Big cities life

Kyiv traffic November 20, 2007

Kyiv…What do you imagine, when you hear about this picturesque, ancient city? You think about beautiful cathedrals, green parks, hospitable and friendly people, fresh air, modern hotels, famous theatres, cinemas, night clubs, restaurants with cuisines from all over the world, and, of course, high temps of development. Well, this is very good for the city to keep high developments temps, but it is crucial to keep up with them. But, unfortunately, today to this list traffic jams can be added. Kyiv faces a number of problems, but decisions to solve major of them need to be created in the nearest year. If not, Kyiv would turn into concrete jungles with carbon monoxide gases instead of air. These problems are: hundreds of thousands of people that come every day in Kyiv from other cities to work; extremely high buying trends of new cars by our “poor” population and the last one is massive buildings construction. When walking through Kyiv’s ancient streets, it is even hard to imagine how construction companies and their engineers could locate such huge buildings on such little places. But this is another excellent theme for a talk. Today, I will let you know something about the traffic in Kyiv.

The main Kyiv’s advantage is that it is located in the center of Europe and combines new, modern life (with new buildings, business centres, shops, new people coming, businesses starting etc.) with old museums, monuments and customs. Its streets are too small and narrow, transport intercharges are too old to allocate hundreds of thouthands of cars, which come in the Ukraine each year.

Every day, when you go to your work and back home, you get stuck in a huge, sometimes kilometres-long traffic jam. When, for example, 5 years ago, people could travel 10 km in 5-7 minutes (in the city boundaries), today you can get stuck without any movement for 1 hour at least. Of course, if you are lucky. What is the problem? The problem is that people becoming richer (by what ways? legal?) and other people are free to use endless credit possibilities that are provided by all Ukrainian and foreign banks. Also, a crazy corruption, that has its influence on major auto schools and Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine rises up a number of “benefits” (drivers’ licences are simply being bought, every police fee can be “solved” with money) and decreases the culture of auto owners. That’s why there are so many car accidents occur. There are no well-situated underground parkings provided. Because of that, car owners park their cars in house yards and on pavements.

Today for the capital of the Ukraine it is hard to cope with that number of cars. At times of USSR, our city was designed to “accept” no more than 300,000 of cars. Nowadays there are more than 1,000,000 of them. And this number increases, because every day, on average 1,500 cars in the Ukraine are bought. Make suggestions on your own here. Kyiv’s city transport does not help too. Our “marshrutkas”, buses, trams and trolleys are too old and slow to travel people on even small distances. And they also stuck in traffic jams.

Because of that, most of the citizens prefer to use the fastest and the most reliable public transport – the underground. It helps you to get almost anywhere you want and as fast as a train can. But, there are problems with our underground system too. It is very overcrowded, even during rush hours, when every train arrives at each station in the range from 35 to 50 seconds. Its system need to be improved more and more each year. New stations and circle lines must be constructed.

Also another problem is a phlegmatic city government that is very “far” from reaching short-term and long-term objectives to solve the problem of city enlargement.

In my opinion, at first what needs to be done is public transports capacity expansion and improvement. Non-contact cards are excellent way to work out the problem of paying for transportation services. Reduction of car buying and intercharges construction (bridges, tunnels, underpasses etc.) It would be a good thing for every citizen to see how deputies from city Parliament travel on public transport. This may work, if they see this horror in transport.

A new Hope November 18, 2007

Last months made people express strained attention to everything that was happening on Ukrainian political arena. Almost three weeks have passed after other re-elections that took place on the 30^th of September in Ukraine.

After previous elections, when “Anticrisis coalition” was formed by Party of Regions, Communists party and Socialists party of Ukraine, this parties tried to concentrate the whole governing power in their hands by attracting other politics to form Constitutional majority (300 deputies from 450). Such actions could have lead to unpredictable future like usurpation of the governing power.

Ukrainian Parliament’s (Verkhovna Rada) opposition with its leader Yuliia Tymoshenko applied to Constitutional Court of Ukraine with the request to interfere into the political process. Also our president Mr. Yushenko started to think how this hopeless situation and political crisis in our country can be changed. The decision was to dismiss Verkhovna Rada and appoint new elections on the 30^th of September.

Ukrainian people are tired of such uncertainty, endless discussions on major Ukrainian TV channels; they want to live in a stable and safe country, without being involved in politics.

Past months showed that Ukrainian economy is unstable. A crazy inflation, which was noticed by all the population, was followed by governing Party of Region TV ads, which claimed that everything is good and economy has its development boom. In my opinion that was simply ridiculous.

Ukrainian pre-elections advertising campaign remembered me the times of Soviet Union, when there was such term as “cult of the personality”. Every huge campaign was built on its leader: Party of Regions-Viktor Yanukovich, BYUT- Yuliia Tymoshenko, Blok Lyvyna-Volodymyr Lytvyn. Small parties like Communist and Socialist were a little bit restrained and built their campaigns on their political “experience”. NUNS – the third party, who won the re-elections has five leaders and advertised them. In the capital of Ukraine, many people felt uncomfortable because ONLY political ads on TV, radio, bigboards, flags, kiosks on the streets etc. Relying on the statistical data, the biggest advertising campaign was BYUT’s and Party of Regions’. Making a suggestion, when there are elections in our country, there is nothing to watch on TV, listen on radio stations, and surf Ukrainian web-sites on the Internet.

So, the elections are finished, country is “waking up”. The results of elections were predictable: people voted mostly for future “Democracy coalition” and they didn’t let Socialists Party with its leader Oleksandr Moroz to government, because of his betrayal of democratic parties last year. There are five parties going to enter “renewed” Verkhovna Rada: Party of Regions – 34,37%

(8 013 918 votes), BYUT – 30,71% (7 162 174 votes), NUNS – 14,15% (3 301 012 votes), Communists Party of Ukraine – 5,39% (1 257 397 votes) and Blok Lytvyna – 3,96% (924 568 votes).

Today coalition-forming processes are finishing. Two parties are most likely applicants to rule the country in nearest 2 years,  before new president’s elections. BYUT and NUNS have already developed a plan, how the governing power is goning to be divided in the country. Yuliia Tymoshenko’s team will receive all the economic positions and levers to regulate economy.

Thus, if something goes wrong, we can accuse BYUT’s team.

Respectable foreign observers said that elections in Ukraine were held according to all democracy norms and there were almost none violations. Well, people in Ukraine can not check that, so they can only trust.

In conclusion, Ukrainian political world is very uncertain and there can a lot of interesting and unforeseeable actions happen in the nearest future: coalition can be formed in other way, another political crisis that will be followed by economical decrease etc. And many of Ukrainian people left off keeping up with the latest news, betrayals and nonsense discussions. Our economy has partly separated from politics and develops itself by simple people, workers, and managers. And if people nowadays want to see and make changes in Ukraine, the last powerful thing left – hope. Hope for the best.

politicized song contest, that does not influence on anything May 13, 2007

Yesterday, the Eurovision song contest finished with a pleasure for Serbia. Mariya Sherifovich, the representative of the country with her song “Molitva” won the famous European contest. Today Eurovision is 52 years old. Once, it was won by a popular group ABBA. As far as I remember, I started watching the contest since the first participation of Ukraine in it. And it was very interesting to keep an eye on every our participant after. And at that time, I haven’t seen and completely realized the political side of this contest. Ukraine is still not so well-known throughout the world, but thanks to those people, who made a good “PR” for us; they are mostly sportsmen – footballer Andrey Shevchenko, boxers-brothers Klitschko, swimmers Oleg Lisogor and Jana Klotshkova, gymnast Liliya Podkopayeva, businessman Viktor Pinchuck and of course Ruslana Lizhichko, the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 and others.

I remember myself, when I had an euphoria, when I found out that Ukraine won this contest. 2004 year was the year of great changes in Ukraine. I can truly say, that it was FAIR VICTORY of UKRAINE. So, after these news, a crazy rush started in our country. Everyone was worried about our situation, about how we will accommodate tourists and present them Kyiv and the whole country. But the contest finished and Ukraine began to live it’s casual life.

Nowadays, I realized…I saw the tendency in most of the countries, that it is very good and “polite” to give the highest points to your geographical neighbor. In my opinion it is not fair, because those simple things that ought to influence more on the choice of people are ignored today. They are: the representative, the song and the power of his/her voice. Also, when ABBA won this competition, it gave the group a world popularity, but nowadays we can not really see the winners on our TV screens, on concerts, Internet and even radio after their victories.

But I can not say anything bad against SERBIA, it was a TRUE VICTORY and every every Mariya’s characteristic was taken into account: appearance, song, voice and performance. But again, many post-Yugoslavian countries voted maximally for her. Why this contest does not give anything, because it really doesn’t influence drastically on the economic growth and flow of investment into the winner-country, on country’s image abroad or on participants’ works.

These two tendencies, politicization and not influence are main peculiarities of today’s song contest. It is very pitiful, that all this happens. And we can only hope for some changes in rules.

Ukraine became the second this year. We were presented by national artist Andrej Danilko, who performed as a woman Verka Serduchka, his famous pseudonym and appearance. He is very well-known in Ukraine and abroad. I remember he performed on TV for the first time more than 10 years ago. I think he is a self-made man and Ukrainians are proud of him. He is really talented. The difference in points between Ukraine and Serbia was minimal, Serbia was upper by 32 points. (268 against 236)

Serbia was unconditionally the best this time.

Don’t pay for your death May 8, 2007

The worst things that were invented by humankind are DRUGS. For what they exist? For who? Why are they so popular and why it is so “cool” to use them? My dream since childhood (imagine, many of young Ukrainians at those time and ESPECIALLY today are aware what DRUGS are and where can they be bought;at least, it’s crazy!) is to look into the eyes of that IDIOT who invented DRUGS and made them circulate through modern society so fast and so freely. I became amazed every time, when I hear about the amounts of DRUGS that were taken by people. For example, today I visited the news web-site and what do you think I’ve found there? Very very “happy” news about the raid of police that was held from 10th to 25th of April in schools and universities of Ukraine. People withdrawed 35 kilograms of DRUGS. CAN YOU IMAGINE??? 35 KILOGRAMS IN SCHOOLS. From where? How? Why?

Some time ago I commented on epos032 weblog and told him my story that I faced half a year ago. My classmates involved themselves in this crazy DRUGS business, that has no sense too. When I found it out I was shocked and still feel the same, a shock. Why they did this and why this culture influences so hard on us? I answer this question to myself every day since log time ago…and, unfortunately, I can not find the right answer. But, may be this new “club culture” can find the answer, for people who like to feel the ecstasy. Today’s youth interests are very similar: “be stupid is cool”, “get drunk is cool”, “take drugs is cool” and “we are not interested in anythnig, because we are all adults already”. Those are the principles of today’s club-drug-drunk-stupid (you can use an abbreviation CDDS, I came up with this this idea today) youth and CDDS culture.

But DRUGS can be useful for people. And very useful. I can’t argue with this. Because there are suck illnesses that can not be cured by  medicines only; something must ease the pain. In such hard cases DRUGS came to help. But of course doctors musty realize and know how to measure out in doses those parts.

Also, I read an article somewhere a year ago and it showed a table that every month the amount of people, who take drugs increases drastically, by 500,000 in Europe.

The situation with alcohol, drugs and cigarettes in Ukraine is worser.

Ukraine is unique county. It has an epidemic of tuberculosis, AIDS and has problems with people who get themselves drunk very often. But why many of us kill themselves ALSO by taking DRUGS. The sense of DRUGS is “you pay, you die”. Nothing complicated. Why don’t CDDS people understand this simple rule?

So, please, people, BE CAREFUL and THINK BEFORE you do something!

Political crisis in the Ukraine ends May 8, 2007

A few days ago an unbelievable thing happened. Our two raging political opponents dealt with each other. They are the Head of the country Mr. Yushenko and our Prime-minister Mr. Yanukovich, who left the Ukraine yesterday and gone to Barcelona to cure his ankle. The answer is “How can Ukrainian medicine be better, if our major politics and well-known persons went to treat themselves abroad?..” Also there is a version that he flew to Moscow in order to get consultancy from Russian government about the situation in Ukraine and what to do next. But this is another theme for discussion or informal talk…  Last months made people express strained attention to everything that was happening on our political arena. The Anticrisis coalition that was formed by Yanukovich, the Head of Verkhovna Rada, Moroz and the Head of Communist party, Symonenko was hoping in their rightness and their govern power until the last moment. This last moment or moments were hard and long talks between the President and the Prime-Minister. There are many thoughts and guesses about their final talk, which was held yestaerday, on the 7th of May, but I think that their “deal”-list consists from mainly Presidential offers, because Yanukovich and his team are still frighten him. The main point and plus for Yanukovich is, I think that President leaves him as our Prime-Minister, but he and his team need to adopt some laws, that give the whole major power to President and also a series of laws for Verkhovna Rada and Constitution. In my opinion this is the most likable scenario for the development of nearest future events.

Me, My family, Friends hope for the best. And we believe in Ukraine. Every of us, Ukrainians, is confident, that these crisises, “revolutions” and  events foretell only the best for the Ukraine and can lead to the raise of self-confidence of Ukrainian people.

The “soul” of your work April 30, 2007

The magic, power and “soul” of every work or research paper are quotes. Only they can support your work as nothing else can. Why? Really…why?

Because while doing your research you are obliged to use as many sources of information as you can. The use of quotes is crucial. They “assist” writer in his work. They present and support the idea that writer tries to tell his readers about.

This time I included 7 or 8 quotes in my paper about my grandfather, surgeon Anatoliy Makarov. Many of them I found in the book called “The invitation to talk”, other from EBSCOhost and some printed sources.

Also me and Masha interviewed my grandpa to get to know many things and details about his interesting life and Soviet medicine.

It was really-really great. 🙂

–Wherein is the power? – I asked

–the power is in quotes! – answered Mariya 🙂 🙂

English Composition course to end April 30, 2007

On Friday, 28th of April we visited Mrs. Gray at American Embassy on Hlybochytska street in Kyiv. Next time we will see our ECII instructor in Fall semester. The ECII course has finished and we can sum up the whole baggage of knowledge we got during the study-year. I think, this class was a great one. The most important thing I learned for myself is the ability to write good essays and to do research in a plenty of Kyiv’s libraries. Also it was very useful for me to use EBSCOhost as one of the main sources of information.

For us,1-st year students, Mrs. Gray did a lot. She taught us many helpful things; she arranged many meetings with interesting people and she was ready to help at any time. In other words, our whole course was very-very exciting.

I especially liked doing research and talking to many people, who came to us. Another crucial thing for us was finding out information about our OWN history and talking to people (making interviews) who lived in Soviet times. We made History Matters presentations for our dear guests, Mr. Taylor, American Ambassador, McMurrin’s Widows and other interesting people.

What I adored much is writing blogs. It is an interesting idea to get everybody involved in doing their homework with the use of latest technologies via Internet.

We are impatiently waiting for the next year; to start working and doing research again. 😉 🙂 I want to thank you, Mrs.Gray, again for such an interesting course.

My qoutes April 20, 2007

1)

n“I have had great teachers in my life that

helped me to chose my future and gain

more experience”

2)  “Doctors must be always responsible about their patients”

3) “All my life is dedicated to work”

Also, there be much more included in the research paper

n

My journal articles April 20, 2007

I found 3 articles about my grandfather(2 of them are in Ukrainian, another is in English).

 1) Sabadash, Elvira. “Приглашение к разговору[The invitation to talk]”. Kiev: Здоров’я України, 2005.

2) “До 70-річчя від Дня народження Анатолія Васильовича Макарова.[To the 70-year Birthday of A.V. Makarov]” Хірургія України January 2007: 5-6.

3) “Industry news”. February 2007: 14.  (it is taken via EbscoHOST)

My thesis statement April 20, 2007

Those people, who have had not any hesitation by choosing their future and those who have not regret any time about their choice made to whom my grandfather, Makarov Anatoliy Vasiliyevich is related, serve with belief and truth to their work.