DOUBLE EXPOSURE: Preparing for a trip to Ukraine (06/13/04)

DOUBLE EXPOSURE

by Khristina Lew

Preparing for a trip to Ukraine

I am preparing for a trip to Ukraine, where I have not been in almost four years. I spent a fair amount of time there in the 1990s, first at The Ukrainian Weekly's Kyiv Press Bureau and later on election programs funded by the U.S. government.

I am returning to Ukraine to work on another voter education program.

The last time I was in Kyiv was in September of 2000, and my father and I happened to chance on one of the first demonstrations calling for information on the whereabouts of journalist Heorhii Gongadze. An official investigation later ruled that the decapitated body found in the outskirts of Kyiv was his; his wife and twin daughters now live in the United States.

A lot has happened since then, but a lot remains the same.

In the fall of 2000 President Leonid Kuchma had just begun his second term in office, after defeating Oleksander Moroz, the Socialist, and Petro Symonenko, the Communist, among others, at the polls the previous November.

Ukraine is again preparing for presidential elections, which will take place on October 31 of this year. The field of potential candidates once again includes Messrs. Moroz and Symonenko, and, some surmise, President Kuchma.

Ukraine continues to say it aspires to become a European country, yet it has agreed to join the Single Economic Space with Russia, and will not receive an invitation to join the European Union until 2020, if at all.

Ukraine's cities have flourished with new stores and restaurants, but many Ukrainians work temporarily outside its borders - close to half a million in Italy alone - and send money back to their families to make ends meet.

Ukraine, it seems, is caught in a vacuum, and needs to find its way.

Ukrainians in America always struggle with a dual existence, and while our Ukrainian part may empathize with what's happening over there, we've had quite a lot to deal with over here.

The biggest thing that happened to us was September 11. Many of us were in New York and Washington the day the airplanes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and some of us lost siblings and friends. In the course of a few hours, our sense that America is invincible was shattered. The violence in Ireland or the Congo or Israel suddenly felt very real to us. September 11 forced many of us to examine what it means to be American.

When I returned to New Jersey from my last trip to Ukraine in September 2000, the United States was preparing for a presidential election. Al Gore won the popular vote in November, but George W. Bush took the election with Electoral College votes.

Not a full year later, September 11 happened, and the United States began rooting out terrorists in Afghanistan and, later, Iraq. The United States based its decision to invade Iraq on information that now appears to be untrue, and, suddenly, it became difficult to be American.

All these thoughts play leap frog in my head, as I prepare for my trip to Ukraine. Am I a Ukrainian living in America? An American with roots in Ukraine?

My Ukrainian-born cousin recently returned from a trip to Ukraine after not having been there for seven years. She said that, at first, she couldn't recognize her home town - it had changed so much - but that with time it became more familiar to her.

I am told that the cities I will be visiting - Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Mykolayiv and Kherson - have changed quite a bit since I last saw them. Will I recognize them? And, more importantly, will they become familiar to me?

What about my colleagues and friends? A friend who has been working for free and fair elections in Ukraine since 1994 has declared that this will be his last election campaign. It is extremely difficult to change the Ukrainian mindset, he explains, and he needs to feed his family.

With each year, the number of activists in Ukraine dwindles - my friend, and the journalists Serhii Naboka and Oleksander Kryvenko come to mind. With Ukraine caught in a vacuum, will the upcoming elections even make a difference?

I'll keep you posted.

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