Embassy of Ukraine in Cairo - an update ten years later (05/30/04)

Embassy of Ukraine in Cairo - an update ten years later

by Oksana Zakydalsky

CAIRO - Ten years ago - in March 1994 - I was in Cairo and interviewed Dr. Viktor Nahaichuk, then Ukraine's chargé d'affaires at the Embassy of Ukraine, which had opened the previous year. It was a modest apartment of several rooms in an ordinary high-rise apartment building in downtown Cairo. It was the first Ukrainian Embassy in the Arab world and the first in Africa. (See The Ukrainian Weekly, April 24, 1994).

Ten years later, I'm in Cairo again, at the gate of the Embassy of Ukraine, this time a grand white building behind high bougainvillea-covered walls in Maadi, a Cairo suburb filled with other embassies and ambassadorial residences. Dr. Nahaichuk left several years ago (he is now Ukraine's ambassador in Tunisia) and the current Ukrainian ambassador to Egypt is Andrij Vessolovsky, former minister-counselor (1992-1996) at the Embassy of Ukraine in Ottawa.

Born in 1951, and a career diplomat, Mr. Vessolovsky belongs to the younger post-Soviet generation of Ukrainian diplomats. A former journalist, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1986 and has served in Guinea and Algeria. He came to Cairo in the spring of 2001 and talked fondly of his years in Ottawa, mentioning that one of his sons was studying at the University of Toronto.

Mr. Vessolovsky described the Embassy in Cairo - which also has responsibility for Sudan - as an important one for Ukraine because Egypt is the largest Arab country and working there means having to follow events and politics of other Arab countries. Although the staff is not large - eight diplomats and two support staff - it is a full-service Embassy with a trade and economics attaché, a military attaché and a Consulate.

In the last two years, annual trade between Ukraine and Egypt has reached $300 million (10 years ago it was $55 million), and it consists of mostly Ukrainian exports of metal and metal products and some chemical products. Mr. Vessolovsky explained, "We would like to develop our trade and economic relations in such industries as aerospace and electronics so that we don't rely only on raw materials like metal. We also think there is a future in exporting to Egypt, as the population here is growing but all arable land is taken."

Where Egypt gains from Ukraine is in tourism, which is growing dramatically - in 1999 there were 20,000 visitors from Ukraine; in 2000, 40,000 and in 2003, 76,000. The direct thrice-weekly Kyiv-Cairo flights of 10 years ago no longer exist; instead, flights go directly from Kyiv to Hurghada, a resort area on the Red Sea.

I asked Mr. Vessolovsky if there was a Ukrainian community in Cairo. He answered that the permanent community is made up of families of Ukrainian women who married Egyptians studying in Ukraine and estimated that there were around 200 such families in Cairo. Many of these women kept their Ukrainian citizenship as this gives their children the right to study in Ukraine and allows them to visit relatives back home.

The transitory Ukrainian community of tourists from Ukraine sometimes poses problems for the Embassy - Mr. Vessolovsky was careful to emphasize that they are no different from tourists of any country anywhere. Tourism is a thriving and rapidly growing business in Ukraine and sometimes the tour companies don't do what they promise, leaving people in the lurch and forcing the Consulate to step in. Such problems, he said, take up a lot of time.

I remembered that 10 years ago there were many people from Ukraine working in Cairo - for example, one half of the Cairo Opera House orchestra was recruited in Kyiv. Their pay - $500 per month at the time - was low by European standards but a good salary for Ukrainians. Mr. Vessolovsky explained that the number of such workers had dwindled considerably because their pay has remained the same as it was 10 years ago, while the purchasing power of the money is worth half of what it was a decade earlier. But some of the workers have stayed. The embassy regularly holds concerts and cultural evenings inviting the Ukrainian artists to perform before other diplomats.

I broached the subject of the international sex trade and the trafficking of women from Ukraine. I referred to Victor Malarek's book "The Natashas" which begins with a girl from Kharkiv (with three companions - two from Russia and one from Moldova) arriving at the Cairo airport thinking they are going to jobs in Tel Aviv. In Cairo they are met by some sleazy characters, transported to the desert and handed over to Bedouins who take them across the desert to the Israeli border to join the sex trade. I asked Mr. Vessolovsky if, in his official capacity, he had come across the problem of the trafficking of Ukrainian women.

Mr. Vessolovsky replied that, although he had not read the book, "I think it's misleading to have it begin here - to introduce the topic using Cairo. In Cairo there is a very small number of Ukrainian women involved in providing sexual services. There are many more of them in Istanbul, Athens, Rome or Tel Aviv. The Egyptian government is very aware of the problem and is taking measures to make sure that, at least, it does not find root in Egypt. Just recently it passed a regulation whereby single women under 25 are not let into Egypt."

"This sex trade takes root where there is acquiescence, where both the authorities and the people shut their eyes to it. To establish oneself as a prostitute in Cairo is very difficult. Prostitution - although it exists here - is not a major problem for our city. Most of the women who come through Egypt head to Israel. I would guess that out of any 150 members of a tourist group, at most five are women who have set out to work as prostitutes. They have made previous arrangements to meet with people who will guide them to places where they can ply their trade," he added.

I pointed out that Mr. Malarek's book shows that the women who are enticed into the sex trade are not really prostitutes, that an international organized crime network preys on those who want to find work outside Ukraine and are not aware of what they are getting into.

Mr. Vessolovsky answered, "I'm familiar with this point of view, but I don't wholly agree with it. Although I am not an expert in this matter - I am sure Mr. Malarek studied this issue and knows it very well. I don't want to contradict him, but I would like to say that this talk of enticing innocent girls who were told that they would look after old people or mind children or work in orchards picking fruit - there are very few such cases. All the more so in Ukraine where society is very well aware of what these girls are getting into. They have enough information to know what is going on. We've had cases where we've pulled our girls out of very sticky situations, helped them, sent them home - and a month or two later, they were back. Such women know very well where and for what they are going. Although I agree that Ukraine today is no paradise, many of those who can't cope become desperate and are ready to do anything to get out," he explained.

He continued, "We also come across women who come to live in Egypt, who end up in circumstances they were not expecting. The rules of Egyptian family life can be very different from such rules in Ukraine. Most of the mixed marriages here work out well, but there are those that don't. The rules here are based on Egyptian traditions and customs, and anyone who contemplates coming to live here should find out what these are. Sometimes women who are unprepared for life here come to the Embassy for help and shelter."

What was the image of Ukraine among Egyptians? The image, Mr. Vessolovsky said, is mostly positive. Egyptians are interested in Ukraine. Ukraine has a long-standing relationship with Egypt. Many Egyptians studied in Ukraine and many Ukrainians worked in Egypt on various construction projects such as the Aswan dam. According to the ambassador, there are no controversial issues or important differences between Egypt and Ukraine at this time.

I asked Mr. Vessolovsky in what way working in Cairo differed from working in Ottawa. He laughed and answered, "In every way. Even in such details as riding in the diplomatic car: here the way is cleared for you; in Ottawa nobody notices. Consideration, hierarchy and what I would call slowness are the characteristics of society here. Nobody hurries anywhere - there is always time enough. Whereas in Canada, the effectiveness of your working life is measured by how clearly you have marked out your time and how carefully you keep to your schedule. I believe you have to make yourself function in any society and be prepared to work within it. For example, to cross over from a formal to a friendship-based working relationship is much harder in Egypt than in Canada, but once you have crossed that line, you have a more open and sincere colleague in the Egyptian than you would in a Canadian."

I asked him if he missed having a Ukrainian diaspora here as he had in Canada, or does not having one make life easier. "I had extensive relations with the Ukrainian community in Canada - in Ottawa, Toronto and Winnipeg. I corresponded with former Governor-General Raymond Hnatyshyn up to 2002. Such relations helped in many situations - for example, I could consult on issues where it would not have been comfortable for me to ask a stranger. There were some differing points of view between the diaspora community and us," he said.

At the end of our meeting, the ambassador took me to the Embassy reading room, which houses the Adrian Hromiak Memorial Library. Mr. Hromiak, who was from Chicago, worked in Cairo for many years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and during that time established friendly contacts with the Embassy of Ukraine. After he died in 1996, memorial donations were used to establish a library in his name at the Embassy of Ukraine in Cairo.

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