Public Policy Research, International Institute of Management (Kyiv), Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine:

I have been in Ukraine since 1988. Strange as it may seem, Ukraine is currently less Ukrainian than it was in 1988, a period marked by a genuine political and cultural revival; when everybody seemed to take a keen interest in everything Ukrainian; when new projects, interesting performing groups and singers appeared. That interest gradually faded, so that now one can find a CD with Ukrainian music or a Ukrainian book only at a certain place. It’s a paradox, for we already have generations brought up in an independent Ukraine, people being taught Ukrainian and who can speak it. I have nothing against Russian; in fact, I feel proud that the rights of all ethnic minorities are observed in Ukraine better than in some Western European countries. The sad fact remains that Ukrainians emerge as a linguistic and cultural minority in a country where Ukrainian is the official language, and where they actually make up the largest ethnic component. This puzzles me.

Positive aspects? Annual GDP increment ranging between 6.5 and 9 percent for the past four years, mostly owing to small foreign investment — small considering the size and potential of Ukraine. Also, owing to what is known here as the mobilization of the domestic economic and human resources.

We have a good starting point, as many enterprises have received soft bank loans, wages and salaries are rising, and the same is true of the citizenry’s buying power — except that it’s true only of the big Ukrainian cities. Too bad our capitalists can’t understand that Ukrainians would benefit most from getting rich, having thriving business with their products being in market demand, with other business wanting to buy an interest there. Also, we must get the shadow economy out of the shadow, making it legitimate.

Ukraine needs a stable legislation — not ideal, but stable. China currently has $53 billion worth of foreign investment. Can we consider China as a country with an age-old economic tradition? Investors are only interested in what they can make, so they must know the rules of the game. We don’t have stable legislation and our courts of law are not independent and effective institutions.

Another gratifying aspect is that we are talking European integration, even though we are not moving in that direction as fast as we should. Of course, walking in opposite directions is easier said than done. As a member of the European Union, Ukraine could preserve its identity, return to its ethnic origins, and assert itself as a nation. Germans cannot become Frenchmen. In Italy, for example, English is not used by 80% of the print media. However, all the countries have common standards, even similar laws.

I am happy to know that there are so many talented people living in Ukraine, even though I know that a million Ukrainians have already left to seek a better life abroad. I am in contact with a number of interesting school, college, and university students. I often ask myself where their talent comes from, considering that our elite has been has been exposed to purges, deportation, and other ordeals for so many years; that so many talented Ukrainians have been faced with emigration as the only alternative for survival. We need people prepared to accept the existing reality of Ukraine being an independent country with precisely this ethnic composition. We respect all other ethnic values, but we are all and each of us proud to be Ukrainian. I love my village of Koroptsi in Ternopil oblast. I spent my first four years there. Not so long ago, I took the Swiss ambassador there. He saw that the Ukrainian countryside can manage to survive ordeals and keep alive and kicking. He was especially impressed by the fact that my fellow villagers accorded him a welcome without bowing and scraping. They were friendly and hospitable, regarding him as my guest, meaning that he was also their guest.

Europe needs Ukraine not only because Europe wants more stability, but also because Ukraine is inhabited by qualified and educated people — and because Ukrainians have a number traits no longer possessed by people in Western Europe, including inherent hospitality.

Svitlana SYROTIAN, First Vice President, Nadra Bank:

Ukraine is in a historical phase capable of producing a most dramatic effect. There should be Ukrainian professionals, people equipped to trust their own skills and resources; there should be creatively minded individuals capable of finding ways to take positions in the European community of nations worthy of their talent and potential. Parroting someone else’s experience is unacceptable; we must work out our own strategies and solutions to our problems; we must show genuine Ukrainian creativeness.

I would like to emphasize the financial sector, banking to be precise. Here the main thing for Ukraine should be increasing the number of bank customers and enhancing their confidence. Bank customers are not only students or pensioners being offered interesting retirement plans, but also children. Ukrainians are learning to live on credit, as practiced in all of the developed countries, so that an increasing number of goods can be purchased on time.

Small loans (ranging from $100 to $125,000) have become very popular, evidencing spectacular small and medium business progress. Such banking services were first practiced in Ukraine in 1997. Banks acting as partners of this program have provided more than 50,000 individual and corporate businesses with such loans. Our bank has contributed over 25 million hryvnias. Some 2,000 individual and corporate entities are expanding their business owing to Nadra loans.

At this stage, the banking sphere is experiencing a housing loan boom. Our banks offer reasonable mortgage programs, including soft loans for the younger generation.

NBU statistics this January pointed to 9% actual GDP interest growth. If we keep up the job and continue to advance the Ukrainian economy, the number of Ukrainians capable of using various kinds of bank loans will increase.

Compared to previous years, Ukraine stands a fair chance of setting a foreign capital influx record, meaning that that West will have an increasing degree of confidence in the Ukrainian banking system’s stable future. Of course, we count on a larger amount of foreign investment in our economy and banking system. We are working to upgrade our business relationships with foreign counterparts, and to make the performance of our banks more transparent.

Ukrainians have changed over the years of independence. While adhering to traditional outlooks, they have become more sociable, prepared for quick changes and unconventional solutions. It is easier for us now to offer new services to our customers, something previously treated with open distrust. Ukrainians are overcoming their pessimism, replacing it with healthy optimism.

Mykhailo REVA, painter, sculptor:

I was born in a one-story maternity hospital located amidst the ruins of an Old Greek settlement in Kerch. There is Turkish, Greek, Russian, Jewish, and Ukrainian blood running through my veins. I live in Odesa, I call it a sunlit city, for we have more bright days during the year than anywhere else in Ukraine. However, I prefer to spend my vacations in the Carpathian Mountains. I love the populace with their original world outlooks so vividly reflected in the Carpathian decorative applied art combining heathen and Christian motives.

I have traveled across Ukraine and realized that this country is teeming with ethnic cultures. There are 32 ethnic communities in Odesa alone. Owing to complex and not distant historical developments, a number of Ukrainians are still to accept the reality of living in an independent national state. Apparently, voting for independence and then accepting it are different things. This ambivalence is felt everywhere.

Our new private construction projects are even more original. We are becoming individualistic and trying to show this approach in our architecture. Previously, every apartment building was precisely the same as the next, all of them gray, with small windows. But then we had our New Ukrainians who proceeded to build castles, although they also turned out very much alike. Now we practice a different approach to such private housing projects, allowing for the customer’s family status, line of business, choosing the site relying on its specific energy emanation, also proceeding from how this project will fit into the pattern of a given urban or rural locality.

We are becoming individualistic also in the fine arts, although art is known to convey all of its messages for all to see. People are interested in the primordial originality of every work of art. I have worked in the West. While in Rome, I saw people standing in lines to explore museums displaying works of art dating from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, also open air expositions of modern art. In Ukraine, we don’t seem capable of learning how to exhibit our talent in our native land, so that every artist tries to rally his devotees, buyers, donors, etc. I don’t think that our artists should strive to make their names in Europe or North America. Instead, they should be encouraged to work in Ukraine, so as to attract prospective US, German, or Swedish customers.

The negative aspect? I hate people looking indifferent or bent under the weight of problems created by themselves. Time for the Ukrainians to concentrate on [finally] building a positive Ukrainian image at home and on the international arena.

After all those years I have remained idealistic, perhaps because I am an artist. I remember an old Chinese adage to the effect that one should seek joy from one’s life and that this is the best way to attract happiness.