#17_1-8

MARCH 20, 2018 ISSUE No. 17 (1149) 

Tel.: +38(044) 303-96-19, 

fax: +38(044) 303-94-20 

е-mail: time@day.kiev.ua; 

http://www.day.kiev.ua 

Photo by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day 

“DIFFERENT” STRUCTURES 

REUTERS photo 

The “matrix of 

the Ruin” was 

reproduced in 

Independence 

Square 

on March 18 

Continued on page 2

2 

No.17 MARCH 20, 2018 

DAY AFTER DAY 

WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA 

By Boris SOKOLOV 

The 2018 Russian presidential election 

featured an exceptionally sluggish, pro 

forma campaign, which could not be enlivened 

even by clown-like acts, and a 

predictable result which was known in 

advance, several months before the voting day. 

Because of the non-systemic opposition leader 

Alexei Navalny’s call to boycott the election, the 

main intrigue was not about how many votes 

Vladimir Putin and other candidates would get, 

but what the turnout would be. As readers of The 

Day surely remember, I have long predicted that 

the final tally of voters who do turn out will be 

within the 65 to 70 percent range, and the 

incumbent president will receive 75 to 

80 percent of the vote, most likely 78 percent. 

And so it happened. As I am writing these lines, 

the turnout stands at 67.49 percent of the 

electorate, and Putin gets about 76.66 percent 

of the vote with 99.83 percent of the precincts 

reporting. The remaining 0.17 percent of the 

vote will not change anything. 

And this is despite the fact that the actual 

turnout, in my estimation, was somewhere between 

45 and 55 percent. Hence, about 20 percent 

of the ballots were somehow stuffed. Either 

they were actually stuffed directly into the ballot 

boxes by individual members of election commissions 

or pro-Putin activists, which was 

recorded on video cameras or mobile phones and 

distributed over social networks as video clips by 

Navalny’s headquarters (tellingly, the Central 

Election Commission (CEC) annulled the results 

only at one precinct in the Lyubertsy District), 

and also by falsifying the final returns (this is 

especially true for Chechnya and other North 

Caucasian republics), or it was done by busing 

voters to the polls (that is why the voting was 

most intense in the morning, literally starting at 

8 a.m., which never happens in a normal election) 

and putting pressure on government employees 

and students through their superiors 

(they were required not only to come and vote, 

but also to present a photocopy of the ballot at 

“Different” structures 

By Ihor SIUNDIUKOV, The Day 

their place of work or study, even if not completed). 

It can be assumed that the overwhelming 

majority of the voters who were bused and 

forced to the polls voted for Putin, fearing the 

regime’s wrath. And, of course, the overwhelming 

majority of the stuffed ballots and falsified 

returns came in support of the dear leader. 

The presidential administration faced a 

somewhat important problem here. Judging by 

the first results from the east of the country, the 

turnout exceeded the corresponding figures for 

2012 by 10 percentage points. Were this to go 

Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day 

“He was tired, but proud 

and contented” 

Election as imitation 

on, there was a real risk that the turnout would 

reach 75 percent or more, and the share of votes 

cast for Putin would exceed 85 percent. In this 

case, the final tally would be quite comparable to 

the Uzbek or Kazakh ones, but Putin clearly does 

not want to be perceived in the West as one of the 

irreplaceable rulers of the Central Asian despotic 

regimes. However, the Kremlin administration 

(and, possibly, the apparatus of Duma 

Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin) fully controlled the 

election process in real time. Quite easily, they 

reached the set goals both on the turnout and on 

the share of votes for Putin, which was to come 

The “matrix of the Ruin” was reproduced in Independence Square on March 18 


March 18 became a rather significant 

and telling date, both in Ukrainian 

politics and in foreign affairs. On the 

one hand, Vladimir Putin’s “election” 

for another six-year presidential term 

reflects the obvious consolidation of his regime and 

the pitiful helplessness of the remnants of the 

Russian opposition. On the other hand, events in 

Independence Square of Kyiv, which took place on 

the same day, were very telling. 

The readers probably know that the participants 

of the opposition rally that was held precisely 

there, in Independence Square, dismantled the metal 

structures that carried a Crimea-themed installation 

(it reminded the public of the events of 

100 years ago, of such prominent figures as Noman 

Celebicihan and Petro Bolbochan, whose units 

waged a triumphal campaign in Crimea in April 

1918, as well as of the annexation of Crimea that 

happened four years ago). Commenting on this ambiguous, 

multidimensional event is not easy, but 

we will try. 

Firstly, it is striking that the participants of 

the protest event dismantled, in the heat of indignation 

that was largely understandable (because 

it was felt that the structures appeared not only to 

commemorate the tragic milestones of Crimean history, 

but also to prevent them holding the event!), 

the structures dealing with life and achievements 

of Bolbochan and prominent figures of the Crimean 

Tatar national liberation movement. The story is 

especially dramatic because it is unclear whether 

the people who have demolished these structures 

even know who Bolbochan and Celebicihan were, 

and what they did for Ukraine and Crimea. We are 

almost 100 percent sure that they do not know... 

So, we can conclude that here, too, as it often happens 

with us, emotions overtook mature reasoning. 

Secondly, it would be appropriate to say that 

the “official” inscriptions on the structures were, 

at the very least, not very fortunately chosen 

(such as “Crimea 1918. We Can Repeat It” or “Simferopol 

Is Ours!” “Yalta Is Ours!” etc. They were 

thoughtless copies of the Putinist slogans). However, 

did the protesting opposition members (or at 

least the reasonable portion of them, and such people 

are there!) really fail to see that by clearing the 

space for their event, the protesters at the same 

time demonstrated a rather low (at least) level of 

general and historical culture? 

And thirdly, speaking frankly, this story 

has left a very sad impression that at a time when 

the Russian aggressor is firmly consolidating, we 

are quarrelling, and Putin, acting very agilely in 

his interests, is constantly relaunching the “matrix 

of the Ruin” in Ukraine. The Ukrainian authorities 

carry a major portion of the blame as well for 

making a lot of false steps that at the very least, 

do not contribute to the consolidation of a nation 

at war (and here some of the statements of the opposition 

are right on the target, so it must be honestly 

recognized). Not every piece of criticism plays 

into the hands of Putin, but... Succumbing to his 

provocations is worst of all. 

to just under 80 percent. No problems arose. After 

all, there were really no independent observers 

at the vast majority of polling stations. 

The special “know-how” of this campaign was a 

large number of fake pro-Putin observers, representing 

not parties and organizations but “ordinary 

voters.” Thus, opposition observers were 

eliminated from the overwhelming majority of 

commissions. Putin even promised in an interview 

to the American media that he would not 

amend the constitution and run for presidency 

in 2024. Well, he certainly will not. As he did already, 

Dmitry Medvedev will be running in his 

stead. And Putin will again become prime minister. 

He has promised some changes in the government 

after the inauguration. I think that 

they will be purely cosmetic in character, and 

Medvedev will remain in office. 

The real intrigue of the current election was 

the race for the second place between Vladimir 

Zhirinovsky and Pavel Grudinin. Opinion polls 

which were conducted at the beginning of the 

campaign showed that the candidates from the 

Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and the Communist 

Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) 

were, so to say, going neck and neck. However, 

the CPRF apparatus then probably carried out a 

campaign to mobilize activists in favor of Grudinin. 

The latter, perhaps, was even helped by 

the scandal with his active foreign accounts. According 

to the letter of the law, the CPRF candidate 

should have been removed from the race. 

However, in this case, unlike the case of Navalny, 

the CEC, led by that personification of the 

political innocence who is called Ella Pamfilova, 

showed creativity and left Grudinin on the ballot. 

Still, the undecided voters probably decided 

that since the authorities pestered Grudinin so 

much with these accounts, it meant that the 

Kremlin does not like him for some reason, so it 

was better to vote for him, and not for the 

regime’s tame candidate Zhirinovsky. As a result, 

Grudinin received 11.79 percent of the vote 

to Zhirinovsky’s mere 5.66 percent. I think the 

Kremlin here did not interfere in the distribution 

of votes, and these figures reflect the real 

ratio of the popularity of the two candidates. 

But the other dwarf candidates, whose results 

fall within the statistical error, got the results 

drawn in the Kremlin. Ksenia Sobchak was 

put in the first place among them with 1.67 percent, 

Grigory Yavlinsky was given 1.04 percent 

(falling below one percent line would have been 

too much disgrace for the politician). All the rest 

received less than one percent, but Boris Titov 

bested Maxim Suraykin, and the latter did the 

same to Sergey Baburin (the difference between 

them amounts to a few hundredths of a percent). 

Characteristically, all seven candidates were just 

obedient sparring partners of Vladimir Putin 

and never criticized the incumbent president. 

Sobchak will now try to create a liberal party 

which would be completely controlled from the 

Kremlin by gathering those who supported Titov 

and Yavlinsky, and, ideally, some of the supporters 

of Navalny. But she is unlikely to succeed 

in this. Few will want to contact an openly 

puppet party. 

Alexander Myasnikov, a doctor who is close 

to Putin, offered an inspired opinion at a Russian 

TV channel: “I stood a stone’s throw away 

from Putin at the Gostiny Dvor. And I saw that 

he was tired, but proud and contented.” I think 

that this expression of feelings by the president 

for his loyal public was a complete imitation as 

well. Judging by the way how Putin abandoned 

the campaign altogether for two weeks after the 

Syrian defeat of the Vagnerites, it is clear that 

he felt strongly that everything that was happening 

around him in connection with the election 

was of no importance to him, as were the 

voters and his own surrogates. After all, the outcome 

of the campaign was predetermined many 

months before it began, and Putin’s speeches 

during the campaign and pro forma meetings 

with the voters could not affect anything, not 

just the distribution of final positions, but even 

the distribution of votes among the various candidates. 

Everything was drawn in advance in the 

presidential administration. And it was therefore 

absolutely superfluous to poison Sergey 

Skripal and his daughter with a military-grade 

toxic substance of distinctly Russian origin in 

the UK, in order to provoke British sanctions 

and thereby to unite the electorate around the 

national leader even more. After the election, 

Russia will have to deal with the consequences of 

the Salisbury attack for a very long time. 

Boris Sokolov is a Moscow-based professor


DAY AFTER DAY No.17 MARCH 20, 2018 3 

By Natalia PUSHKARUK, The Day 

Recently, Bulgaria marked 

140 years since the nation’s 

liberation from the Ottoman 

yoke, and on that solemn occasion, 

it hosted a guest from 

Russia, namely Patriarch of Moscow and 

All Rus’ Kirill. However, they still have 

not fully recovered from such a visit, 

because the patriarch overshadowed the 

celebrations with high-profile, imperialistic 

statements. 

It all began with the fact that President 

of Bulgaria Rumen Radev, while 

attending the festive parade, thanked 

for bringing about the nation’s liberation 

not only the Russian army, but also 

other peoples, listing the Romanians, 

Ukrainians, Belarusians, Finns, Poles, 

and Latvians, Radio Liberty reports. 

“Russia did not look up to Europe for assent. 

Moved by love, weakened and 

bereft of any political support in the 

world, it began fighting,” said Kirill 

and added: “It was not Poland, nor 

Lithuania, but Russia! I found it hard 

to listen to all these references to the 

participation of other countries in the 

liberation. Neither the Polish nor the 

Lithuanian sejm took part in the decision 

to commence the war with the Ottoman 

Empire. I hope that the media 

hear us clearly and will convey my disappointment 

with this incorrect interpretation.” 

Of course, such political statements, 

made by a clergyman, displeased the authorities 

and citizens. The president 

himself said in response that he “respects 

every drop of blood shed for Bulgarian 

land” and noted that the Russian army 

had been multiethnic, and his country 

honored the memory of every ethnic 

group involved, according to 

dnevnik.bg. 

However, the harshest statement on 

this occasion was made a few days ago by 

Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria Valeri 

Simeonov in an interview with the 

BNT TV channel. “This Kirill is not descended 

from heaven…he is not the messenger 

of the Lord God or Jesus Christ. 

Kirill is known as the cigarette metropolitan 

of Russia. Starting in 1996, he 

got 14 billion dollars from importing excise-free 

cigarettes,” Simeonov was 

quoted as saying by The Sofia Globe. According 

to him, Kirill owns a private 

plane, a villa in Switzerland, and a 

watch worth 30,000 dollars, “and he has 

the insolence to give judgment in front 

of the Bulgarian President.” “And this 

is a spiritual person. A spiritual person, 

when he mentions the victims of these 

battles, he takes out their bones and 

throws them out of history. What is he? 

He is not an Eastern Orthodox cleric. He 

is Agent Mikhailov, of the Soviet KGB, 

that is proven. A second-rate Soviet 

cop coming to me to say what is true and 

not true? Excuse me,” added the deputy 

prime minister. 

It should also be recalled that during 

his visit to Bulgaria, Kirill made notable 

anti-Ukrainian statements as well: live 

on the national Bulgarian TV, he said 

that the Donbas events did not happen 

due to Russia’s armed attack on Ukraine, 

but were rather a “civil war.” The 

Ukrainian embassy in Bulgaria responded 

promptly to such a statement 

and emphasized that the words of the patriarch 

were an “anti-Ukrainian provocation,” 

and “the Bulgarian national 

TV was used by the Russian Orthodox 

Church’s leadership as a platform for 

making public anti-Ukrainian statements, 

synchronized with the official position 

of the Kremlin.” 

It should be noted that Den’s editorial 

team devoted to the relations between 

Ukraine and its southern Slavic 

sister Bulgaria a history-themed book 

entitled My Sister Sofia... As Den/The 

Day’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna 

noted in the preface to the book, “the 

histories of Ukraine and Bulgaria read 

like a story of two sisters separated in 

early childhood. They went on to grow 

up in different ‘families.’ Instead of us 

and Bulgaria looking at and studying 

each other, we looked at Moscow for a 

very long time. That is, at the very 

force that wanted to divide us... We 

peered into this ‘black hole’ of civi- 

How Russia, “moved by love,” lectured 

the Bulgarian president, but was rebuffed 

OGNYAN MINCHEV 

lization, and black holes are known 

for their strong gravitation capacity.” 

The Day asked the experts to comment 

on Bulgarians’ attitude to harsh 

statements of the Russian guest and tell 

us why the patriarch, having been invited 

to Bulgaria for a national holiday, 

dared to make such harsh statements 

about the country which he was visiting. 

● “KIRILL COMBINED SPIRITUAL 

POSITIONS WITH A GREAT- 

POWER IMPERIAL STAND” 

Ognyan MINCHEV, a political scientist, 

Doctor of Sciences, Professor of 

Political Science at the University of 

Sofia: 

PHOTO FACT 

Ukraine and Kuwait have agreed on cooperation in a number of fields 

Photo by Mykhailo PALINCHAK 

During the state visit of President of 

Ukraine Petro Poroshenko to Kuwait, a 

number of bilateral documents were 

signed, including the Agreement on Cooperation 

in the Military and Other 

Spheres. Also, the parties have reached 

understandings on mutual exchange of 

intelligence, cooperation between defense 

industrial complexes, supply of 

armaments, military equipment, etc., 

according to the Presidential Administration’s 

report. “I believe this is a new 

“I think this comment by Patriarch 

Kirill was inappropriate, because nobody 

said that the Ukrainian, or Finnish, or 

Lithuanian state liberated Bulgaria. It 

was said that beside Russians, representatives 

of many other ethnic groups 

fought and died in the ranks of the 

Russian army which waged the liberation 

war against the Ottoman Empire, including 

Ukrainians, Finns, Lithuanians, 

Latvians, and Poles, and even one Japanese 

samurai died at the front of this war, 

thus making Bulgaria bound by this 

blood, by the brotherly ties it created. 

That what made an unpleasant impression 

on Patriarch Kirill is the traditional 

Bulgarian position – to thank and honor 

representatives of all those peoples 

who fought and died for the liberation of 

Bulgaria. This is nothing new, it is not 

connected with the membership of Bulgaria 

in the EU or NATO, this has been 

the classical official position of not only 

the Bulgarian state, but also the average 

Bulgarian for 140 years.” 

Do you think it is acceptable for a 

clergyman to make such political statements? 

“It sounded weird, because the patriarch, 

at least formally, is not a representative 

of the Russian state, he is the 

spiritual leader of the Russian Orthodox 

Christians. And as an Orthodox patriarch, 

he must know that protecting 

some particular ethnic, state or national 

interests against other ethnic, national, 

and state interests is a heresy 

called phyletism. After all, the Orthodoxy 

is a universal message of Jesus 

Christ and Christianity to the faithful 

and the world as a whole, it is not a message 

to the Russian Empire, the Bulgarian 

or Ukrainian state. Thus, the position 

of the patriarch in this regard is 

ethnophyletic or imperial-phyletic.” 

● “THE PATRIARCH’S LECTURE 

WAS BASED ON 

ANTIQUATED LIES AND 

RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA 

CLICHES” 

Ivo INDZHEV, a former director of the 

Bulgarian News Agency, former 

deputy president of the Association of 

European Journalists, blogger, writer: 

page in the relations between Ukraine and 

Kuwait,” the head of state said. The 

president met with Emir of the State of 

Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al- 

Jaber Al-Sabah and expressed his gratitude 

for the emirate’s consistent support 

for the territorial integrity and sovereignty 

of Ukraine. “We feel very strong 

and powerful support coming from 

Kuwait in international organizations,” 

Poroshenko said, adding that the Arab 

country supported the initiative to launch 

IVO INDZHEV 

“It is clear to me why Kirill made 

such a statement: most likely, to reach 

out to the Bulgarians who have been 

strongly infected with pro-Russian feelings 

for a century and a half. The Russians 

use history as a tool for exerting influence 

in present-day Bulgaria. They 

cannot do anything to the modern Bulgarians, 

for example. Studies show that 

no more than six percent of Bulgarians 

would follow the Russian example in 

government affairs. In other words, 

the Bulgarians do not want Bulgaria to 

be similar to present-day Russia. At 

the same time, many people still believe 

that Russia did a good service to the 

Bulgarians in the past by waging the 

Russo-Turkish War in 1878. And this is 

the focus of Russian propaganda. They 

want to build on this to squeeze out every 

possible drop of the Bulgarians’ friendly 

feelings. 

“They operate in different ways in 

different countries. But in Bulgaria, 

they stick to such a policy. They have directed 

the fifth column of Russian-influenced 

people in Bulgaria to switch its 

attention away from September 9, which 

was considered the National Day during 

the Soviet occupation of the so-called socialist 

Bulgaria. But with the fall of communism, 

it no longer works for propaganda. 

So they have decided to go back 

to a 19th century event. March 3 is the 

day of the signing of the preliminary 

peace agreement between Russia and the 

“We feel very strong and 

powerful support,” the 

Ukrainian president asserted 

a peacekeeping mission in the Donbas. In 

addition, the head of state met with a 

number of officials, as well as with managing 

director of the Kuwaiti Investment 

Authority Farouk Ali Bastaki and 

the leadership of the Kuwait Fund for 

Arab Economic Development, with whom 

he discussed ways to intensify financial 

and investment cooperation between the 

two countries. On March 19-20, the president 

is making an official visit to the 

State of Qatar. 

Ottoman Empire. The National Assembly 

voted it as the new Bulgarian National 

Day in the early 1990s, after the 

Communist rule ended. Every year, we 

celebrate a date that draws us back to 

Russia, Russia, Russia... it is a major 

propaganda opportunity for Russia’s 

influence in this country. That is why I 

write books about the true history of relations 

between Russia and Bulgaria, 

trying to gather evidence and facts that 

show that, firstly, the actual purpose of 

the war was to seize the Bosporus and the 

Dardanelles as the points where the 

Black Sea and the Mediterranean begin. 

It was an obsession of the Russian Empire. 

And secondly, Russia tried to prevent 

any outside force from helping in 

the liberation of Christians and ‘that 

swamp,’ as they described the Balkans, 

and to forestall European influence 

there. These two goals were hidden by 

surprising feelings about the Bulgarians, 

because Russia’s idea was to include 

them into the Empire. Russia had fought 

12 wars with Turkey in centuries past, 

but had never mentioned the Bulgarians, 

and then, they unexpectedly came to liberate 

this country because of a Bulgarian 

uprising in the Balkan Peninsula and 

a brutal manner in which the uprising 

had been suppressed by the Ottoman authorities. 

So this is about history, history, 

history... 

“In this way, Russia exploits the feelings 

that propaganda maintains and 

creates. And unfortunately, there are 

many Bulgarians who still believe in the 

‘facts’ being spread by Russian propaganda. 

“And what the patriarch actually did 

was returning to focusing on history, as 

he lectured the Bulgarian president on 

how the latter and all the Bulgarians had 

to be grateful only to Russia and nobody 

else. And I have written in my article that 

there is evidence that, for example, people 

who were born in the territory that is 

now Ukraine paid just as steep price in 

blood to defeat the Turkish army. But the 

patriarch did not even mention Ukraine, 

although there is evidence that a number 

of the fallen came from outside the Russian 

Empire even. And most recruits of the 

imperial army volunteered to fight in the 

Balkan Peninsula. 

“The Russian patriarch’s lecture 

was based on antiquated lies and Russian 

propaganda cliches. And they demand 

that Bulgaria be grateful for what 

Russia did 140 years ago, and use it to 

support Vladimir Putin’s policies today, 

which is absurd. What is the connection 

between Putin and 19th-century Russia? 

The consensus is that there is no connection, 

but despite this, they again 

and again try and behave as they have become 

used to over a long time. The patriarch 

tried to tell the president and the 

Bulgarians with his speech how Russia 

would like Bulgaria to behave.” 

● ON THE REACTION 

OF THE BULGARIANS 

“I think they have made a big mistake. 

After all, despite being pro-Russian, 

many Bulgarians are outraged at the 

behavior of the Russian patriarch in 

Sofia, chiefly because he behaved like a 

politician who, moreover, felt superior 

to his hosts. This is not a normal behavior 

for a visitor, even for a politician, let 

alone a person who is a spiritual leader, 

or at least pretends to be one. Therefore, 

I dare to say that if the Bulgarians are to 

be liberated by the Russians once again, 

then this time, it will be liberation from 

pro-Russian feelings and the Russians 

themselves. Putin proved himself so 

highly capable of liberating the Georgians 

from pro-Russian feelings, and 

then repeated it with the Ukrainians. 

Perhaps Bulgaria will be the next nation 

which the Russians will liberate from 

historic pro-Russian feelings. And this 

is ultimately good news. This may sound 

cynical. But it is not my fault that I note 

the behavior of Russia and its attitude 

to Bulgaria. 

“The president needed more than a 

week to react. This happened yesterday 

[March 13. – Ed.], during a visit to a military 

base near Sofia. He said that Kirill 

arrived in Bulgaria as a patriarch and 

returned to Russia as a politician.”

4 

No.17 MARCH 20, 2018 

TOPIC OF THE DAY 


By Maria PROKOPENKO, 

photos by Artem SLIPACHUK, The Day 

is the Sun?” I was 

puzzled to hear this 

question from Natalia 

Shchukina as we were 

“What 

beginning our conversation. 

I see it in the window right now. It 

is a star, a yellow dwarf. But when one 

communicates with a scientist of this high 

caliber, one is afraid to say a stupid thing. 

Shchukina has worked at the Main Astronomical 

Observatory (MAO) of the National 

Academy of Sciences (NAS) of 

Ukraine for many years. Since 2002, she 

has been in charge of the MAO’s department 

of physics of the Sun. The astronomer 

is a corresponding member of the National 

Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, doctor 

of physical and mathematical sciences; 

she has participated in many international 

projects, cooperating, in particular, 

with the Institute of Astrophysics in the 

Canary Islands in Spain and the Astronomical 

Institute of the Utrecht University 

in the Netherlands. 

Some time ago, Shchukina and her colleagues 

from the Netherlands and Norway 

proposed a mechanism that let them explain 

the reasons for the glow exhibited by 

a new class of spectral lines that had been 

discovered in the distant infrared spectrum 

of the Sun in the early 1980s. This has provided 

great opportunities for diagnosing 

solar magnetic fields with the help of 

those lines. Recently, she and her co-authors 

from the Institute of Astrophysics in 

the Canary Islands were able to obtain 

previously unknown data on the topology 

and energy of small-scale magnetic fields 

in the solar photosphere. And thanks to the 

efforts of Shchukina and her colleagues 

Serhii Osypov and Roman Kostyk, the solar 

telescope ATsU-5 has been reconstructed, 

making it a Top 4 facility globally 

in terms of spectral resolution. 

We discussed with the scientist the 

achievements of Ukrainian solar researchers, 

what the study of our universe 

revolved around and why warnings about 

the magnetic storms alleged to happen, say, 

next month were nonsense. But still, we 

talked about what the Sun is first. 

● “SUNLIGHT WHICH YOU 

ARE SEEING APPEARED 

BEFORE INTELLIGENT LIFE 

EMERGED ON EARTH” 

“The Sun is an ordinary star, a yellow 

dwarf,” Shchukina said to start the conversation. 

“It is yellow because if you look 

at the distribution of energy in the spectrum, 

the maximum energy output falls on 

the yellow color segment. It is a dwarf because 

it is small in size. The visible surface 

of the sun, called the photosphere or the 

sphere of light, has a temperature of about 

5,700 degrees. The radius of the Sun is 

about 700,000 kilometers, the density of 

its core is about eight times that of gold, 

and the density of the outer envelope, 

that is, the photosphere and chromosphere, 

is 10,000 times less than the density 

of air on Earth. 

“Our star is a self-regulating thermonuclear 

reactor that provides for long 

and steady energy production. The most 

important reaction, namely the transformation 

of hydrogen into helium in the core 

of the Sun, has lasted billions of years. In 

the core, these reactions form quanta, 

which after long wandering, so-called diffusion, 

in the radiative zone reach the surface 

of the Sun. On average, a quantum 

reaches it in about a million years. Sunlight 

which you are seeing is very old. You did 

not exist when it appeared, and intelligent 

life on Earth did not either. The core and 

radiative zone occupy two-thirds of the radius 

of the Sun. 

“The next layer is the convection zone. 

Here energy is transferred not by radiation, 

but by convection. Huge streams of hot gas 

rise upwards, where they transfer their 

heat, and the cooled solar gas goes down. 

It seems that the solar matter is boiling and 

getting stirred like some viscous granular 

mass on the fire. The convection zone 

reaches the visible surface of the Sun itself, 

called the photosphere. 

“Between the radiative and convection 

zones, there is a thin layer called the 

tachocline. It is there that a magnetic 

field is created that shapes the activity of 

the Sun. 

How we study the Sun these days: 

what we know and what we do not... 

NATALIA SHCHUKINA: “THERE ARE NO MYSTERIES, THERE ARE SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS AND TASKS” 

As told by 

Corresponding 

Member of the 

National Academy 

of Sciences of Ukraine 

Natalia Shchukina 

“The outer layers are the photosphere, 

the chromosphere, and the corona. The photosphere 

is a very thin layer, about 500 kilometers 

deep. The temperature in its deeper 

layers is about 10,000 degrees, and approaching 

the upper limit, it drops to 

4,500 degrees. The photosphere consists of 

granules and intergranular lanes.” 

These granules and intergranular 

lanes are similar to boiling rice porridge. 

“But the size of the seeds in this ‘porridge’ 

is about 700 kilometers each. The 

surface of the photosphere seethes, resembling 

a boiling liquid. 

“Above the photosphere, there is the 

chromosphere. It is about 10,000 kilometers 

deep. This is what we see around the 

edges of the Sun during eclipses. In this layer, 

the temperature starts to rise again. It 

rises to almost 20,000 degrees. And in the 

next layer, the corona, which is about one 

solar radius deep, the temperature is even 

higher, reaching a million degrees. Why 

does in the lower layer of the Sun’s atmosphere, 

that is, in the photosphere, the 

temperature drop with the altitude, but 

above that layer, in the chromosphere and 

the corona, it is rapidly increasing? There 

is no definitive answer to this question yet.” 

I saw it mentioned that the MAO’s 

studies helped to resolve the issue of chromospheric 

heating. Tell us more about 

Ukrainian scientists’ contributions to 

studying this problem. 

“Without knowledge of the sources 

and mechanisms of heating in the outer layers 

of the Sun, we cannot understand the 

causes of the cyclic activity of the Sun, and, 

therefore, it is impossible to obtain reliable 

forecasts of the space weather, which affects 

everything that is happening on 

Earth. 

“Studies conducted in the department 

of physics of the Sun of the MAO of the 

NAS of Ukraine in cooperation with the 

Spanish colleagues from the Institute of Astrophysics 

in the Canary Islands have 

brought us closer to understanding the 

problem of energy accumulation and transfer 

from the lower layers of the atmosphere 

of the Sun, the photosphere, to the upper 

layers, the chromosphere and the corona. 

The results of this study were published in 

THE HORIZONTAL SOLAR TELESCOPE ATsU-5, WHICH MONITORS THE LONG- 

TERM VARIATIONS OF THE SUN. AFTER RECONSTRUCTION, COMPLETED IN 

2012, IT BECAME A TOP 4 TELESCOPE GLOBALLY IN TERMS OF SPECTRAL 

RESOLUTION 

Nature, which is one of the most prestigious 

scientific journals. 

“We have shown for the first time that 

the energy of turbulent magnetic fields in 

a calm atmosphere of the Sun can be substantially 

larger than previously assumed. 

This energy is large enough to heat the chromosphere. 

The computer modeling performed 

by our former employee Olena 

Khomenko, who is currently working at the 

Institute of Astrophysics in the Canary Islands, 

has shown that magnetic energy can 

be transferred to the chromosphere by the 

common diffusion of electrons and ions.” 

● “THERE ARE TWO 

MONITORING PROGRAMS 

FOR THE SUN’S LONG-TERM 

VARIATIONS, AND ONE 

OF THEM IS OPERATING 

IN UKRAINE” 

I read on the MAO’s website that the 

horizontal solar telescope ATsU-5 became 

one of the most powerful in the 

world in spectral resolution after its modernization. 

What research does it enable? 

“Since 1966, the horizontal solar telescope 

ATsU-5 of the MAO of the NAS of 

Ukraine has been involved in the implementation 

of several observation projects, 

including international ones. When 

implementing these programs, a number of 

important scientific results have been obtained. 

“Firstly, we have created a self-consistent 

system of forces [the oscillator’s 

force is the probability of absorbing electromagnetic 

radiation at transitions between 

the energy levels of an atom or molecule. 

– Author] which has come to be 

widely used in all branches of astrophysics 

where quantitative spectral analysis is 

carried out. 

“We have also created a spectrophotometric 

model of solar radiation in absolute 

energy units, which is used in astrophysics, 

meteorology, geophysics, and 

aeronomy to solve a set of applied problems. 

For example, it is used when simulating the 

interaction of solar radiation and Earth’s 

atmosphere, or creating solar radiation 

simulators and spectrophotometric standards. 

“Thirdly, with the help of observations 

on the ATsU-5 telescope, telescopes of the 

DIFOS series were set up for extra-atmospheric 

studies of global fluctuations in 

the brightness of the Sun. These fluctuations 

contain information about the inner 

structure of the Sun. The DIFOS telescopes 

were launched into the Earth orbit 

and successfully worked onboard the international 

space stations CORONAS-I in 

1994 and CORONAS-F in 2001-05. 

“The results obtained on the ATsU-5 

telescope have been published in foreign 

journals with high impact factor: Nature, 

Astrophysical Journal, Astronomy and 

Astrophysics, Monthly Notices of the Royal 

Astronomical Society, Solar Physics. 

“In 2011-12, we reconstructed the 

telescope ATsU-5, improved its hardware 

and software, and repaired the building 

which houses it. At present, the ATsU-5 

telescope is a unique scientific facility 

that is best suited for monitoring the calm 

Sun. Among its special features, I would 

like to name the abovementioned high 

spectral resolution (R~430,000), which 

places it among the four best-performing 

telescopes in the world. 

“Another feature of the ATsU-5 is 

long-term metrological stability. Today 

there are two monitoring programs for the 

Sun’s long-term variations. The first is the 

American SOLIS observation program for 

long-term synoptic optical studies of the 

Sun. They have been using the solar telescope 

of the Kitt Peak National Observatory 

in the US since 2006. The second one 

is the Ukrainian observation monitoring 

program, which has been implemented 

since 2012 with the Solar Horizontal Telescope 

ATsU-5 at the MAO of the NAS of 

Ukraine. 

“The SOLIS aim is long-term monitoring 

of the Sun as a star. The aim of the 

program of the MAO of the NAS of Ukraine 

is to perform long-term monitoring of the 

calm component of the Sun’s atmosphere, 

variations of which are almost an order of 

magnitude smaller than the variations of 

the Sun as a star. Today, these variations 

are still almost unexplored. 

“One of the important sources of data 

on the variations of the Sun is long-term, 

encompassing the 11-year cycle of solar activity, 

observation of changes in the parameters 

of the Fraunhofer lines [these absorption 

lines are visible against the background 

of a continuous spectrum of the Sun 

and stars. – Author] in the spectrum of calm 

areas of the solar surface. 

“Monitoring performed during 2012-17 

on the ATsU-5 telescope showed that the 

depth and half-width of spectral lines in 

calm areas of the Sun respond to the modulation 

of the general magnetic field caused 

by the 11-year cycle of solar activity. We explain 

the behavior of these parameters by 

variations in the temperature of the calm 

photosphere of the Sun during the 11-year 

cycle: the photosphere of the Sun becomes 

hotter at maximums of solar activity.” 

● “SOLAR ACTIVITY 

IS APPROACHING 

A MINIMUM SIMILAR TO 

THE DALTON MINIMUM” 

In general, what do we need the monitoring 

of the Sun for? 

“Firstly, we need it to understand 

how solar activity affects space weather, 

namely, the ionosphere, magnetosphere, 

radiation belts, and the ozone layer, as well 

as the Earth’s biosphere and social life on 

our planet. Information on this will help 

prevent the negative effects of solar activity 

phenomena on human health and society’s 

activities. 

“Secondly, the results expected to be 

obtained during monitoring of variations 

in the physical parameters of the calm atmosphere 

of the Sun with an 11-year cycle 

are important for solving major problems 

of solar physics. Some of them are the problem 

of the internal structure and evolution 

of this star and its magnetic activity, the 

problem of energy interaction in the system 

‘the photosphere – the chromosphere – 

the crown’ and the heating of the latter. It 

also allows us to study the mechanisms that 

cause eruptive phenomena in the Sun, the 

causes of solar activity cycles, and so on.” 

When you completed the modernization 

of the telescope, in 2012, a new 

11-year solar observation cycle was to begin. 

We have already entered the second 

half of this cycle. How would you characterize 

it? 

“To be more precise, the current 24th 

cycle of solar activity began in 2009. We 

started our monitoring program shortly before 

the first maximum of this cycle in 

2012. Since that year, observations have 

been performed from March to October 

every day, whenever the weather conditions 

allow. The total number of observation 

days from 2012 to 2017 exceeded 

340 days. 

“We are currently approaching the 

minimum of the 24th cycle. The level of activity 

of the Sun in this cycle is four times 

lower than the maximum values recorded 

over 260 years of continuous observations 

of the Sun. In other words, solar activity 

is approaching a minimum similar to the 

Dalton Minimum, which was observed 

from 1790 through 1830. As a reminder, 

the Dalton Minimum and the better known 

Maunder Minimum, which occurred from 

1645 through 1715, coincided with global 

coolings of the climate in the 17th and 

19th centuries.”


● ABOUT GAS BUBBLES 

WHERE STARS ARE BORN 

Recently, The Astrophysical Journal 

Letters published a study by researchers 

at the University of Chicago, 

according to which the Solar system 

could have formed in a shell, a kind of 

bubble, around a giant dead star. How 

do you feel about this hypothesis? 

What is still unclear about the origin 

of the Solar system? 

“There are at least two theories 

dealing with how the Solar system 

could have formed. None of them can 

explain all the observed facts. 

“According to the commonly accepted 

theory, our Solar system was 

formed about five billion years ago as 

a result of a supernova explosion. Due 

to this explosion, a gas and dust nebula 

appeared, and it was from it that our 

Sun was formed later. 

“It is known that supernovas produce 

the same amount of isotopes called 

aluminum-26 and isotope iron-60. At 

the same time, in meteorites left over 

from the early Solar system, there is an 

excess of the isotope aluminum-26 and 

a shortage of the isotope iron-60. Scientists 

at the University of Chicago 

have shown that this fact can be explained 

by assuming that our system 

was not formed by the explosion of a supernova, 

but by the explosion of a 

Wolf-Rayet star, which was 40-50 

times larger than the present Sun. 

“It is believed that the Wolf-Rayet 

stars produce a variety of chemical elements 

that get blown away from their 

surfaces by stellar winds. Computer 

simulation has shown that as a result of 

this process, so-called gas bubbles with 

an increased content of the isotope 

aluminum-26 and a reduced content of 

the isotope iron-60 are formed over millions 

of years around the Wolf-Rayet 

stars. Shells of such bubbles and dust 

and gases that accumulate under them 

are the ideal environment for the production 

of new stars and the formation 

of planetary systems similar to our 

Solar system. Meanwhile, the Wolf- 

Rayet stars themselves end up either exploding 

as supernovas, or collapsing directly 

into black holes. 

“Astronomers believe that approximately 

1 to 16 percent of all Sunlike 

stars could have appeared as a result 

of such a scenario playing out.” 

How does the study of the Sun help 

to study the formation of chemical elements 

after the Big Bang, the evolution 

of galaxies and stars in general? 

“Employees of the department of 

physics of the Sun of the MAO of the 

NAS of Ukraine in cooperation with researchers 

from Spain, the Netherlands, 

Norway, the US, and Australia have 

conducted a series of studies to determine 

the chemical composition of the 

Sun and stars. 

“Calculation of the content of 

chemical elements in the Sun, performed 

by a number of researchers in 

the early 2000s, showed an abnormally 

low metallicity of the Sun. This contradicted 

the data of helioseismology 

and the theory of the internal structure 

of the Sun. To solve this problem, my 

colleagues and I recalculated the content 

of carbon, nitrogen, silicon, and 

iron in the solar photosphere. The last 

two elements are used as the standard 

in determining the metallicity of the 

Sun and meteorite content. These studies 

have shown that changing the content 

of iron and silicon in the Sun can 

be avoided if one takes into account a 

number of physical effects that were not 

taken into account in previous studies. 

“Another important achievement is 

the study of the chemical composition 

of stars that were formed at various 

stages of the evolution of the Universe. 

The employees of our department 

have calculated mathematical ratios 

for a large grid of stellar atmosphere 

models that allow us to estimate the content 

of lithium, oxygen, and iron depending 

on the effective temperature, 

gravity acceleration, and metallicity. 

These results are important in solving 

such fundamental questions of astrophysics 

as the origin of the Universe 

and its evolution, the nucleosynthesis 

of elements during the Big Bang, the 

evolution of galaxies and stars, the 

internal shape and structure of the atmospheres 

of stars and the Sun.” 

Read more on our website 

By Natalia PUSHKARUK, The Day 

The political crisis in Slovakia, 

caused by the murder of 

journalist Jan Kuciak and his 

girlfriend, is gaining momentum. 

In particular, Deputy 

Prime Minister and Interior Minister 

Robert Kalinak announced his 

resignation last week, explaining it 

by prevailing public attitudes. The 

head of government himself, Robert 

Fico, has said he is ready to leave as 

well, but only if his party is allowed to 

choose the next prime minister. Media 

TOPIC OF THE DAY No.17 MARCH 20, 2018 5 

write that in this way, Fico wants to 

keep the current coalition in power 

and avoid an early election. All these 

changes are taking place against the 

backdrop of large-scale protests that 

took place across Slovakia lately and 

involved tens of thousands of people. 

According to France 24, the demonstrations 

were the largest since the 

anti-communist Velvet Revolution. 

No one has been identified as a suspect 

From March 15, all visitors to the exclusion zone can visit the Wormwood 

Star Museum, located in the city of Chornobyl. It holds photos allowing 

one to follow the story of transformation of the exclusion zone 

from a nuclear disaster site into an area where the latest technology is implemented. 

Photo by Artem SLIPACHUK, The Day 

REUTERS photo 

The murder of a journalist and a political crisis 

A museum has been 

opened in Chornobyl 

Slovakia’s prime minister has resigned 

since the murder of the reporter who 

was investigating the involvement of 

the Italian mafia in corruption schemes 

in the country. 

Slovak President Andrej Kiska 

had accepted the prime minister’s resignation 

offer. He gave a mandate to 

form a new government to Fico’s party 

colleague Peter Pellegrini, according 

to a Reuters report. 

“Yes to cultural diplomacy” 

By Maria CHADIUK 

Turning590in2019 

Lutsk is preparing to celebrate 

the anniversary of a congress of 

European monarchs 

By Natalia MALIMON, 

The Day, Lutsk 

A congress of European monarchs 

took place in ancient Luchesk 

(the old name of Lutsk) in 1429. 

Then, kings, emperors, and princes 

from all over Europe gathered in the 

city. Luchesk, meanwhile, was then 

the southern capital of the Grand 

Duchy of Lithuania. This meeting of 

the powerful men of the age is sometimes 

called a forerunner of European 

integration. The 590th anniversary 

of the congress of monarchs will be 

celebrated in the city in 2019. At its 

meeting, the organizing committee 

tasked with preparing for the 590th 

anniversary of the congress of European 

monarchs envisioned a lot of 

interesting events that would popularize 

the history of Lutsk and Volhynia 

and promote tourism there. 

The city will host a week-long festival 

program called “The Congress of 

European Monarchs.” It will begin 

with the festival of medieval spirit 

called “A Princely Feast,” and end 

with the festival “A Night in the 

Lutsk Castle.” Head of the department 

of tourism and city promotion 

Kateryna Telipska noted that the Old 

Town area and the park of culture and 

rest would host mass festivities, including 

a reenactment of the life of 

medieval Lutsk. Some of the other 

events will be a large-scale applied and 

fundamental research conference devoted 

to the congress and an international 

forum dealing with national 

security and counter-terrorism issues. 

There are also plans to finally 

create a city museum in Lutsk. 

This year’s Paris Book Fair 

involved Ukraine as well 

Our bookstand performed 

several functions. Firstly, 

it introduced the French to 

Ukrainian literary achievements. 

Secondly, it was a 

venue for dialog. On March 16-18, 

when the Paris Book Fair was being 

held, the French were able to meet 

with authors including Sofia 

Andrukhovych, Irena Karpa, Andrey 

Kurkov, Haska Shyian, Mariana 

Savka, Bohdan Obraz, Iryna Dmytryshyn, 

and Andrii Kokotiukha (the 

latter having been nominated for the 

French prize New Voice in the 

Detective Genre recently). In 

addition, it was to host events 

addressing a wide range of topics: 

from civil society to the war in the 

Donbas, in particular a reading 

discussion about the book The War 

That Changed Rondo. 

Karpa commented on the event on 

her Facebook page as follows: “The 

Paris Book Fair with our incredible 

program... it will happen soon! I thank 

everyone who worked and still works 

on our little but proud dreams. Yes to 

cultural diplomacy.”

6 

No.17 MARCH 20, 2018 

CLOSE UP 


By Maria PROKOPENKO, The Day 

The “golden horseshoe” of Lviv 

region castles, the masterpieces of 

European art, such as, for 

example, those at the Parkhomivka 

village art museum, – can 

fascinate tourists from all over the 

world. But how can they learn about 

this? 

Resources that collect digitized cultural 

heritage have been in the making 

for 20 years now. Digital technologies 

create incredible opportunities to see a 

certain artifact without even going out 

of the house – thanks to online digital 

collections. For example, the Europeana 

online platform of cultural heritage 

presents books, archival documents, 

photographs, and pictures from 

about 3,500 institutions of Europe: it is 

51.5 million images, sound recordings, 

texts, videos, and 3D models. 

If you type “Ukraine” in the 

search window, you will get thousands 

of links to the artifacts kept at libraries, 

archives, museums, and other 

collections in the Netherlands, the 

UK, Moldova, Estonia, etc. Finally 

you will also reach objects from 

Ukraine, but, to do so, you will have to 

rummage through megabytes of data. 

So, digitizing the national heritage is 

an urgent job in order to preserve and 

globally promote valuables. Incidentally, 

it will be recalled that in 2011 

Den launched the “Online Museum” 

project which comprises over 20 virtual 

excursions to cultural sites in 

Ukraine and abroad. 

Olha BARKOVA, researcher and 

expert in information technologies 

and digitalization, works at the company 

BALI Specialized Center and has 

been organizing “Digitized Heritage” 

seminars for five years. Among the 

participants in these events are museum 

employees and private collectors 

from all over Ukraine. Experts from 

Italy, Britain, Belgium, Poland, Germany, 

Malta, and the CIS speak there 

live or through Skype. We are discussing 

with Olha what hinders the 

digitization of Ukrainian cultural heritage, 

how this process is going on in 

the world, and what practical results 

it produces. 

● ON “UKRAINICA 

IN EUROPEANA” 

Museum in computer 

Why it is important to digitize cultural 

heritage and how this is going on in Ukraine 

“Digitalization began at the end of 

the last century,” Barkova says. “I began 

to deal with this when I worked at 

the National Volodymyr Vernadsky 

Library of Ukraine – it was necessary 

to digitize the Lviv Apostle [Ukraine’s 

first printed book published in 1574. – 

Author]. Since then I’ve been studying 

how this is being done in the world. 

“The 1990s saw the emergence of 

the computer equipment and scanning 

devices, and digitalization began to 

rapidly develop all over Europe except 

for Ukraine. The internet has been informing 

lately about a very large 

number of digitized artifacts which 

the world’s museums and other institutions 

of memory are making easily 

accessible. Unfortunately, there are 

no Ukrainian collections on these 

lists. In particular, Europeana has 

dozens of thousands of objects that 

concern Ukraine, and only 1,500 were 

made available by our institutions. 

“To make up at least in some way 

for our backwardness in cultural digitization, 

we paved our own way to digital 

Euro-integration: in 2013 we 

launched the ‘Ukrainica in Europeana’ 

initiative and a series of informational 

and educational measures ‘Digitalized 

Heritage: Preservation, Access, Representation’ 

and held the first Summer 

School of Digital Competences in Odesa. 

In five years, we have held 

15 events in five cities of Ukraine – 

about 600 museum experts from 

47 cities and villages attended them. 

This year we have changed the theme 

to ‘Digitalized Heritage: Consolidation, 

Integration, and Creativity.’ 

“But this activity is only the initiative 

of specialists and institutions 

which strive to develop together with 

technologies and the world. In the 

Ukrainian sphere of culture, digitization 

has not yet achieved the level of 

continuous information productions 

and our heritage is basically not present 

in the digital milieu.” 

● EUROPEAN-LEVEL 

3D PROJECTS 

But still do we have any examples 

of such projects? 

“We surely do. We have no massscale 

digitalization, but there are 

some brilliant examples and interesting 

solutions – not only in digitalization, 

but also in connection with cutting-edge 

technologies. I mean digital 

3D modeling, virtual tours, and application 

of the augmented reality technology. 

They are not too much popularized. 

Specialists do this in various 

nooks of Ukraine. For example, ‘Virtual 

Tustan’ is a 3D model of a 

fortress in Lviv oblast. I think it is a 

European-level project. The 3D models 

show how Tustan was built and ruined. 

There is in fact no fortress left, 

only some remnants on which you 

must not even step. To virtually reproduce 

the town-fortress, the augmented 

reality technology – a brand of 

today – was applied. Coming up to a 

certain place, you can aim the mobile 

device on some stones and see on the 

screen the part of the fortress that 

used to be there. 

“Other examples are works by Pixelated 

Realities enthusiast specialists 

who deal with digital 3D fixation and 

preservation of the vanishing historical 

structures in Odesa. Architects 

from Shevchenkivskyi Hai [open-air 

Klymentii Sheptytsky Museum of 

Folk Architecture and Folkways in 

Lviv. – Author] make 3D models of rural 

houses on the museum’s territory 

and their documentation. One of the 

purposes of digitalization is insurance 

coverage so that an object can be restored 

if it is ruining. Meanwhile, the 

Lesser Academy of Sciences has created 

– by means of GIS-technologies as 

part of the “Museum Planet” project – 

an interactive map with information 

about all museums in Ukraine, which 

makes it possible to search museum 

collections. The Rivne Oblast Ethnographic 

Museum uses 3D reconstructions 

in archeological explorations, 

and digital aerial survey was used in 

Kyiv to examine the foundations of 

the Church of the Tithes.” 

● DATABASE AT FIRST 

So, it is not enough today to just 

digitize archives and post them in the 

internet? 

“Let us say differently. The first 

thing to do is to digitize and feed 

metadata and information about the 

object into the database. It is a derivative 

material for all the other applications. 

As a matter of fact, digitalization 

is a digitized reproduction of 

something analogous – books, pictures, 

structures, coins, etc. Digitalization 

by itself has no sense. It is not 

just a digital recording – it is the creation 

of an object’s digital image 

which should be as much identical 

with the original as possible. It is also 

necessary to make it possible to see the 

digitized object fully though a special 

program – to leaf over the book, examine 

the sculpture from all sides, 

bring the picture closer and scrutinize 

its fragments. 

“The database allows searching 

for objects, forming various collections 

quickly, keeping an electronic 

account, establishing links between 

objects and other collections, etc. 

These things are interconnected, for 

you can’t find an object if it is not in 

the database and the museum’s and 

global search systems. 

“The global resources of humankind’s 

digitized heritage are the 

World Digital Library operated by 

UNESCO and the United States Library 

of Congress, and Europeana set 

up with EU support. There are a lot of 

national projects. They provide access 

not only to artifacts, but also to regulations 

and methods of digitization. 

“Digitalization techniques are 

very sophisticated now, but they are 

not developing in our country. We do 

not even have information about all 

collections. Only a few museums have 

systems that work with electronic 

bases. The whole world has already 

transferred information from catalog 

cards and museum labels into databases 

and handles it electronically – but 

we haven’t.” 

Why? 

“This is not being done systemically 

in Ukraine – it is underfunded. 

Digitalization and information technologies 

in general are a costly thing. 

That’s why only ‘moneyed’ organizations 

can afford this. And who has 

money in this country? It is first of all 

banks that began to digitize documents. 

Other consumers are big businesses 

and departmental institutions. 

“In my view, the scanning equipment 

market ground to a halt here 

when these consumers made their document 

circulation electronic. But culture 

has no money and, hence, does 

not make a demand. No demand – no 

development. 

“The same applies to software. 

There are no national software products 

for the needs of digitalization. 

Although Ukrainian programmers are 

among the best in the world, they do 

not work for culture, for they are expensive. 

Also expensive for cultural 

institutions are IT companies’ designs 

and foreign software products. This is 

why there are no adequate offers to 

culture.” 

● “NOBODY IS ACCUSTOMED 

TO FUNDING 

DIGITALIZATION” 

What hinders digitalizing Ukrainian 

heritage? 

“The main cause is lack of the basic 

knowledge of contemporary development, 

lack of ‘legal confidence,’ technical 

and juridical security. It is still 

feared that to post a collection online 

means to expose it to criminals. But, in 

reality, publication in the internet is 

sort of protection. Digitalization requires 

adequate knowledge and skills. 

“Nobody is accustomed to funding 

digitalization, and museums do not 

make proper requests. They do not cry 

out that they can’t introduce a technology 

unless a certain amount of money is 

provided. The information policy of organizations 

does not take into account 

the needs of digitalization. Besides, 

their inertia also plays a considerable 

role. They say: ‘We won’t be given money 

all the same.’ ‘Did you ask?’ ‘No.’” 

You have been holding “Digitized 

Heritage” seminars for five years. To 

what extent is it of interest to museums? 

Has there been any progress in 

this period? 

“There is some progress. We give 

knowledge about new technologies, 

which educational institutions do not 

give. Only a few specialists all over the 

country have enough expertise to know 

what’s going on in this sector of technologies. 

‘Digitized Heritage’ seminars 

really attract these specialists. 

“We have already formed a certain 

professional community. The company 

I work in is the core of the team, 

the initiator, and the main organizer. 

Our ‘headquarters’ is the State Polytechnic 

Museum at KPI University, 

our regular partners are the Ukrainian 

Center for Museum Development, 

the Lesser Academy of Sciences, Wikimedia 

Ukraine, and the Ukrainian 

League of Archivists. We have regional 

partners in Odesa and Kharkiv. 

And, naturally, this community integrates 

our colleagues – specialists of 

museums, libraries, archives, research 

and higher educational institutions, 

collectors, and IT experts. 

“Our seminars teach, broaden professional 

horizons, and contribute to 

new projects and collections. For example, 

we can see a rapid digital development 

of the private ‘Krovets Ethnographic 

Collection.’ We are also pleased 

with achievements of the Pshenychny 

Central State Film, Photo, and Audio 

Archive of Ukraine, where digitalization 

is developing steadily and adequately. 

We have digitized certification at the 

National Museum of Ukraine’s History 

in World War Two and image files of 

registration documents at the National 

Preserve of ‘Kyiv Fortress.’ Besides, the 

State Polytechnic Museum has carried 

out a project of QR-code access to the digital 

collection of open-display exhibits.” 

IN 2011 DEN LAUNCHED THE “ONLINE MUSEUM” PROJECT WHICH COMPRISES OVER 20 VIRTUAL EXCURSIONS TO CULTURAL SITES IN UKRAINE AND ABROAD


CULT URE No.17 MARCH 20, 2018 7 

By Dmytro DESIATERYK, The Day, 

Berlin – Kyiv 

The thriller Eva, directed by Benoit 

Jacquot, deals with a game – a 

very dangerous one, though 

outwardly playing out in a 

prosperous social environment: 

bourgeois France, high-society receptions 

and theatrical auditoriums, living rooms 

and mountain chalets of the rich. The 

film’s antagonist is one Bertrand 

(Gaspard Ulliel), who steals a play after 

its author’s sudden demise, and becomes 

a successful playwright by posing as its 

creator. The publisher and the public 

demand that he write another play, so 

Bertrand finds the prostitute Eva 

(Isabelle Huppert) and begins to feign a 

relationship with her, trying to get her 

to fall in love with himself, and uses all 

the dialogs and situations as a material 

for work, thus acting as the copyist of the 

reality which he is directing. He plays 

with it and ultimately goes too far, with 

fatal consequences. 

The film is based on a novel by the 

British crime writer James Hadley Chase. 

Joseph Losey’s earlier film adaptation 

was released in 1962, with Jeanne Moreau 

playing the leading role. 

Jacquot’s version is a strong and 

hard psychological thriller; the final 

scenes reappear in memory after viewing. 

Its greatest achievement is the incredible, 

brilliant Huppert. She leads the protagonist 

throughout the range of states 

that this tense plot demands: from indifference 

to rage, from humble passivity 

to dangerous aggression, from submission 

to domination. She is not afraid 

to appear in the frame without makeup, 

with wrinkles and other signs of her age, 

and remains charming despite it. Without 

a doubt, the image of Eva has already 

become part of her acting immortality. 

The world premiere of the film took 

place at the Berlin Film Festival. After 

the screening, Huppert and Jacquot met 

with the press. 

What fascinated you about Chase’s 

novel? 

Benoit Jacquot: “This is a book that 

I read in my teenage years, and at that 

time I happened to be getting into the idea 

of becoming a filmmaker as my sole 

trade and passion. So, that decision of 

mine, to become a filmmaker, was linked 

to the prospect of making a film from 

that book, which truly left a deep impression 

on me. I had forgotten it from 

time to time, and then it came back into 

my mind’s eye again at other times, and 

then finally, the chance really did come 

up. I hope it’s not going to be the last film 

I ever make, because this is the first film 

I ever wanted to make. I have finally 

drawn a line onto that.” 

In your opinion, is Eva a femme fatale, 

or is there a true love between 

your heroes, after all? 

Isabelle Huppert: “Yes, she seems to 

be fatal to Bertrand, but I am not sure 

that she does it on purpose. She certainly 

is not the archetypical image of femme 

fatale like one would expect. I could say 

that after reading the script as well as after 

reading the book, and the way James 

Hadley Chase described her was very, 

very contemporary, very modern, she is 

much more complex. Well, it’s not like 

the femme fatale is not complex, but at 

least this one is a lot. As for love, that’s 

a very good question, actually. Yes, a certain 

kind of love, let’s say.” 

Jacquot: “What I strived to do together 

with Isabelle Huppert in creating 

this character, was a character that 

doesn’t fit that definition of femme fatale. 

This genre has been overdone, I 

wanted to do something totally different. 

This fate that she brings about, she’d not 

be mysterious but more anonymous and 

mundane, and that is something that was 

achieved with all the talents of the lady 

sitting to my left.” 

Isabelle, how did you prepare for the 

role? Did you watch other movies about 

sex workers? 

Huppert: “No, not really, I wasn’t really 

inspired by other movies. We, with 

Benoit, tried to establish this visual aspect 

of her as a prostitute, and how she 

could have several faces in the film. 

“I am trying to show something 

which is usually not seen” 

Film in which Isabelle Huppert played one of the best 

roles of her life has been released to Ukrainian theaters 

Acting is about a lot of thinking, most of 

the time. We just think about it. I did not 

base myself upon any other research or 

any other existing character. I thought 

she was a very unusual and atypical 

kind of a character in the sense, she is 

mysterious to Bertrand, but as the movie 

goes on, you understand – she is very 

practical woman in a sense. So, this 

makes her very ambiguous, I think.” 

Benoit, did you have Ms. Huppert in 

mind when writing the script, or has she 

appropriated this character? 

Jacquot: “Ms. Huppert does not appropriate 

characters to the extent that I 

know her. She is not predatory, she 

doesn’t own characters for herself. She 

puts her own perspective on, she would 

see herself more as the character just at 

the time that she plays them. She plays 

them more as a lucky renter of a film, 

some who has had the privilege of leasing 

a universe from somebody, and so it’s 

hers briefly.” 

Huppert: “Also, you could say Eva is 

a figment of Bertrand’s imagination in 

the film, which gives her a different type 

of mystery, a lot of more of potential 

depth. She is seen through his gaze, 

most of the time, anyway.” 

Jacquot: “And the film plays on 

this ongoing ambiguity.” 

Isabelle, what is your attitude to the 

ongoing debate in Hollywood and Europe 

about the role of women in the film industry, 

and to the fact that some directors 

and actors are being banned from 

the industry? 

Huppert: “It was so long ago that this 

stuff should have been said. It has been 

one of the reasons why I’ve been doing 

cinema – to speak of women in a certain 

way. I’m very happy that some things 

have finally been brought out into the 

open. Definitively, I hope.” 

The film is very erotic, you are very 

erotic without being lewd, but if the director 

of the script wanted to film you 

naked, would you have done it? 

Huppert: “You have a bizarre idea of 

eroticism there, because you seem to be 

REUTERS photo 

suggesting that you have to be naked to 

be erotic.” 

No, that is not what I mean. 

Jacquot: “It’s the sixth film, sixth 

time that I have worked with Isabelle 

Huppert, and I have often filmed her 

completely naked and in a variety of conditions.” 

Huppert: “He has filmed my soul 

stripped bare, not my body!” 

Jacquot: “But there, in this film, it 

would have seemed counterproductive, 

if not just useless, it would have gone 

against eroticism that you are, I think, 

speaking of.” 

Isabelle, can you say how it was 

seeing the camera 20 centimeters from 

your face? 

Huppert: “Well, that’s what cinema 

is about. It’s getting as close as possible 

to someone’s face, it has been nothing 

strange for me since the beginning of my 

career in cinema, in fact. I have been used 

to having a camera at close quarters, and 

trying to show something which is usu- 

Photo from the website IMDB.COM 

ally not seen, bring about something 

which is invisible. And you get the sense 

sometimes that you are filming both 

the surface and the inside, and that’s almost 

the definition of what cinema 

does.” 

Mr. Jacquot, when I watched your 

movie, I remembered Bunuel’s Belle de 

Jour which tells a similar story. 

Jacquot: “Well, I’m honored to be 

compared to Belle de Jour, and I’m still 

a big fan of that film, but I really wasn’t 

thinking of it at the time I made this film. 

You could think of all the films, classic 

films of the 20th century, you try to keep 

them out of your mind when you produce 

a film, otherwise, there will be no end of 

it.” 

How did you succeed in creating 

suspense without the conventional and 

cliched toolbox of cinema tactics? 

Huppert: “It’s about a psychological 

level rather than some tactics. They [heroes] 

are trying to resolve a certain enigma 

about themselves. That’s part of 

what the film does, as well for me. And 

that sense of threat in the film is borne 

out by one or two things that do happen, 

you almost expect them to happen, which 

just confirm this climate of possible anguish 

because of the brooding threat 

throughout the film.” 

The antagonist is threatened from 

the very outset, his lie seems too obvious, 

but he is avoiding his day of reckoning 

with an incredible ease. 

Jacquot: “There are different 

threats, I had invented each of these 

threats. It would be too simple if everyone 

knew what was going to happen 

from the beginning. You may have 

wished for nothing, you may have wanted 

that the film goes exactly to your expectations, 

but I tried to do the opposite. 

This is not a story about a writer who 

writes and fails. He [Bertrand] is an 

impostor, somebody who is taking on 

somebody else’s identity and paints himself 

into a corner. The film tries to show 

how this trap – rather than him escaping 

from it – closes around him more and 

more towards the end.” 

Huppert: “First of all, Bertrand 

takes Eva as a potential material, 

writer’s material, and then her personality 

overtakes her character that he 

has in his head, and actually seems to 

be taking it somewhere you did not 

want the film to go.” 

Isabelle, do you see any similarities 

between the films Eva and Elle [Paul 

Verhoeven’s thriller with Huppert in the 

leading role (2016). – Author]? After all, 

you played very ambiguous characters 

in both, and greatly succeeded. 

Huppert: “If I look for, yes, I can always 

find a few similarities, because I 

played both characters, but beyond this… 

I think there is a kind of solitude in both 

characters. I mean, they are very sharp 

in the first place, never willing to be taken 

for victims, seemingly in control, 

but of course only seemingly. It’s obvious 

that behind that facade, behind this 

apparent control, there is something 

more. Benoit likes to define all characters 

as being divided, and not double, and I 

like this idea. I mean, double would imply 

maybe the idea of manipulation, 

while division implies something a bit 

more like a suffering, like some kind of 

weakness behind it. And I think in both 

cases that’s why there is something behind 

control, something more complex. 

But apart from this – no.” 

This is the sixth time that you 

worked together. Have you changed 

each other over all these years? 

Jacquot: “Has Isabelle changed since 

I met her? No. No, she is exactly the same 

Isabelle Huppert. It’s like the word ‘to 

be,’ ‘etre,’ which can be conjugated in all 

these different tenses.” 

Huppert: “Now, has Benoit changed? 

In basic terms – no. I feel same about him, 

if he thinks I haven’t changed, I feel that 

he hasn’t changed. As a director, I think 

he has successfully approached the broader 

audience without compromising on 

himself, compromising anything. This is 

something about him that has not 

changed since the beginning, even 

though his audiences became much 

wider.”

8 

No.17 MARCH 20, 2018 

TIMEO U T 


They inspire! 

By Maria SEMENCHENKO 

Mattel, the maker of the 

world’s best-known Barbie 

dolls is releasing a 

new batch of toys called 

“Inspiring Women.” It 

comprises 17 dolls, each resembling 

an important and successful female 

figure of the past and the present. 

Among them are academics, sportswomen, 

artists, dancers, journalists, 

chefs, actresses, and film directors, 

such as American pilot Amelia 

Earhart, the first female aviator to fly 

across the Atlantic Ocean; NASA 

physicist and mathematician Katherine 

Johnson; Mexican artist Frida 

Kahlo; Olympic champion Chloe Kim, 

and Wonder Woman director Patty 

Jenkins. 

Mattel has conducted a survey of 

8,000 mothers around the globe and 

found that 86 percent are worried 

about the kind of role models their 

daughters are exposed to. “Girls 

have always been able to play out different 

roles and careers with Barbie, 

and we are thrilled to shine a light on 

real-life role models to remind them 

that they can be anything,” the company’s 

official website says. The producer 

also focuses on diversity – a 

few years ago it began to make Barbies 

of different heights, statures, 

skin shades, and hairstyles. 

Parents and gender equality experts 

believe that the fact that the 

legendary blonde doll, who lives 

nicely and carelessly, is changing is 

a step forward. Barbie dolls are very 

different now – they do various 

things and carve out careers in all 

kinds of fields. You can easily find a 

Barbie who not only swims in a 

swimming-pool and works in a cafe 

but also works at a construction site 

or in a hospital, plays soccer, practices 

yoga, rescues animals in reserves, 

etc. And now girls will be inspired 

by real women who managed 

to achieve the set goals. Each doll in 

the batch will have a booklet that 

tells about the prototype woman’s 

life and achievements. 

It is worthwhile to recall here 

the numerous biographies of wellknown 

women for children and 

teenagers. They have long been written 

and successfully sold in the 

world and began to appear in 

Ukraine last year. They are translations 

of foreign editions and books 

by Ukrainian authors. The Knyholav 

publishers announced the other day 

the book The Power of Girls: Little 

Stories about Great Deeds by Katery- 

Photo from the website BOREDPANDA.COM 

How toys and books 

about outstanding 

women change the 

world for the better 

na Babkina and Mark Livin about 

prominent Ukrainian women of 

the past and the present. The Vydavnytstvo 

publishers also announces 

the coming publication 

of the book She Did It about 

50 Ukrainian women who achieved 

success in various spheres. 

Ukrainian authors have also 

worked on the “Outstanding Personalities” 

series for the IPIO 

agency, with Coco Chanel and 

Margaret Thatcher being among 

its heroines. 

There also appear a lot of 

translated books about outstanding 

women, such as the series “To 

Little Ones about Great One” 

from the KM-Books publishers 

and the “Miranda” series from 

Nebo Book Lab Publishing. Artbooks 

published a book about Coco 

Chanel for children, and Knyholav 

is going to publish this year 

a translation of the world’s bestseller 

Good Night Stories for 

Rebel Girls and a collection of biographic 

stories about successful 

and outstanding women from all 

over the world. 

These books and the new Barbie 

collection offer girls role models 

and objects of inspiration. 

They make it clear that once you 

believe in yourself and work 

hard, you will achieve success in 

any field and any profession you 

choose. The world holds a place 

for both successful men and successful 

women. 

“When I was little, I wanted 

to be a hero,” writer and human 

rights advocate Larysa DENY- 

SENKO confesses. “I stress ‘hero’ 

because it was not written much 

about heroines. And it is very important 

that the child should 

more easily identify him/herself 

and be sure that development and 

education do not depend on the 

gender. There are a lot of incredible 

heroines. This year there is 

boom of books in Ukraine, which 

impart new colors and feminine 

voices to history. This incredibly 

inspires me. The toy industry and 

cult dolls are changing the profile 

– it is not only a doll for 

changeable apparel, but also a 

heroine. Our children must grow 

up without any stereotypic 

ideas.” 

By Maria CHADIUK 

For 15 years on end, the Embassy 

of France in Ukraine, the French 

Institute, and partners have been 

organizing a festival that deepens 

a cultural dialog between the two 

states. 

Serhii ANZHYIAK, Deputy Director 

of the Culture Department of the Kyiv 

City Administration, said: “In the past 

15 years, the ‘French Spring’ festival has 

become the most sought-after event for 

Kyivites. It is always an interesting extravaganza. 

It is through an intercultural 

dialog that a nation forms and enriches 

itself.” This year’s “French 

Spring” events will take place not only 

in the capital, but also in Berdychiv, 

Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, 

Lviv, Odesa, and other cities of Ukraine. 

“We begin to work approximately a 

year before the festival itself is held, for 

we search for the most interesting and 

diverse events in order to present all the 

genres of contemporary French culture 

and give the Ukrainian spectator an opportunity 

to see the best,” says Anne DU- 

RUFLE, Counselor for Culture and Cooperation 

at the French Embassy in 

Ukraine, director of the French Institute 

in Ukraine. The forum’s program includes 

such topics as cinema, theater, 

music, visual arts, design, literature, and 

cooking. 

According to Matthieu ARDIN, executive 

director of the French Institute 

in Ukraine, cooperation between the 

two countries is on the rise. The proof of 

this will be the festival’s opening – on 

March 31 Kyiv will see the musical performance 

“Air” specially prepared for 

“French Spring” together with Ukrainians 

(last year’s air acrobatic show 

“Galileo” was performed by French masters 

only). The music was written by 

French composer Pierre Thilloy and will 

be played with participation of the Presidential 

Orchestra of Ukraine, the bands 

New Opera and Dakh Daughters, and 

Gast Waltzing, a conductor at the Luxembourg 

Philharmonic and a Grammy 

winner. Vlad Troitskyi is the stage director. 

“Nature in its diversity” 

By Pavlo PALAMARCHUK, Lviv 

After a long break, as well as for 

the first time at the “Green 

Sofa” art gallery, Nina Buriak 

opened her solo exhibit “Offseason” 

on March 13. For this exhibition, 

she created a series of abstract associative 

paintings in the winter-spring 

offseason. The artist was mostly inspired 

by the state of nature in its diversity, poetic 

beauty and a subdued color scheme. 

The artist says that, according to the laws 

Waiting for “French Spring” 

From “Air” performance, films, music, 

and exhibits to… cooking secrets 

of abstract painting, she creates under the 

influence of a deep intuitive wave. In general, 

she perceives her work as an integral 

energy stream that suggests a certain 

mood, action, attributes and structures 

that are subtly drawn in color and texture. 

“To do this kind of art, Nina Buriak 

has, in addition to her talent, extraordinary 

artistic professionalism and freedom 

gained in the years of work in the field of 

fine arts,” says Olesia Domaradzka, owner 

of the “Green Sofa” gallery. 


THE FESTIVAL WILL OPEN IN KYIV ON MARCH 31 WITH THE MUSICAL 

PERFORMANCE “AIR” IN WHICH THE WELL-KNOWN BAND DAKH DAUGHTERS 

PARTICIPATES 

Among the various events of 

“French Spring” are previews of French 

films and the now traditional “Long 

Nights of Short Films.” Spectators will 

also be invited to “Romance with Cinema,” 

a retrospective bestsellers’ screen 

versions. 

Kyiv’s Podil will attract those interested 

in theatrical art. The Podil 

Theater will stage “Concerto for Two 

Clowns” and the Golden Gate theater – 

a story of the last hours of Joseph Stalin, 

the Soviet-era dictator. 

Thanks to “French Spring,” Ukrainians 

will be able to hear the music played 

by some of France’s best jazz performers 

and enjoy a concert of classical music. 

Organ music lovers will have an opportunity 

to attend a concert of Pierre 

Zevort. 

The forum’s visual art is by far the 

best way to illustrate a cultural dialog – 

pictures by Igor Ouvaroff displayed in 

the house of his great-great-grandfather 

Fedir A. Tereshchenko and an exhibit of 

works by Samuel Ackerman (some of the 

pictures are inspired by the poetry of 

Oleh Lysheha). As for literature, there 

will be a meeting with writers David 

Foenkinos and Jean-Pierre Ohl. One 

can also learn the life story of a superb 

French authoress and illustrator Satomi 

Ichikawa. And, to crown it all, Cote 

d’Azur chefs will reveal their culinary 

secrets. 

Lviv-based artist Nina Buriak shows 

offseason beauty in abstractions 

Nina Buriak is a brilliant representative 

of the 1980s and the 1990s 

artists. At that time the artist was active 

in staging exhibits both in Ukraine 

and abroad. She worked both in painting 

and in graphics. Folklore and modern 

traditions in combination with abstract 

compositional elements in her 

work had a great success. Her works 

are displayed in many Ukrainian museums 

and private collections in Ukraine, 

Canada, the US, Austria, Belgium, 

Germany, etc. 

Photo by the author 

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