CANADA COURIER: Ukraine's culture minister comes calling (08/16/98)

CANADA COURIER

by Christopher Guly

Ukraine's culture minister comes calling

On Canada Day, July 1, Dmytro Ostapenko played tourist in Ottawa with his fellow culture ministers from 20 countries at the invitation of their Canadian counterpart, Heritage Minister Sheila Copps.

Mr. Ostapenko, Ukraine's minister of culture and arts since 1995 and former director-general of the Kyiv Philharmonic Orchestra, now would like Canadians to play tourist in his country. There's much to choose from: operas, ballets and philharmonic orchestras in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa and Kharkiv.

So, it's not so much a case of building the attractions with the result that the people will come; Ukraine needs to promote the attractions it already has.

"It requires an exposé that this exists and for the Canadian public to get interested," said Oksana Bashuk Hepburn, who in May was elected president of the Ottawa branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. "What we're interested in is getting the word out that Ukraine is a thriving country. Its arts are thriving and it has a lot to offer a tourist, especially someone seeking a new cultural geographic venue."

And, Ukraine's tourism potential extends beyond its arts scene, said Ms. Bashuk Hepburn, who owns a bilateral business development company called U-CAN: Ukraine Canada Relations Inc.

"The Ukrainians discovered horseback riding. Europe didn't know that horses could be mounted before the Kozaks brought that into Europe and they have phenomenal horse shows that would complement the Mounties' horse rides very nicely," she observed.

But, as Mr. Ostapenko told some 90 members of the community assembled at the Ukrainian Catholic national shrine here on July 2, Ukraine, like Canada, has a bugbear to overcome in promoting its culture. In Ukraine, it's Russia's domination of the entertainment industry. In Canada, it's a similar influence coming from the United States.

Indeed, the ministers who gathered at the first International Meeting on Cultural Policy hosted by Ms. Copps in Ottawa, agreed to further discuss the idea of creating a new international television service which could go head-to-head against CNN.

Other items on the table for future meetings include:

a World Bank lending program for culture and development;
a cultural plan being developed by the Organization of American States;
a world meeting on culture and violence to be held in Canada; and
a project to build a global network of cultural Internet sites, spearheaded by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

The group also agreed to establish a "contact group" involving representatives from Canada, Sweden, Mexico and Greece - the latter two countries will host subsequent cultural ministers' meetings.

For his part, Mr. Ostapenko met with Ms. Copps and Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy to discuss the establishment of a bilateral cultural agreement between Canada and Ukraine, which Prime Minister Jean Chrétien is to sign when he visits Ukraine in January.

The Ukrainian culture minister also called on the Ukrainian Canadian Congress to support his country's educational system by sending textbooks and the like. In turn, the UCC asked Mr. Ostapenko to send Ukrainian artifacts to Canada that would be housed in the proposed genocide museum in Ottawa.

Given Ukraine's independence, groups like the UCC have access "to the roots of Ukrainian culture," Ms. Bashuk Hepburn said. "Before we did it by remembering what we brought over. Now we have access to the source and the riches of that culture, which we didn't have access to under the Soviet Union."

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