#33_1-8

MAY 31, 2018 ISSUE No. 33 (1165)
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 LAZARENKO
“Steinmeier must convey
Continued on pages 2, 5
to the Kremlin that ‘enough is enough’”
“One should think over each
picture and each word said”
Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day
Den’s Days begin in Lviv
on Thursday, May 31
The exhibit of the best pictures
of the Den’s 19th International
Photo Competition will
open on Thursday, May 31, at
1 p.m. in the main building of
the National University of Lviv Polytechnic.
Following this, an intellectual
debate with participation of
newspaper Den editor-in-chief Larysa
Ivshyna will begin at 2 p.m. It will be
recalled that Den’s Days are traditionally
held under the auspices of
Lviv Polytechnic’s International Institute
of Education, Culture, and
Links with the Diaspora and the
oblast administration.
The Den’s photo exhibition will
remain open until June 10. Admission
is free. Please come and choose
what you think is the best picture!

2
No.33 MAY 31, 2018
Theimageofacountrythatwemiss
The Roman gallery Domus Romana hosts
“My Ukraine,” an exhibit of children’s drawings
DAY AFTER DAY
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
REUTERS photo
By Yulia YARUCHYK
In the very center of the Italian
capital, Romans and guests of the
city have an opportunity to see
how little Ukrainians imagine
and feel their homeland. This
unbelievably serene, colorful, and
radiant exhibit is the result of an
international competition held last
year by the Italian-Ukrainian
association Ucraina Creattiva with
support from the Embassy of Ukraine
in Italy. In the past few years, the
association has been promoting
Ukrainian culture in Italy, organizing
joint cultural and artistic events,
and helping Ukrainians integrate
into Italian society.
The gallery is showing 300 best
and most interesting works out the
1,000 that were submitted for the
competition. According to association
president Viktoria Shevchenko,
it was at first planned to hold a
competition among the children who
reside in Italy. But after the competition
had been announced, draw-
“We didn’t want just to conduct
a competition. We wanted to acquaint
Italians with a creative and talented
Ukraine, a country that has rich and
uncommon traditions, family values,
and joyous children. It was especially
painful to see war on children’s
drawings,” Shevchenko says.
The works sent for the competition
were judged by the Italian and
Ukrainian artists Claudia Manelli,
Anna Gioia Bellei, Marco Carloni,
Inna Yevtushenko, and Alla
Zarvanytska. The best young artists
were awarded prizes in various fields:
for the technique, the right interpretation
of a theme, the choice of colors,
etc. The seven-year Kyivite Melania
Samoliuk won the grand prix for
a professional technique and an entirely
non-childish view of the world.
“It is extremely gratifying to see
that both the Ukrainian children in
Italy and the children who live on the
temporarily occupied territories of
Ukraine see Ukraine in soft and glowing
colors. It is immediately clear that
they are looking into the future with
Photo courtesy of Ucraina Creattiva Association
By Illia FEDOSIEIEV
“…to pretend vast Secrecy where
there is nothing to conceal; to shut
yourself up in your Chamber, and
mend your Pen or pick your Teeth ... –
this … is the whole mystery of Politics,
or I am an Idiot.”
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais,
The Marriage of Figaro
Murderer identified
Possible consequences of the Netherlands and
Australia blaming Russia for the downing of MH17
ings began to come from all over
Ukraine. But what can be called the
most interesting part of the exhibit
are works by Italian-based children,
for most of them are being
brought up in international families,
have Italian names, go to Italian
schools, but consider Ukraine their
fatherland. Some of them drew
Ukraine by way of imagination because
they only know about it from
their parents’ tales.
By Natalia PUSHKARUK, The Day
This week, as many as two
representatives of the German
political elite are visiting
Ukraine – namely, Federal
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier
on May 29-30 and Federal Foreign
Minister Heiko Maas on May 31-June 1.
President of Ukraine Petro
Poroshenko said that during a face-toface
meeting with his German counterpart,
they discussed the issues of bilateral
cooperation, the situation in the Donbas,
the deployment of a UN peacekeeping
mission there, details of the implementation
of the Minsk Agreements,
and the release of Ukrainian hostages.
“We emphasize the need for an immediate
release of Ukrainian servicemen,
Ukrainian activists and volunteers held
in the occupied territory as well as political
prisoners illegally held in the occupied
Crimea and prisons of the Russian
Federation, including Oleh Sentsov,
Roman Sushchenko, Volodymyr Balukh,
and many other political prisoners,” he
said. Poroshenko also emphasized that
his government was making every effort
to persuade European partners that
Nord Stream 2 was “an absolutely political
rather than an economic project.”
“In 2014, the annexation of Crimea,
and then the conflict in eastern Ukraine
were some very difficult events. But
optimism, which is the main condition
for success. What deserves a special
mention is artistic mastery and
straight childish sincerity with which
the drawings are executed. They must
be shown to the world by all means!”
said Alla Volska, 3rd Secretary at the
Ukrainian Embassy in Italy.
■ The exhibit “My Ukraine” will
remain open at the Domus Romana
gallery until the end of this week.
from my point of view, this is an indication
that the German-Ukrainian partnership
has grown much closer and more successful
during this time,” said president of Germany
Steinmeier. He stressed that the
German government wanted the reform
process in Ukraine to continue, in particular
in the fight against corruption, and expressed
hope that the active negotiations
would lead to the Normandy format getting
more active again. Regarding Nord
Stream 2, the German president said:
“You should not accuse us over it. After all,
when speaking about Nord Stream 2, we are
talking about the future and security of
Ukraine as well.” According to him, his
country was making an effort to ensure the
transit of natural gas through Ukraine.
“Ukraine’s greatest concern, I mean the
fear that it will cease to be a transitor in the
future, is a groundless worry,” he added.
Pondering over events causing people’s
death and what happened afterward is
risky. You can easily be accused of “dark
journalism.” The fact remains that the
MH17 tragedy in the summer of 2014 is,
above all, a political phenomenon that has
political consequences. I will try to analyze
them.
Russia has been accused of blowing
that Malaysia Airlines flight out of the sky
[with a Buk surface-to-air missile]. This
may serve as proof of what Georg
R.W. Hegel wrote about quantity eventually
turning into quality. One can accumulate
a lot of money and weapons, including
nuclear arms. One can act aggressively,
spreading false but effective propaganda
across the world. In the end, such
quantitative changes, having accumulated,
will become quality ones. It is also true
that such changes are hard to predict.
The Netherlands and Australia officially
accused Russia of downing MH17, a
passenger jet with some 300 people on
board, on Friday. Their accusations were
later supported by the US and EU (the latter’s
stand should be noted separately –
“Steinmeier must convey to the
Kremlin that ‘enough is enough’”
Experts discuss the expectations and significance
of the visits to Ukraine by the German president
and head of the country’s Foreign Ministry
Maas, who came to lead the German
diplomacy in March, used his first
speech in this position to condemn the
illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia
and its ongoing aggression against
Ukraine. At the same time, the newly
appointed head of the Foreign Ministry
repeatedly called on the Kremlin to
enter dialog, while not denying the
need for sanctions against the Russian
Federation. In particular, the thesis
about the need to maintain and strengthen
dialog with Russia was put forward
by General Secretary of the Social Democratic
Party Lars Klingbeil during a
meeting of its presidium. He stressed
that the SDP was ready to dismantle the
sanctions only in the event of Russia adhering
to the Minsk Agreements, and
was quoted as saying that by the DW.
Continued on page 5 ➤
more on this later below). It would surprise
few if a claim was presented to the International
Court of Justice [in the coming
weeks or months].
The MH17 case has reached a crescendo
almost four years after the event. None
of the European politicians have dared accuse
Russia over the years. Now everyone
knows that the passenger liner was killed
by a Russian surface-to-air missile, that the
Russian President is to blame for the
death of [almost] 300 peaceful civilians.
What’s done can’t be undone.
What next? A quote from Dostoevsky’s
Crime and Punishment [when
Raskolnikov hears “You are a murderer...”]
when meeting with Vladimir Putin,
considering that most European politicians
have read the Russian classic? Then
they’d have to sever all contacts with Russia
in its current status as the guilty party
charged with the murder of peaceful European
civilians. What about business,
especially in the natural gas sphere that
spells billions of dollars/euros?
They had to act as once formulated by
Beaumarchais’ brilliant Figaro, pretending
to know nothing about something that
was common knowledge, and just wink and
nod knowingly when words came to deeds,
as though saying “You know what it’s all
about.”
Today, the situation is different, with
quantity having turned into quality. No
one can remain silent on who is to blame for
the MH17 tragedy.
Wilbert Paulissen, speaking on behalf
of an international team of investigators,
declared that the passenger jet
had been shot down with a Buk surfaceto-air
missile that belonged to the 53rd anti-aircraft
missile brigade from Kursk in
the Russian Federation. This left no room
for diplomatic maneuver. Under different
circumstances, one could shrug off or pretend
to know nothing about what’s happened,
but one couldn’t possibly pretend
that the bodies of victims of an act of violence
are alive. An act of violence implies
responsibility.
And then the United States got actively
involved, being less interested in keeping
close ties with Moscow than Europe. Besides,
Russia’s solid economic presence on
the continent (e.g., Nord Stream 2) was the
last thing Washington wanted, considering
its interest in the Old World, in terms of liquefied
gas supplies. Sad but true, politics
and business make any moral requirements
valid only if they are backed by
business considerations.
What consequences are to be expected?
The West isn’t likely to sever all contacts
with Russia and make it an outcast – this
would be too risky and disadvantageous.
However, the rift is likely to deepen and
will last longer, as will the sanctions.
This situation could worsen if a claim
was submitted to the International Court
of Justice – but many among the European
elites are most likely interested in this
claim remaining on paper. If and when,
would Vladimir Putin be in a position to ignore
an ICJ ruling? Hard to say. This
would mean Russia’s almost complete isolation
within the international community.
In that case, Mr. Emmanuel Macron
would deeply regret his smiling handshake
with Vladimir Putin during their
meeting that coincided with the announcement
of the MH17 findings.
Europe remains true to its twofaced
policy in regard to Russia. Graphic proof
of this is a statement made by Dutch Foreign
Minister Stef Blok: “Holding a state
responsible is a complex legal process,
and there are several ways to do this. The
Netherlands and Australia today asked
Russia to enter into talks aimed at finding
a solution that would do justice to the
tremendous suffering and damage caused
by the downing of MH17...” In other
words, Russia is regarded as a defendant
(in terms of responsibility) and partner (by
asking Russia to “enter into talks”) at the
same time. Nothing about severing all
contacts, but current events are pointing
in that direction.
How will Vladimir Putin respond? He
could ignore ICJ if he thought his status as
Europe’s indispensable partner was firm.
There are reasons behind this assumption.
He is accustomed to thinking the way
Russia’s political elite does, so that the big
shots can always come to terms, where and
when they can get something out of the
deal. Western politicians are anything
but an embodiment of morals and ethics –
but they don’t have to be, because, unlike
Russia, they have to reckon with public
opinion. The latter can exert sufficient
pressure on the head of state, to whom
blood shed by fellow citizens has a serious
meaning. Moscow’s current conduct can
only deepen the rift.
Another scenario reads that Vladimir
Putin makes certain concessions. For example,
he could make one or several army
generals scapegoats, saying they were responsible
for the shooting down of MH17,
and that they had acted without his knowledge
and consent as Commander-in-Chief.
In that case, all of them would commit suicide
before being arrested.
Be that as it may, it is hardly likely that
Vladimir Putin will abandon his plans for
rapprochement with Western [European]
leaders and for softening sanctions, whatever
the intent of both sides.

WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
DAY AFTER DAY No.33 MAY 31, 2018 3
By Ruslan HARBAR
May 25 is Africa Day. This year it is
somewhat special – 55 years ago the
Organization of African Unity
(OAU), known as African Union
(AU) now, was established. It
comprises all the continent’s states, except for
Morocco.
In the past 55 years, Africa has undergone
and is still undergoing terrible ordeals on the
way to true independence.
● PREHISTORY OF THE AFRICAN WAY
The 1960s saw the beginning of the collapse
of colonial empires in Africa. 1960 is called “the
year of Africa” because 17 countries gained independence.
Only two African countries – Ethiopia and
Liberia – have never been colonies, while the
rest (53) were under a yoke of parent states.
The latter were Britain (18 colonies),
France (16), Portugal (4), and Belgium (1).
Britain and France understood that the time of
colonies was over after World War Two. The
British saw it when India gained independence in
1947.
France was letting its colonies go almost
painlessly. The exception was Algeria, where
the war of independence lasted for as many as
eight years until 1962.
Kenya and South Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
were the British colonies that fought hard for
their independence. Portugal was very unwilling
to grant independence to its colonies Angola and
Mozambique. They waged fierce wars, in which
racist South Africa was the main impact force.
The Organization of African Unity (OAU) was
established on May 25, 1963, in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, to help the countries that fought for independence,
lobby their interests in the UN, and
make further efforts aimed at the final decolonization
of Africa. It was a purely political organization.
Accordingly, it is political problems
that the OAU mostly addressed at that time.
● SOVIET “PROMISES”
AND THEIR DRAMATIC FIASCO
The OAU was established in a period when the
Cold War was in full swing, with the West (US, Europe),
on the one side, and the USSR and China
(with a war of their own), on the other. Africa
turned into the ground for a global confrontation
of the two worlds. The cold war often grew into a
hot one. The young African countries, which had
just gone out of colonial dependence, sought reliable
geopolitical support and prospects of their development.
This is what the Soviet Union, which
had never had colonies in Africa, promised them.
Soviet ideologists suggested that they build socialism
without going through the stage of capitalism
– the so-called non-capitalist way of development.
Many countries endorsed this seemingly
attractive idea. The greatest adepts of it were
Egypt (Gamal Abdel Nasser, Hero of the Soviet
Union), Algeria (Ahmed Ben Bella), Ghana (Kwame
Nkrumah), Guinea (Sekou Toure), Somalia (Siad
Barre), Kongo – Kinshasa (Patrice Lumumba), Angola
(Agostinho Neto), and others. They copied the
first steps of the USSR – nationalization, collectivization,
a single ideology, a single ruling party,
etc. This did the countries no good. They all saw a
series of uprisings, plots, coups, and murders of
leaders. The theory of a “non-capitalist way of development”
flopped.
The struggle for independence continued. Angola
and Mozambique won independence in 1975 after
the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. Racist
South Africa could not tolerate a neighboring
country that proclaimed building socialism. The
South African Republic’s army, well equipped by
the West, began an aggression against Angola
which basically had the experience of guerrilla warfare.
The USSR helped it, furnishing arms, medicines,
food, and military advisors. But it was not
enough. Fidel Castro personally decided to help his
blood brothers and sent 300,000 soldiers to Angola.
In the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988,
40,000 Cuban soldiers stopped and then routed the
racists. This battle, referred to as “African Stalingrad,”
changed the course of events in southern
Africa. Ukrainians also took part in those battles.
Many of them were killed, which is a little-known
fact. Participants in the war for the independence
of Portuguese colonies formed their organizations:
the Union of Ukraine’s Angola Veterans and
the Union of Ukraine’s Mozambique Veterans.
● 1994 – DECOLONIZATION IS OVER
The defeat in Angola undermined the regime
of apartheid. Their stronghold, Namibia, also won
independence. In 1994, Nelson Mandela, a black
who had served 27 years in prison, was elected
55 countriies – 55 years!
president of the South African Republic. This
event marked the end of the long and bloody
process of Africa’s decolonization.
New times came. The USSR sank into oblivion.
The OAU had accomplished its historical mission
– Africa countries became irreversibly independent.
New, no less difficult, tasks came: to
ensure economic growth and guarantee, on this
basis, the ever-increasing public wellbeing. This
created endless problems. There was no national
industry; the vast majority of the population
worked in agriculture, where even slash-and-burn
cultivation was used; there was no national professional
community; there was no reliable transportation
within the region, which made it impossible
to establish economic ties among countries;
the overwhelming majority of the population
was illiterate; medical care was very poor –
poverty reigned supreme. That was the legacy of
colonialism. Only the mining industry, mostly run
by foreign companies, was developed. Colossal
mineral resources were the only thing in abundance.
Africa is a global treasury of sorts – especially
in the 21st century, when there is going
to be a rivalry not so much for oil and gas as for
rare-earth elements, without which modern-day
electronics is impossible.
What hindered the solution of economic problems
was the never-ending struggle for power
throughout the 20th century: civil wars, coups,
mutinies, and rampant corruption. Political life
gradually normalized, and power began to be
transferred by way of elections in most countries.
It was also gradually understood that poverty
could not be done away with unless joint efforts
were made. Muammar Gaddafi, leader of the
Libyan Jamahiriya, actively endorsed this idea.
He proposed establishing the United States of
Africa with its own currency – afro or golden dinar.
But after Gaddafi was killed in November
2011, Libya ceased to exist as an influential
state. The whole Sahel was destabilized. But the
idea of unification in the face of new challenges
and goals was becoming more and more topical.
● NEPAD AND GEOPOLITICAL
STRUGGLE FOR THE “WORLD’S
TREASURY”
At the 38th (last) session on June 19, 2012, in
Durban, South Africa, the OAU was reformatted
as the African Union (AU). The forum approved
the New Partnership for Africa’s Development
(NEPAD), sort of an “economic constitution” of
Africa. Its top priorities are the infrastructure, the
technology of communication, health care, and
agriculture. To this end, it is necessary to achieve
a 7-percent annual economic growth rate.
The UN, the WTO, the EU, and the G8 have
supported the program. It will take 64 billion dollars
to implement it. But Western states are not
exactly rushing to share their money. Nor do
To understand where the world
is moving to, one should look at…
Africa which is becoming again
a ground for geopolitical struggle
African countries have it. Particularly, even the
decision to spend 1 percent of GDP on maintaining
the AU is not being fulfilled. It is the European
Union that in fact funds the AU.
Today, two dominant conflicting tendencies
determine the development of Africa – the turning
of Africa into a single economic body and expansionism
of China.
In other words, on the one hand, African countries
are struggling to strengthen their independence
and economic positions and to gradually turn
the continent into a self-sufficient and influential
player of world politics. A lot of problems remain
as a legacy of colonial times, such as local conflicts,
radical Islamist terrorism, corruption, and weakness
of democratic institutions. All this superimposes on
the three problems of the continent. The first is the
growth of the population: the UN estimates that it
will reach 2.3 billion in Africa by 2050. In Nigeria
alone, it will be 450 million, with 70 million in its
former capital of Lagos. As much as 63 percent of
the population will live in cities. Jobs are needed –
in other words, industrialization is an urgent problem.
The second problem is migration as a consequence
of the first one – in search of a job and a better
life in general. The main destination of migrants
is Europe which is making a lot of efforts to curb it,
without, however, willing too much to bear serious
financial expenses. And the third one is climate
change. The Sahara is extending southwards. Nomadic
tribes are upstaging settled grain-growers,
which provokes bloody clashes. The problem of water
is more and more acute.
All this slows down the implementation of the
African Union’s ambitious projects. But, in spite
of all difficulties, the tendency towards turning
Africa into a single economic body as a guarantee
of a reliable future is getting the upper hand.
In late January 2018, the Single African Air
Transport Market began to function. Following the
15-year-long negotiations, 44 countries signed a
treaty on the African Continental Free Trade
Area on March 21, 2018. Nigeria, South Africa,
and nine more countries announced the necessity
of additional consultations inside the countries.
It is the second most important event of this kind
after the establishment of the World Trade Organization.
The single African passport in five languages
– English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, and
Swahili – is already being issued, first to heads of
state. The African Union has urged its member
states to switch to 4G immediately. Benin, a
small country with a population of 11 million, has
already planned to take this step within three
years. Nuclear power plants are being built. Several
countries already have national space agencies,
and the first African astronaut is being
trained. Africa is more and more aware of and actively
struggling for its place in the world.
At the same time, what is hanging over the future
of Africa is the intention of economically
strong countries to capture African markets and
REUTERS photo
have reliable access to Africa’s deposits of, first
of all, rare-earth minerals. As part of this tendency,
competition between the interested parties
is intensified with every passing year.
China is the undeniable leader. By March
2018, it had built 6,500 km of railways, 6,000 km
of highways, 200 schools, 80 stadiums, 9 seaports,
14 airports, 34 thermal power stations, 10 powerful
hydroelectric stations, and 40 industrial
parks. A total of about 10,000 Chinese companies
are working in Africa.
Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of the US
Africa Command (AFRICOM) says: “While we are
talking and promising, the Chinese are building
shopping malls and stadiums.” China is tying
Africa up tightly with economic chains. The
main instruments are loans and investments. Angola
exports 60 percent of its oil to China in order
to pay off loans. The “Celestial Empire” accounts
for 50 percent of Kenya’s foreign debt. China
has pledged to connect all African capitals with
railways in 15 years’ time. The AU headquarters
in Addis Ababa is a gift from China.
China views Africa as an important component
of the Great Maritime Silk Road. To protect
it, they commissioned the first out-of-China
naval base in September 2017 in Djibouti (near the
Americans).
The US is putting emphasis on traditional military
force. The abovementioned AFRICOM has its
bases in 24 African countries. But none of them
agreed to host its headquarters – it is located in
Stuttgart, Germany. The African Growth and Opportunity
Act (AGOA), passed in 2000, declares
Africa a zone of US strategic interests. The US imports
from Africa 100 percent of chromium (South
Africa, Zimbabwe), 65 percent of cobalt (Democratic
Republic of Congo, Zambia, Botswana), and 50 percent
of manganese (South Africa, Gabon).
European countries are trying to keep their
positions intact. President Emmanuel Macron of
France paid his first foreign visit to Africa. The
European Union is reinforcing its investment policy
in Africa to reduce the flow of migrants
from these countries. Russia is actively restoring
its positions. Wagner mercenaries were recently
deployed to guard the president of the Central
African Republic, which greatly surprised the
French. Turkey is also showing a greater activity.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has paid
39 visits to 24 African countries since 2004. What
is worthy of respect is a lively activity of Belarus
in Africa under the personal control of its president.
The leaders of India, Japan, and Israel also
regularly visit Africa.
Ukraine is missing from this list. None of its
presidents and prime misters has visited Africa.
Incidentally, in 2015 the aggregate trade of
Ukraine with African countries was worth 4.4 billion
US dollars, of which the export of Ukrainian
goods accounted for 3.8 billion dollars. On
June 22, 2016, Ukraine was officially granted the
status of observer at the African Union.
With due account of the forecasts about the
Indian Ocean basin turning into a center of world
politics, it is easier to grasp the following words
of the former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson:
“To understand where the world is going, one
must understand that Africa is the future. Africa
will be home this year to six of the world’s ten
fastest-growing economies.”
Africa is becoming again a ground for competitions
– this time of not ideologies but of politics
and capitals.
Ruslan Harbar is director of the Center for
African Studies

4
No.33 MAY 31, 2018
TOPIC OF THE DAY
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
By Ivan KAPSAMUN,
Alla DUBROVYK-ROKHOVA, The Day
Four years ago, on May 25, in
wartime, Ukrainians elected Petro
Poroshenko president in the very
first round. According to the Rating
sociological survey group, two
months ago – in March 2018 – 12 percent
of the respondents approved fully or partially
of President Poroshenko’s performance,
while 81 percent disapproved
of it fully or partially. Can the current
president be reelected for a second term
with this level of trust? No one knows.
Moreover, Mr. Poroshenko has not yet officially
announced his participation in the
forthcoming elections. But there was a
precedent.
The only one in Ukraine’s contemporary
history who managed to become
president for a second time in spite of a
low rating is Leonid Kuchma.
Yet the Verkhovna Rada’s resolution
of November 5, 1999, says those
presidential elections were rigged.
Today, Mr. Poroshenko also has a
not-so-high rating, to put it mildly. So,
to be able to win, he should at least report
on what he has done in the office of
president. The chances of being reelected
will depend on the results of his
achievements or errors. At least, this is
the way things are done in civilized
countries.
Presidential elections are less than a
year away. What has the current president
managed to achieve, what are the
pluses and the minuses? What are his
chances to stay behind in office if he
takes part in the elections?
● “THE PRESIDENT COULD
HAVE CARRIED OUT
A SUCCESSFUL
ANTICORRUPTION REFORM”
Ruslan RIABOSHAPKA, expert:
“Anticorruption reform went on
steadily until it began to pose a threat to
the ruling coalition. Rapid progress in
the passage of the effective anticorruption
law gave way to obstacles and attempts
to place the process under control.
“Yes, the president submitted a bill
on the National Anticorruption Bureau
(NABU) to parliament and saw to it that
a competition was held for the office of
NABU director and his first steps were
taken to establish the bureau.
“Problems began when the Presidential
Administration read the anticorruption
law’s chapter on the e-declaration
of incomes: from then on, everything
was done to prevent e-declarations
from being an effective instrument to
combat corruption.
“At first, on the initiative of an MP
who represented the President’s political
bloc, they tried to defer and essentially
ease the procedure of e-declaring.
When they failed, the president’s coalition
and his BPP (Petro Poroshenko’s
Bloc) and People’s Front partners began
to hinder declaring by using the information
protection and special communication
service, staging provocations
with fake declarations, blocking the
Register of Declarations, and launching
a virtual terror against those who struggled
for these declarations. After the
declaration process still began to work,
they chose a different way: they established
control over the National Agency
for Prevention of Corruption which examines
declarations and tried to establish
control over the NABU which is supposed
to bring people to justice for false
information in declarations and unlawful
enrichment.
“As a result, we can say that the anticorruption
reform has succeeded only
to a certain extent. What is more, it is
the leadership – both the president and
the parliamentary coalition he relies
on – that are to blame for this halfway
reform.
“The president could have carried
out a successful reform, but he chose a
different way, making an all-out effort
to slow down anticorruption transformations.”
Four years of presidency
● IN PROCESS BUT NOT DONE
Kateryna HLAZKOVA, Executive
Director, League of Ukrainian
Entrepreneurs:
Are there chances of being
reelected for a second term?
“It is important for entrepreneurs to
conduct business conveniently. Today,
the Ukrainian business climate is not
much favorable so far. A lot of bills that
could improve the situation either remain
on paper or were ‘lost’ on the way
to parliament. One of them is a draft law
on replacing the profit tax with the tax
on withdrawn capital. It is today the
most glaring example of populism. The
vast majority (if not all) of businesspeople
and the government favor the introduction
of this tax, but nothing has been
done in the past two years.
“The president has repeatedly named
the tax on withdrawn capital among the
top-priority initiatives, and he has been officially
saying at business forums that he
supports this draft law. The Ministry of Finance,
international donors, and, what is
more, Ukrainian business are also saying
they support this legislative initiative.
But the bill is still not in parliament. Under
the current legislation, this law is to be
passed before July 1, and in this case it will
come into force as soon as January 1,
2019.
“Introducing the tax on withdrawn
capital is one of the reforms that Ukraine’s
real business proposes and is ready to
struggle for. This initiative is equally important
both to small- and medium-scale
businesses, which want to increase their
productive capacities, and to big corporations
which are prepared to make investments
and reinforce their positions in
Ukraine.
“The League of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs
made public in May a list of 10 top
demands to the government, which include
legislative initiatives that regulate
the tax policy, employment, and
performance of state control and regulation
bodies. These can give a noticeable
impetus to economic growth and encourage
businesses to withdraw from the
‘gray zone.’
“The moratorium on a land market is
one of the main factors that slow down the
development of farming in this country.
Land must be a commodity. There are all
legislative prerequisites for establishing
the land market, so a decision must be
made.
“What also worries business is the
question of inspections. Granting unlimited
powers to controllers and conducting
‘surprise checks’ carries the risk of corruption
and may produce an inverse effect
– entrepreneurs will go to the ‘gray
zone’ en masse.
“We think that revision and liberalization
of the labor law and reduction of
taxes on the wages fund, as well as reduction
of the unified social tax and the personal
income tax, so that their aggregate
rate is 20 percent, is a more effective way
of keeping people off the gray economy. Reducing
taxes on the wages fund is one of the
key demands of business. In most businesses,
this is the biggest item of expenses.
We raise minimal wages annually, but
this problem can be solved by just easing
the tax burden.
“Reducing taxes and wage deductions
and introducing the tax on withdrawn
capital are supposed to produce a systemic
effect for taking business out of the
gray zone, establishing civilized entrepreneurship,
laying the groundwork for
higher wages, and improving the social security
of employees.
“Among the other important business-related
reforms are hard-currency
liberalization and changes in corporate
law. Yet the general tendency is that most
of the reforms in Ukraine still remain in the
process of implementation.”
● “THE PRESIDENCY OF
POROSHENKO IS NOT
WORSE THAN THAT OF HIS
PREDECESSORS”
Viktoria PODHORNA, political
scientist:
“Petro Poroshenko became the president
of Ukraine at a most difficult time,
when there were no other candidates with
sufficient political and managerial experience
and the ability to assume responsibility
for the country. This is why
Poroshenko not just became the president
– he became it in the first round.
“However, we should not forget that
public trust in consensus about Poroshenko
was based on the promises to achieve
peace, regain the Donbas, carry out reforms,
and ensure justice.
“Has the current president managed to
meet his commitments? The answer is in
public opinion polls. This answer is NO. Although
President Poroshenko managed
to avert the ‘hot phase’ of the war, hostilities
are still going on. The Minsk Agreements
do not guarantee peace and regaining
of the Donbas. Moreover, they freeze
the conflict in the indefinite ‘no peace, no
war’ condition for a long time. Have any
successful reforms been carried out?
“Unfortunately, the attempts to implement
2014-15 reforms ended up in a
slowdown. Moreover, we can more and
more see the president pursue an anti-reformist
policy based on his intention to preserve
the existing post-Soviet model of
Ukrainian politics and state in spite of public
demands.
“Today, not only experts, but also the
majority of ordinary Ukrainians understands
one way or another: the Ukrainian
state needs systemic changes because it is
showing an extremely poor ability to perform
its key functions, such as protection
of territorial integrity and provision of security,
justice, and development.
“However, the president in fact ignores
the necessity of such changes.
“Besides, we can see strategic uncertainty
in Poroshenko’s policies – inability
to shape and pursue a strategic policy, i.e.,
one based on the interests of most Ukrainians
and aimed at strengthening the Ukrainian
state’s positions and its ability to address
the country’s key problems at the external
level and particularly at the level of
domestic policies. Without this, Ukraine
will never be able to emerge as a strong
state and defend its interests in the world.
This is the key duty of the president of
Ukraine at such a difficult and crucial time
for this country.
“We should add to this a doublefaced
policy (formal and informal). This
shows especially clearly when
Poroshenko declares a pro-European and
Euro-Atlantic choice but, informally, is
doing his best to slow down the key reforms,
without which Ukraine will never
be able to become part of the European
Union. Moreover, in response to Western
demands to continue the promised (and,
what is more, mentioned in Ukraine-EU
Association Agreement) reforms,
Poroshenko announces the danger of losing
‘a part of sovereignty.’ Or when he
publicly advocates a consistent struggle
with the aggressive Russian policy and,
at the same time, has economic interests
in Russia.
Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day
“And the last question: has justice
been restored? The answer is obvious:
NO. There is no fair trial in Ukraine.
Small- and medium-scale business remains
under the pressure of unreformed
repressive tax authorities, the reform of
the uniformed services is fragmentary
and incomplete, the reform of civil service
is in its infancy, the country’s resources
are still in the hands of oligarchs
and kleptocrats, there is no real political
representation of society, etc. All of these
reforms have either not been implemented
or have been slowed down.
“As a result, Ukrainian society is taking
a negative attitude to Poroshenko’s policy,
and, as we can see in the latest sociological
surveys, the current president is today
only the 4th most trusted potential candidate
in the 2019 presidential elections.
“This means not only mistrust towards
Poroshenko’s political course, but also
the exhaustion of public consensus
about his presidency and the prospects of
a second term in office. In the view of the
majority, Poroshenko has met none of the
commitments he took: PEACE (ending
the war), REFORMS, and JUSTICE (namely,
overcoming corruption, de-oligarchization,
independent judicial system).
“Meanwhile, perhaps for the first time
in the history of independent Ukraine, no
confidence in Poroshenko also signals mistrust
towards and a loss of consensus
about the PRESIDENCY as such. Today,
none of the prospective candidates has a
sufficient support of voters. The percentage
of their supporters ranges between
10 and 12 points, and about 40 percent of
Ukrainians do not know who they will
vote for.
“The Poroshenko presidency is not
worse than that of his predecessors, but it
shows that there is something wrong with
the very institution of presidency in
Ukraine. For, even after the Revolution of
Dignity, the president still remains in the
post-Soviet format and gravitates towards
authoritarianism and monopolism, rather
than towards democracy and observation
of power distribution. And very often
Poroshenko copies the policy of not the EU
and the West, as could be expected, but the
policy of the now hostile Russia. This includes
specific attitudes to the media, the
real role of the Security Service and the
Prosecutor General’s Office (which are
forced to perform uncharacteristic political
and repressive functions); endless attempts
to restrict the capacity of civil society;
excessive influence of the president
on the economic policy, on regional and local
authorities, and on the political process
as a whole.
“Therefore, the most crucial question
today is whether Ukrainians are prepared
to entrust ‘the president’s mace’ to one of
the candidates or, maybe, it is worthwhile
to carry out a constitutional reform which
will alter the pattern of the political system

WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
TOPIC OF THE DAY No.33 MAY 31, 2018 5
and redistribute powers between various
political institutions.
“However, Poroshenko’s unhidden
desire to run for a second term, in spite of
a dwindling public support, and win at any
cost (while there is also Yulia Tymoshenko,
another candidate with the same vision of
a victory at any price), means that if one of
these candidates wins the election, this will
be a zero-sum victory – in other words, a
victory for one and a loss for all the others,
a loss for the country. It is a dangerous
prospect for this country.
“Meanwhile, the president should display
wisdom not by demonstrating his
personal ambitions and lust for power
but by halting the race of presidential ambitions
which look like a show of actors, not
political leaders, and by starting to change
the political system with the aim of establishing
a more balanced, more democratic,
and fairly-distributed system of institutions,
where ordinary people would
have greater clout and representation in
politics.”
● “TODAY, IN ADDITION TO
THE HOSTILE EASTERN
FRONT, WE HAVE A ‘BARED,’
WARY OF UKRAINE,
WESTERN FRONT”
Aliona HETMANCHUK, director, New
Europe center:
“Compared to all of the previous presidencies,
that of Petro Poroshenko is in the
grip of perhaps the most acute external crisis
in addition to internal ones. The ability
to enlist international support for resisting
Russian aggression became the
most sought-after quality of a 2014-18
president of Ukraine. Poroshenko has
done this job quite well. He has achieved as
much as it was possible to expect from the
international community in this time – the
imposition, maintenance and sometimes increase
of sanctions against Russia, expulsion
of it from the G8, and the US decision
to supply lethal defensive weapons
to Ukraine. What became a favoring wind
for Ukraine are Russian hybrid attacks on
the key Western countries (US, France,
Germany, UK), which promoted Ukrainian
discourse about Russia as a source of
threats, not opportunities.
“Ukraine has also managed to persuade
its international partners to continue
pursuing the ‘security first’ policy towards
settling the Donbas conflict. The buy
time strategy, one of the Poroshenko presidency’s
characteristic features, worked in
the context of observing the Minsk Agreements.
Even in the fourth year of his presidency,
Poroshenko managed to maintain
friendly relations with such a critically important
partner of Ukraine as German
Chancellor Angela Merkel (Yushchenko
and Yanukovych spoiled their relationships
with the German leader in the very first
year of presidency).
“Poroshenko has thus played the role
of president of a victim country quite well
in the past four years, although this, unfortunately,
did not stop the war in the
east. As for being the president of a winner
country or at least a reliable partner
country, it is open to question.
“In addition to the EU visa waiver,
which is an undeniable achievement, there
is a problem of dishing out promises which
are not fulfilled and provoke friction and
distrust on the part of important international
partners. Our key partner, the European
Union, seems to be showing lack of
trust. Both Kyiv and Brussels are seriously
frustrated over their reciprocal dialog.
There seems to be rather a high level of mistrust
between Ukraine and NATO. While
the ‘buy time’ tactic worked in the context
of observing the Minsk Agreement, ‘buying
the time’ and delaying the decisions
that still had to be made weakened the positions
of the president and Ukraine, for he
failed to meet his commitments to implement
reforms related to European and
Euro-Atlantic integration. Ukraine has
lost trust as a country which, instead of
striving for rapid reformation, is looking
for excuses about why one reform or another
cannot be carried out now.
“Obviously, the leadership underestimated
the fact that the West will not support
Ukraine only on the grounds that its
territorial integrity was violated. The interconnection
between visible domestic
transformations in Ukraine and the impression
of the latter abroad turned out to
be much stronger.
“One of the greatest failures of the
Poroshenko presidency is the loss of friendly
and trustful relations with our European
neighbors. In addition to a hostile eastern
front, we have a ‘bared,’ wary of Ukraine,
western one.”
● FIVE POSITIVE RESULTS
OF THE PRESIDENT
Olesia YAKHNO, Candidate of Political
Sciences:
“Ukraine has been in new realities
since 2014, when domestic challenges (demand
for reforms during the Revolution of
Dignity) were complemented with foreign
ones caused by Russian military aggression
and the necessity to restore Ukraine’s territorial
integrity. These tasks are equally
vital for the preservation of Ukrainian
statehood. As criticism dominates in our
public space, let me begin with the positive
results we have managed to achieve in the
past few years.
“1. Major steps in the direction of
Euro-Atlantic integration, including the
EU visa waiver and ratification of the
Ukraine-EU Association Agreement. As far
as relations with NATO are concerned,
Ukraine has received the status of an aspirant
state and had the highest level of cooperation
among nonmembers of the Alliance.
“2. Preventing a full-scale war with
Russia and thwarting the attempts to
destabilize the situation from the inside.
Ukraine’s defense capability was strengthened.
This includes increase in the overall
strength of the army, switching to a contract-based
army, an essential rise in funding
the army as a whole and of servicemen’s
salary in particular. Besides, there has been
essential progress in training highly mobile
airborne troops, and Special Operation
Forces were formed in line with NATO
standards. We received lethal defensive
weapons from the US (Javelins) and developed
our own antitank missile system
Stugna. Another important indication is
that the level of public trust in the army is
now almost the same as in the church.
“3. Preservation of the international
coalition in support of Ukraine, continuation
of EU economic sanctions against
Russia, and intensification of US sanctions.
Lawsuits were filed against Russia to the
UN International Court of Justice and
some very important UN resolutions were
passed, including one about Crimea.
Ukraine successfully sued Gazprom at the
Stockholm Arbitration Court and achieved
success at the Permanent Court of Arbitration
in The Hague.
“4. Overcoming negative tendencies in
the economy, transition from economic survivability
(prevention of default and stopping
the fall of GDP) to macroeconomic stabilization
and a (so far) small growth. Political,
economic, and informational vulnerabilities
to and dependencies on Russia
were reduced. Ukraine has reoriented
from CIS to other markets.
“5. Very important reforms in the judicial
system, pension provision, health
care, and decentralization were launched.
“As for tasks/challenges/problems, I
would single out the following spheres:
“1. There is no high-quality communication.
The leadership usually excuses itself
after being accused by opposition
politicians instead of explaining its prepanned
steps in good time.
“2. Some societal groups put up corporate
resistance to certain changes (judges
oppose changes in the judicial system,
doctors do so in the medical sphere, MPs
come out against restrictions of parliamentary
immunity).
“On the whole, we can say that President
Poroshenko puts emphasis on longterm,
strategic, subjects. This comprises
humanitarian issues (including indispensable
efforts to establish the Single Local
Orthodox Church), defense and security
matters (including NATO membership),
structural reforms, etc. No one knows
how soon this will produce an ‘electoral result,’
i.e., derive solid support from society.
But, in any case, these steps must be
taken to preserve and develop Ukrainian
statehood.”
By Serhii HRABOVSKYI
In my view, neither a total condemnation
of the Koliivshchyna rebellion and its
participants as “cutthroats,” “bandits,”
and “killers” nor a no less total
heroization of the rebels (“kolii”) as
“fighters for freedom of the Ukrainian
nation” can stand up to scholarly criticism.
As Ihor Siundiukov rightly noted in the
article “Fighters for Freedom or
Cutthroats?” (Den’s website, May 28, 2018),
“it is high time we dropped the ‘black-andwhite’
image and perception of history,
especially when it is about such events as
Koliivshchyna.”
Indeed, Koliivshchyna was a people’s
movement that combined the features of a
religious war, already anachronistic in the
late-18th-century Europe (only a hundred
years before, those extremely cruel wars had
been a common occurrence) with those of an
anti-colonial uprising of the future (almost
90 years later, the anti-British Sepoy Mutiny
broke out in India, which, in terms of cruelty,
was in no way “softer” than Koliivshchyna).
And no one can deny that
Ukrainian lands were under a heavy social,
ethnic, and religious oppression on the part
of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
and that it is Polish confederates (Confederation
of Bar) who unleashed a massacre in
Right-Bank Ukraine, torturing and plundering
the Ukrainian population and ruining
Orthodox churches and monasteries in
the Kyiv region, Podillia, and Volhynia. In
other words, it was also a religious war
from their side, caused by disagreement with
the decision of Polish King Stanislaw Poniatowski
to give equal rights to Catholic, Orthodox,
and Protestant believers. At the
same time, the confederates advanced the
slogan of withdrawing the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth from the influence of the
Russian Empire whose protege the then
Polish king was.
Things mixed up in Right-Bank Ukraine.
This brings to mind the argument between
characters of one of Bertolt Brecht’s plays:
“Unhappy is the land that has no heroes! – No,
unhappy is the country that needs heroes.”
But, nevertheless, we should not forget
the Russian factors of not only the geopolitical
situation at that time, but also of Koliivshchyna
itself.
Stanislaw Poniatowski equalized the
Orthodox and Protestants in rights with
Catholics in early 1768 under heavy pressure
from Russia. Was this date accidental? I
don’t know. For this representative of Polish
magnates had been elected king four
years before, but he committed this act only
now, when a group of Zaporozhians with
Maksym Zalizniak at the head had already
Koliivshchyna: without extremes
A Ukrainian rebellion on Russian instructions?
lived, disguised as lay brothers, at Right-
Bank monasteries for a year, preparing an
uprising against the Commonwealth, and
Gervasii Lyntsevsky, appointed as Bishop of
Pereiaslav, was doing the same concurrently.
A coincidence? Let us also recall Melkhysedek
Znachko-Yavorsky, the ideological
inspirer of the Haidamaka movement
(which began a few years before Koliivshchyna
proper), the hegumen of the
Motronynsky Trinity Monastery. Legend has
it that Melkhysedek personally blessed
haidamakas’ weapons in Kholodny Yar. Is
this true? Is it true that, as Polish sources
maintain, Bishop Gervasii and Hegumen
Melkhysedek funded the rebellion? Could
they do this secretly from the Synod, a governmental
body that supervised Orthodoxy
in the Russian Empire (as well as Orthodox
churches in Poland)? No one knows or will
ever know because Catherine II’s officials
knew very well how to purge archives and
falsify documents.
And was there the Golden Charter, allegedly
signed personally by Catherine II,
which called for “exterminating with God’s
help all the Poles and Jews”? It was read out
to haidamakas before the “knife blessing ceremony”
– there were many witnesses to
that event which was an important, if not the
decisive, factor that fueled cruelty in the
“kolii.” So the Golden Charter undoubtedly
existed but… disappeared.
As is known, the Koliivshchyna rebellion
went on simultaneously with the operations
of Russian troops in Right-Bank
Ukraine against the confederates. What is
more, Polish sources cite the presence of
Russian officers and soldiers… among the
“kolii.” Some of them, including Captain
Stankevich, fought to the last moment in
ranks of the rebels – even against the Russian
troops. And what about others? It is said
that they were ethnic Ukrainians and thus
joined their compatriots, but did the Russian
government send native Russians to the
Ukrainian rebels? NKVD General Pavel Sudoplatov,
the assassinator of Yevhen Konovalets,
was a Ukrainian by origin and selfidentification,
fluently spoke the Ukrainian
language, and managed for this reason to infiltrate
the OUN.
At the same time, Russian troops did not
lift a finger to stop the haidamakas before
they seized Uman. Only two weeks later, the
rebels’ camp was surrounded and the ringleaders
– Zalizniak, Gonta, and Nezhyvyi –
“Steinmeier must convey to the
Kremlin that ‘enough is enough’”
Continued from page 2 ➤
In a comment to Ukrinform, Ambassador
of Ukraine to Germany Andrii Melnyk
explained that Steinmeier, in addition to
Kyiv, would also visit Lviv, thus marking
the close European affiliation of Ukraine and
its cultural proximity to Germany, while
Maas would visit the east of this country and
spend a day in the vicinity of the frontlines
to intensify efforts to end the military invasion
of the Russian Federation. According
to the ambassador, this visit “is the clearest
possible signal of personal support for
President Petro Poroshenko and the reform
efforts of the national leadership and
government.”
The Day turned to the Chairperson of
the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign
Affairs Hanna HOPKO for comments on the
importance of Steinmeier’s and Maas’s visits
to Ukraine.
● “OUR WORRIES WILL BECOME
GROUNDLESS WHEN
GERMANY ABANDONS
NORD STREAM 2”
“It is very important to get the Germans
speaking with one voice on a peaceful settlement
of the situation. Following the understandings
that were reached in Aachen
and the visits of the presidents of Germany
and France to Vladimir Putin, it is important
that the Ukrainian side is informed and any
steps are agreed with us beforehand.
“Recently [on May 28. – Ed.], a 15-yearold
girl was killed in a shelling in Zalizne
near Toretsk. Therefore, it is important for
us to get pressure on the Kremlin strengthened
and to see some real steps in that direction.
I say so because the preparations for
a Normandy format meeting at the presidential
level should have some focus, concrete
steps, and real implementation, as opposed
to how it was in 2016, when there was
a meeting of leaders in the Normandy format,
where they talked a lot about the security
component and it being a top priority,
but afterwards, we have seen daily
shellings continuing, and no ceasefire agreements
being honored, including those for
September 1, 2017 and the Easter armistice.
“As a former foreign minister and a figure
who has many contacts, participated in
the Minsk format talks and understands that
it is Russia that does not honor its part of the
agreements, Steinmeier should use various
communication channels to convey to the
Kremlin that ‘enough is enough.’
“The issue of Nord Stream 2 is also important.
There are a lot of lobbyists inside
Germany and around Steinmeier himself
who show understanding for such economic
projects, jeopardize Europe’s energy security,
and undermine unity within the
EU. It is important that the Ukrainian side,
which includes representatives of Naftohaz,
is able to convey that the only compromise
solution regarding Nord Stream 2 is preventing
it, imposing a total ban on that project.
We need to state that we will not be sa -
tisfied with 30 or 40 billion cubic meters per
were captured. This was soon followed by repressions
against other Koliivshchyna leaders
and rank-and-file rebels. But the Russian
troops allowed a haidamaka detachment
(which also included Zaporozhians) to continue
pursuing the confederates and seize
Balta and Dubasari which were part of the Ottoman
Empire at the time. Moreover, the
haidamakas said they were officially on
Russian military service. This event caused
a fit of fury in Istanbul and triggered the
1768-74 Russo-Turkish war, much to the delight
of Catherine II.
What were the results of the 1768-69
Koliivshchyna rebellion? The rebels helped
rout the confederates who opposed Russia
and its protege King Stanislaw Poniatowski.
The Cossack and peasant troops in Right-
Bank Ukraine were also routed. The Poles
and Jews were extremely terrified (while the
Russian authorities played the role of their
“savior”). Also terrified were Ukrainian
peasants, for Polish and Russian punitive detachments
executed dozens of thousands of
rebels and their sympathizers. The pro-
Russian royal power in the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth was strengthened. Russia
declared war on the Ottoman Empire,
which resulted, as was expected, in considerable
territorial gains of the Russian Empire
on the Black Sea coast, in Crimea and the
Caucasus, and, what is more, proclamation
of the formal independence of the Crimean
Khanate which in fact became a Russia
protectorate. Besides, Ukrainian fighters
against Polish colonial despotism and Russian
aggression were discredited for a long
time in the eyes of Europe.
So the impression is that, regardless of
the causes of the uprising and intentions of
the haidamaka leaders, they in fact turned
out to be puppets in St. Petersburg’s geopolitical
game. Catherine II became the ultimate
beneficiary to all those events.
Interestingly, neither Bishop Gervasii
nor Hegumen Melkhysedek suffered. The
former retired from office, and the latter
carved out a brilliant career in the Russian
Empire – he became Father Superior of
St. Sophia’s Cathedral Monastery in Kyiv in
1771, then Hegumen of the Vydubychi
Monastery, and in 1785 he, already an
archimandrite, was appointed Father Superior
of the Hlukhiv St. Peter’s and
St. Paul’s Monastery of the Novgorod-
Siversky Eparchy and held this office until
he died in 1809.
year. After all, our system conveyed to Europe
93 billion cubic meters of gas last
year, and this was the highest figure in a
decade, while our capacity stands at almost
150 billion a year. That is, our gas transmission
system is still underutilized. We
must put pressure on Putin to allow gas from
Turkmenistan to reach the EU and look for
diversification of supplies.”
How would you comment on Steinmeier’s
words that Ukraine’s concern that
it will cease to be a transitor in the future
is a groundless worry?
“We lose not only soldiers but children
as well on a daily basis. The girl named Dasha
died yesterday, while a 13-year-old boy died
a week or two ago. Therefore, our worries
will become groundless when Germany abandons
Nord Stream 2. Otherwise, it reminds
us of Putin’s promises and his so-called
‘adherence’ to the security component of the
Minsk Agreements.
“As for the reasons behind the German
government’s marked attention to their
Ukrainian counterparts, Germany clearly understands
its strategic role in making peaceful
progress. After Putin’s reelection, it is
important to finally force him to the negotiating
table and bring about specific improvements.
In addition, Germany is well
aware of the extent to which the issue of Nord
Stream 2 divides the EU, since Poland, the
Baltic States, and the Visegrad Four nations
oppose it. In addition, we have had many joint
projects launched with support of the German-Ukrainian
Chamber of Commerce. Germany
has been helping a lot in eastern
Ukraine. Therefore, in addition to restoring
territorial integrity and sovereignty, resolving
the situation in Crimea and achieving
a peaceful settlement in eastern regions,
there are also issues of economy, reforms, and
German support for decentralization.”
By Natalia PUSHKARUK, The Day

6
No.33 MAY 31, 2018
CULT URE
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
By Maria PROKOPENKO, photos
by Mykola TYMCHENKO, The Day
The Most Serene Republic of
Venice existed in what is now
north-eastern Italy for about
1,000 years from 751 until 1797.
Its capital, Venice, is associated
with endless legends and has long been
a destination of the pilgrimage of
artists, rich people, and just dreamers
of any profession and means.
Many have heard of the Carnival of
Venice, the Doge’s Palace, the Murano
glass, and the Burano lace-making. But
do you know that female artists worked
in Venice several centuries ago? We
learned this and much more about Venice
and its masters at the exhibit “Most
Serene Venice – Venezia la Serenissima”
at the National Bohdan and Varvara
Khanenko Museum of Arts. It is a joint
project of the museum and the Lviv
National Borys Voznytsky Art Gallery as
part of the European Dimension program.
● TITIAN’S FOLLOWER
The project was first presented in
Lviv this year, but the Kyiv exhibit
turned out to be entirely different – in
particular, because some artworks just
cannot be transported. Among them
are miniatures by the famous artist
Rosalba Carriera and an absolutely astonishing
17th-18th-century cupboard.
Many items are being displayed for the
first time.
In the first hall, you can see Venetian
portraits, historical paintings, and landscapes,
as well as items associate with
commedia dell’arte. “Portrait of a Young
Lady,” painted in 1621 by Chiara Varotari,
is interesting from both artistic and
historical viewpoints. It shows in detail
the gorgeous attire of a girl from a
wealthy family, perhaps an aristocrat.
“In addition to painting and being
the follower of Titian, Chiara Varotari
wrote a treatise in defense of the female
gender [“Apology for the Female Sex.” –
Author], received with pleasure a lot of
women in her studio, and educated a
whole generation of Venetian female
artists,” says Olena Zhyvkova, exhibit
curator, deputy director general of the
Khanenko Museum for research.
● IDENTIFYING
A PROCURATOR
Another portrait, from the Lviv
Art Gallery, is an early copy of Paolo
Veronese’s “Boy with a Greyhound”
kept at New York’s Metropolitan Museum
of Art. The picture, dated 1560,
shows Nestore Martinengo, an aristocrat
by birth. What makes the item particularly
valuable is the so-called “Sansovino
frame.” This type of framing is
named after the architect and sculptor
Jacopo Sansovino. The characteristic
features of this ornamentation are a
polychromic coating, numerous volutes,
and mascarons. According to Ihor-Andrii
Zhuk, exhibit co-curator, in charge of the
14th-18th-century European art collection
at the Lviv Art Gallery, this kind of
MARIUS PICTOR, “NIGHT IN VENICE”
The Khanenko
Museum displays
the legendary city’s
16th-19th-century
art
VENICE
and its myths
frames gained popularity in 1560-70 not
only in Venice, but also in Florence and
Bologna.
The man in a purple ermine-trimmed
velvet cloak from a 17th-century portrait
undoubtedly belonged to the wealthy
class. What gives us a clue is a broad
strip of stamped velvet, the so-called
stole, which identifies a procurator,
one of the highest ranks in the Venetian
Republic. Yet it is not known who is depicted
on the portrait from the Lviv Art
Gallery. The man holds a sheet on which
one can read the name of Grimani. Zhuk
says it was one of the most influential
families in Venice. Anyway, the note’s
text needs to be further researched.
● IDEAL SILK
In the second hall, one can see the
stole that adorned the procurator’s
clothes, for a part of the exposition is
about Venetian weaving. “Venetian
weavers were the first in Europe to
make silk,” Zhyvkova says. “Venice
was a hub of European trade routes. The
most gorgeous textiles from the Orient
began to come first to Venice and then
to other countries of Europe. Therefore,
having these specimens, local weavers
brought in silkworm cocoons and began
making brilliant silks. The Venetian
silk with large-size repeat ornament is
very nice in color. The color is very fast
because specific dyes were used.” Incidentally,
guilds saw to it that masters
took a certain amount of the dye and
made a high-quality textile – this is the
way they maintained the prestige of the
Venetian brand.
● BIBLICAL KING IN VENETIAN
ATTIRE
Venetian textiles are meticulously
depicted in the 18th-centuty picture
“King David and the Prophet Gad” by
Francesco Fontebasso. Zhyvkova says
that when Venetian artists painted
on biblical themes, they relied
on the things they knew.
This is why King David is
dressed like a patrician
of the Most Serene
Venice.
The picture’s theme also
closely echoes the life of the republic.
The plot is from the Old Testament:
King David decided to conduct
a census contrary to God’s will, and
the wrathful Almighty offered him, via
the prophet Gad, to choose one of the
three punishments: war, famine, or
pestilence. They are all allegorically depicted
as a sword, a dry tree branch, and
a skull in the hands of an angel in the top
left corner. David chose pestilence which
left 70,000 people dead in a day.
Venice knew very well what pestilence
was because there had been more
than one outbreaks of plague there since
the 14th century. Besides, the biblical
story says the king is to blame for the
pestilence, and, according to Zhyvkova,
Venetian rulers were also sometimes
blamed for plague epidemics.
● A “TOURIST” PORTRAIT
Among the most staggering artworks
are ivory miniatures by the famous
Venetian female artist Rosalba
Carriera, which date back to the 18th
century.
In general, this kind of portrait is
Rosalba’s invention which Europe picked
up later. “Like all sound-minded artists,
Rosalba Carriera wanted to earn. Venice
was a tourist city in the 18th century.
Artists dreamed of selling their works.
If you commission an artist to paint your
portrait in carnival apparel, you will
have to pose for weeks, and then you
must carry the picture somewhere, perhaps
across all of Italy… Rosalba invented
the following pattern: she makes
small workpieces in her studio, thus
working out certain techniques which
she then applies at a higher level, and
adds a face later. It is like in our tourist
photographs, when you need to insert a
face into some framing.”
One of the miniatures depicts Caterina
Sagredo Barbarigo, also a legendary
figure. “Every Venetian wanted to meet
this lady,” Zhyvkova maintains. “Caterina
came from a very rich and old family,
but she was mostly known for sticking
to a masculine lifestyle. She set up a
literary salon, had some palaces rebuilt,
invited Tiepolo to paint them, was an art
patron, played at and ran Ridotto [Europe’s
first casino. – Author]. She was doing
all she wanted to, and this was possible
in Venice only.”
● A MYTH ABOUT LAWS
AND PEACE
Why was it so? The answer is in Rosalba’s
other miniature, an allegory of
Venice, which used to be called “A Couple
of Lovers.” “The Venetian state was
constantly creating myths about itself.
From the 16th century onwards, there
was the following myth about Venice:
this state is based on the absolute rule of
law and is always trying to establish ties
with other countries in a peaceful way.
Law and peace are the central foundations
of the Venetian Republic,” Zhyvkova
stresses. “From the 16th century on,
the most noted Venetian artists depict-
ROYAL CHINAWARE
ed these, I would say, significant and allegorical
female figures – it is a very lasting
image.”
In the miniature, a blonde woman
hugs another one and holds a palm that
symbolizes peace, while a dark-haired
woman, who put her hand on the fasces –
A BOWL. MURANO, VENICE, ITALY
bundles of lictors’ rods with an ax, – impersonates
justice and the law.
Of course, everything was not so
idyllic in reality. “If you whispered into
your friend’s ear that Venice was
bad, you might be thrown to prison.
The state was very strong. But individuals
also had the right to express
themselves, provided they did not
transgress the law or malign Venice,”
Zhyvkova continues. “Another myth
is that Venice was a very peaceful
state. In reality, it always took part in
some wars.”
● A HEAVENLY NOOK
FOR THE INTELLECTUAL
Olena Zhyvkova calls the 17th-
18th-century bureau cabinet the exhibit’s
code. She adds that no other
museums of the world have analogs to
it. This is the first time the item is being
displayed.
The cabinet stands with its doors
open. The mirror visually doubles the
wall paintings. The cabinet doors look
rather modest on the outside, but
when they are open, you seem to be
standing by the entrance to the villa in
A CHAIR. VENICE, ITALY, 18th CENTURY

WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
CULT URE No.33 MAY 31, 2018 7
the style of the famous architect
Andrea Palladio because, on the inside,
the bureau cabinet resembles
such as mansion.
Khanenko Museum guides say
that the facade and loggias of the
painted villa show statues of antique
gods and goddesses, and
busts of Roman Caesars. The
painted shelves are stacked with
painted books – “Collana Historica,”
a series of works by Greek and
Roman historians in the Italian
translation.
“This cabinet was multifunctional.
You could keep books, valuables,
and secret letters here, and
use it as a cheval glass and a dressing
table. The lower shelves were a
place for silver, serviettes, and
table cloth,” Zhyvkova enumerates.
“The cabinet is from the Khanenko
collection, but we know
nothing about its origin. Legend
has it that Pope Innocent X commissioned
it for his advisor
Olimpia Maidalchini, but we cannot
confirm this. Yet it is of no
doubt that the cabinet belonged to
an intellectual, a representative of
the elite.”
● A TRIP TO THE “ISLE
OF THE DEAD”
At the end of the excursion we
come across a Venetian myth again.
It is said at the Khanenko Museum
that, for 19th-century symbolists
and modernists, Venice impersonated
transience of beauty and was associated
with melancholy. “Landscape
with a Gondola” by Alexander
Frenz is about this. “This landscape
is not about a concrete place, but it
is closely linked to ‘Isle of the Dead’
by Arnold Boecklin, Alexander
Frenz’s icon,” Zhyvkova says. “It is
not Venice, it is a dream about it. A
Venetian gondola is moored near an
island that resembles San Michele.
It is a place of eternal peace and glory.
This is what Venice was sought
after.”
San Michele is a place where all
those who died in Venice were
buried from 1807 on – this is why it
was called “isle of the dead.” Solemn
funeral processions, when gondolas
were staidly heading for the island,
struck the imagination of artists
and called associations with crossing
the Styx.
Next to this is “Venetian Night”
by Mario de Maria from the Lviv Art
Gallery’s collection. “While everybody
saw Venice with the eyes of a
tourist – famous piazzas, canals,
and palazzos, – de Mario shows the
seamier side of the city: the peeling
plasterwork and the drying laundry
on the roofs. Yet these very real,
concrete, and non-tourist things do
not spoil the overall romantic atmosphere.
One more page of a bigger
myth about Venice: it always dies
and exists, and it is always full of romanticism,”
Zhyvkova muses.
● INTERACTIVITY
Each item is worthy of a long
talk, but, as it is usually advised in
such cases, it is better to see it with
your own eyes. You can learn very
much about the exhibits – the way
they looked before restoration, what
analogs or other works of the same
master exist, etc. – thanks to the
Linzar mobile attachment. Visitors
can plug the attachment into a
smartphone or a tablet and then,
photographing QR codes of each displayed
item, read about them in a
special electronic catalog. There is
access to the catalog right in the exhibition
halls. The project was carried
out in line with the theme of
this year’s International Museum
Day – “Hyperconnected Museums:
New Approaches, New Publics.”
■ You are welcome to study
more myths about the Most Serene
one – the “Venetian” exhibit will
remain open at the Khanenko
Museum until August 26.
AT CANNES, SERHII LOZNYTSIA’S FILM DONBASS WON THE UN CERTAIN REGARD AWARD FOR BEST DIRECTOR
The house that Lars von Trier built
The 71st Cannes
Film Festival is over
and, I must say, it was
far from being really
successful if compared
to the previous ones
By Dilyara TASBULATOVA
Photos by Reuters
CANNES – It is unclear why it so
happened: maybe the film art is really
starting to fade, and the geniuses of the
past have become tired, or the selection
team could not find anything new, or the
administration lacked an elementary
taste and understanding of the sociocultural
situation as a whole...
Maybe it was all of that. Unfortunately…
For example, look at much-discussed
Donbass (directed by Serhii Loznytsia):
it is not very clear why it was not included
in the main competition, if, of
course, we are to believe that it is Cannes
that is always at the forefront of both
cinematographic thought and relevance.
This is a subtle point: relevance
alone is not enough, just as it is not
enough to be a woman to get into the
competition (I am hinting here at the
protest of Cate Blanchett and other VIP
ladies against the dominance of “male
culture,” which they held during the festival,
and which was a quite ridiculous
sight).
MARCELLO FONTE WON THE CANNES FESTIVAL’S BEST ACTOR AWARD FOR
THE FILM DOGMAN
However, Donbass meets all these
criteria: it is an artistic work, not a piece
of agitprop, as many people think. What
many people take for grotesque and exaggeration
is, unfortunately, almost
documentary truth. However, why did
I say “almost”? This is the truth: the
Donetsk People’s Republic’s fake news,
and the shooting of participants in this
comedy, hired to pose as victims of
Ukrainian “wanton brutality” (recall
the crucified boy, please), and the wedding
of a Motorola-like character, and
the man tied to a pole and left at the mercy
of a crowd of Russian “patriots.”
Nevertheless, even Russian critics
familiar with the situation have found
that “this is too much.” Like, the other
side had to be heard as well. However,
Loznytsia did just that, showing what
the other side is capable of.
It is all right, everyone has spoken.
Another “relevant” film, Lars von
Trier’s The House That Jack Built (and
he built it from the corpses of his victims,
since this Jack is a maniac, a serial
killer), also did not make it to the competition.
If you ask me what is so relevant in
the film about a maniac, I will tell you:
this is not the first time that Trier turns
to the topic of internal fascism, and in
this he, strangely enough, converges
with Loznytsia, even though one tells the
story of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict,
and the other speaks about our inner
demons.
DANISH FILM DIRECTOR LARS VON TRIER APPEARED ON THE RED CARPET NEAR THE PALACE OF FESTIVALS AFTER A
SEVEN-YEAR PAUSE. PICTURED: THE DIRECTOR WITH ACTRESSES SOFIE GRABOL AND SIOBHAN FALLON HOGAN WHO
TOOK PART IN HIS FILM THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT
One films in a semi-documentary
manner, the other in the guignol style,
featuring cruel jokes, trolling, and
mockery which almost goes too far.
But it turns out that they speak, in
general, about the same thing: about our
invincible inner enemy, about our internal
collective “Hitler” (Trier spoke
more or less about this at a press conference
seven years ago, but his words
were taken too literally, resulting in him
being banned from Cannes for many
years).
Meanwhile, the main competition included
some frankly weak pictures, and
sometimes even worse ones, which were
still weak, but not frankly so: that is,
some fakes, semblances of true art, or,
as smart people have it, simulacra.
Moreover, these same simulacra got
awards – for example, Spike Lee for the
film BlacKkKlansman. This is despite
the film being devoid of any drive and
similar to a regular Hollywood genre picture.
Meanwhile, Italian Alice Rohrwacher,
who presented Happy as Lazzaro,
which is an amazingly subtle, charming
and highly cultured picture, as well as a
very original one, received a much too
modest accolade. No prize was awarded
to Korean Lee Chang-dong, who is an absolute
film genius, a major, if not a great
director: this is in spite of everyone
thinking that precisely he was highly
likely to win the gold.
The mistakes of the main jury (the
feeling was that they were engaged in a
struggle for life and death, so much that
the poor Andrey Zvyagintsev was in an
unenviable position on this majority-female
jury, which even included female
singers, as a result of badly-thoughtout
selection) were to be offset by hardworking
critics: they awarded prizes to
Rohrwacher, and Jafar Panahi, and the
masterly talented Border by Ali Abbasi.
The only good calls were the prizes
for the best actress and best actor. Italian
Marcello Fonte was recognized as the
best actor, while the best actress prize
went to Samal Yeslyamova, an ethnic
Kazakh who played the girl Ayka, a
Kyrgyz migrant worker trying to survive
in a merciless Moscow.
I already wrote about the fact that
the inner theme of the festival is Russia
as an evil empire: it is felt in Kirill
Serebrennikov’s lyric Summer, which
tells about rockers forced to play music
in basements, and, of course, in Donbass,
and in Woman at War, produced with
the participation of Ukraine, and, obviously,
in Ayka.
Just like Loznytsia, Sergey Dvortsevoy
did not spare anyone: by the way,
he targeted not only the Muscovites,
who are mostly ethnic Russians, showing
them as afflicted with some kind of
mournful insensibility, complete indifference
to anyone else. No, he also showed
some Kyrgyz, who work hand-in-hand
with the mafia-like Russian police and oppress
their own compatriots. In principle,
Dvortsevoy shows a hell on earth, an anti-glamorous
Moscow, a horrifying place
where the humiliated and insulted huddle
in basements, without any hope to escape
poverty, humiliation, and even outright
pogroms. It shows all these Aykas,
these enslaved girls who live unnoticed
by the locals, by aged ladies in smart
coats – it is no wonder that Ayka wanders
about Moscow as an invisible woman, a
non-entity, a ghost.
It would seem there is nothing to
play here: she hardly speaks, doing so only
occasionally and timidly as she asks for
work in a low voice. But this is actually
the most difficult thing – to recreate the
authentic, genuine world of a person who
exists at the very bottom of life. This is
not some exaggerated acting, limited to
two or three colors – grief, happiness,
surprise, delight – as it is done in commercial
films or TV series.
By the way, Cannes waited until
the last for both Donbass and Ayka, as
both films were ready just in time for the
festival, with Ayka arriving only by
May 12.
This, perhaps, is the only thing that
reconciles me with the 71st Cannes
event.
For, as I have already said, I expected
more from it.
And it was not only me.

8
No.33 MAY 31, 2018
TIMEO U T
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA
“Philosophical treatment of space, time, and being”
“AN ENCOUNTER”
Ostroh Academy’s art gallery hosts an exhibit
of the well-known Ukrainian-born American
sculptor Mirtala Kardynolovska-Pylypenko
By Oleksii KOSTIUCHENKO, Ostroh
Photos by the author
“INDIVIDUALIZATION”
Born in Ukraine, Mirtala has been living
and working in the US since 1947 by
decree of fate. She graduated from the
Boston Museum’s Art School and Tufts
University, also in Boston. Mirtala’s
sculptures are not just artworks but a profound
philosophical and original vision of the world.
She showed her talent not only in sculpture and
art photography, but also in poetry – her poetic
collections “Verses,” “Rainbow Bridge,” “Road
to Oneself” have been published in various
languages. Mirtala received acclaim in the US
and Europe in the 1970s-1980s. Since the early
1990s, her works have been known in Ukraine,
where the artist held a series of solo exhibits and
presentations.
The sculptures she gifted to Ukraine in the
1990s are kept at Ukraine House. This year the
Kyiv-Dakar-Paris publishers have launched
quite an interesting project, “The Pylypenko
Family’s Artistic and Scholarly Legacy: from Soviet
Totalitarianism to US Democracy,” dedicated
to her family, including Mirtala’s father Serhii
Pylypenko, a well-known Ukrainian writer
and civic activist, founder of the Pluh League of
Peasant Writers, and her sister Assya Humesky
(Humetska), Professor of Slavic Languages and
Literatures at the University of Michigan. Her
sculptures will travel across Ukraine together
with the publication project.
“It is symbolic that this presentation tour
began at Ostroh Academy, for Mirtala is a true
friend of the university. As our museum’s
standing exposition contains a collection of
Mirtala Pylypenko’s sculptures, it is really a
big feast for us. The exhibit displays an interesting
profile of her oeuvre. It is 25 works of
various years and series, in which the author
takes, by her tradition and in her style, a philosophic
approach to the treatment of space,
time, and being. For every visitor, it is an opportunity
to relax and abstract away from the
outside world and commonplace problems. Her
works make us think, perceive, and feel,” said
Anastasia Kheleniuk, director of Ostroh Academy’s
Museum of History.
According to art critic Mykola Bendiuk, each
work has its own subtext laid down by the sculptor.
Yet they can be interpreted in different
ways, for this makes it possible to do contemporary
art.
“In addition to instilling a certain philosophical
thought into every sculpture, Mirtala
writes poems to them. Superimposing visitors’
reflections on the artist’s thought is a most interesting
process. One can look at each work for
quite a long time – first you think what it means
and then you read what the artist wanted to express,”
Bendiuk said.
By Hanna PAROVATKINA
Photos by Artem SLIPACHUK, The Day
Let us recall that the Wall, which was more
than 200 meters long, took 13 years to
erect in the Baikove Cemetery, only for it
to be concreted over by the order of the
Communist leadership in 1982, and stay
unrestored for over 30 years! At the opening
ceremony, one of the authors of the Wall,
Volodymyr Melnychenko, was joined by Kyiv
City State Administration officials and
organizers of the Kyiv Art Week as they
launched restoration work on one of the capital’s
most significant memorials...
The Kyiv Art Week, which this year was held
from May 18 through 27, is an international festival
of art which is being held for the third year
in a row. The event involved: exhibitions in
12 artistic spaces of the capital, including the
leading museums; discussions and lectures; film
screenings and musical parties; and also a fiveday-long
artwork fair. However, the best-known
contemporary art festival to be held in the capital
tries, first of all, to create a better future of art
rather than lament past glories. It is no wonder,
then, that it has even managed to turn a past defeat
into a future victory. The “Funnel of Time”
exhibition, curated by Viktoria Burlaka, Andrii
Sydorenko, and Viacheslav Tuzov, sent a clear
signal on the “futurological” direction of the Kyiv
Art Week. Launched in the framework of the festival
at the Ukrainian Institute of Contemporary
Art Problems, the exposition included works by
young Ukrainian artists. The only participant
who is likely well-known among contemporary art
aficionados was Anton Lohov. Specially for the
project, he created a large-scale installation.
By inviting young people to reflect “on the
time and on themselves,” curators of the “Funnel
of Time” effectively offered each artist the
Never forgotten...
The Kyiv Art Week 2018
opened with a restored
fragment of the Memory Wall
complete freedom to create what they desire in
the manner they prefer.
Something like a majority of “young people”
had opted for “manual labor.” Instead of videos,
they stubbornly created paintings. Installations
and artistic photos occupied the honorable second
position among their interests. Videos, however...
(Yes, Sydorenko himself is a famous
artist, and primarily a painter.) Still, the fact remains
the fact. Also, contemporary painting is,
indeed, coming back into fashion in the West.
The second significant difference was that
humor, irony, and self-irony became for artists
an important means of self-exploration and comprehension
of the Universe around us. For instance,
Anna Lehenka’s installation, which reflected
her contention that “life is reminiscent
of the film Groundhog Day,” contained a desk
with a computer, papers, etc. For a press-papier,
it had... a dildo. Another work worth mentioning
is History.fin by Oleksandra Dotsok. “A crystal
Soviet vase is a symbol of that period of our
history. The first vase is a molded copy of a crystal
vase. Each subsequent one is a copy of the
previous one. These vases are a direct illustration
of the transfer of information
from one source to another. Each subsequent
copy loses details of the previous
one and acquires new ones,” the artist
explained.
Meanwhile, my observations of what
our young artists consider to be a model
for imitation are somewhat disappointing.
This is because it is much too predictable.
I say so after looking at “spatial”
experiments with the help of mirrors
(“like Olafur Eliasson does”) featured
in some works on display, or plaster
casts of the artist’s own arms, legs,
and other body parts (“like Anna Zviahintseva
does”), etc… The Kyiv Art
Week takes place every year, and “live”
art sales are a more accurate indication
of people’s true worth in the world of art
than any competition.
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