REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

Encounters in Donetsk

Perhaps nothing unnerves a Communist more than a photographer.

And nothing amuses an American more than real, live Communists waving red flags in the year 2005.

It's like going on safari and seeing an endangered species of gorillas, I suppose.

Now, I thought humanity had settled this whole Marxist debate by 1991: neat idea, but it doesn't work.

But, as I photographed supporters of Natalia Vitrenko's Progressive Socialist Party huddled around Donetsk's massive Lenin statue, I was approached from behind.

"Amusing, isn't it?" the man asked.

"Oh yes," I responded. "I didn't know Lenin was still so popular. I thought he and Stalin killed a lot of people."

"Where are you from?" the fellow asked.

"I'm an American," I responded.

And so began my conversation with Viktor Shafer. For about 15 minutes, Mr. Shafer explained to me how life was so much better under the Soviet Union and how the American government financed the Orange Revolution in order to set up the puppet government of Viktor Yushchenko in order to destabilize the entire Ukrainian economy.

He explained to me that Slavic people can live only in a socialist economy because it is a higher form of culture.

At the conversation's peak, Mr. Shafer declared, "The Soviet Union was the greatest civilization the world had ever seen!"

Whoa! It became apparent at that point that Mr. Shafer hadn't done much traveling.

However, there were points in our conversation in which I actually agreed and empathized with Mr. Shafer, for example, when he said: "All we have is now anarchy and chaos in Ukraine."

After five months in Ukraine, during which I've seen elderly women begging for pennies next to Mercedes jeeps with 22-year-olds behind the wheel, I can agree with Mr. Shafer that there's a certain lack of socio-economic structure in modern Ukraine. I won't even bother discussing the promiscuous 13-year-olds slinking about the Khreschatyk during the late hours of the night.

About two minutes into our conversation, an energetic 22-year-old named Oleksii Hlushko joined us.

He began to voice his opinions as well, but they were starkly different from those of Mr. Shafer. He dismissed all of Mr. Shafer's Marxist slogans and nostalgia, rolling his eyes at certain moments and eventually telling him to buzz off.

He wanted me to get a more informed point of view and led me to the Ukraine Without Yushchenko pseudo-tent city that he and his group of political activists set up next to Lenin's monument. His group is called, the Union of Those Borne of the Revolution. (Their website is www.souzrr.dn.ua)

What interested me about Mr. Hlushko was that he stated his points unemotionally and tried dealing with facts instead of empty slogans or hyperbole. The guy actually made some valid points that broadened my understanding of Ukrainian politics.

Below I present excerpts of our discussion to demonstrate what the average young Donechanyn is thinking. I also examine some of the statements made to see whether they have any basis in reality.

The more examining I did, the more I realized that the Yanukovych camp has as much a penchant for falsifying facts as they do for falsifying votes.

Mr. Hlushko started: "We don't agree with the term 'Orange Revolution' because a revolution implies that all the people rose up to change the government of a nation, and not a certain limited number of people who captured power and kept devastating certain regions, particularly Donetsk and most eastern oblasts of Ukraine, because people here didn't support Yushchenko when he was prime minister."

"What is the goal of your organization?" I asked.

"The first goal is 'Ukraine Without Yushchenko.' Our organization wants to file a lawsuit against him for splitting Ukraine. He should have to answer for that in court, in front of the law, in front of the people. He's the one who divided Ukraine into two parts - not the territory itself, but the nation. He has said the Russian language will be the language of the minority, but according to statistics, about 85 percent of Ukrainians speak Russian. How can you make the Russian language a minority in Ukraine? This is an obvious example of a national destruction between two peoples - between southeastern and west-central Ukraine. He's igniting fires."

This is definitely a difficult issue. A full 85.2 percent of Ukrainian citizens said Ukrainian, not Russian, is their "ridna mova," or their first language, according to the 2001 census. I'll be the first to admit that it is highly doubtful that 85 percent of Ukrainians actually speak Ukrainian on a day-to-day basis. However, the census didn't pose the question that way.

The Union of Those Borne of the Revolution will likely support the Party of the Regions in the March 26 parliamentary elections, Mr. Hlushko said.

"Though the party is not a well-structured opposition," he said, "we cannot accept the problems that appear now when Yushchenko dominates: 18 percent inflation, though they say that they don't have such a problem ... And they always have quarrels with Russia ... We are Slavs, we are one nation. I have relatives in Russia and Belarus and I do not want them to become our enemies as Ukraine used to be their enemy."

I'm not sure where Mr. Hlushko obtained his economic statistics. In fact, inflation during the first half of 2005 was 6.4 percent, according to the State Statistics Committee.

Mr. Hlushko echoed a pan-Slavic sentiment that is very popular in eastern Ukraine and one often asserted by the Russian Orthodox Church for obvious political reasons. Many anti-Yushchenko protests feature the flag of Derzhava, a pro-Russian political organization that supports the Moscow Patriarchate.

However, when one considers that Poland and Slovakia are Slavic nations that have managed to integrate into the European Union, then the whole pan-Slavic concept becomes quite moot. Besides, what good is all this pan-Slavism if all it means is Moscow dictates to the region?

Besides, "don't you think Russia has had a lousy political record in Ukraine?" I asked.

"In history? Maybe ..." Mr. Hlushko paused. "Yes. But we should not live in the past. We must look forward to the future, not look back. Why, during two years when Yanukovych was a prime minister, we had had friendly relations with Russia and now we've got many problems ... with oil and gas. From July 1, municipal service payments have increased. For example, in the Makiyivka-Donetsk region, municipal service payments have already risen 120 percent in accordance with the prime minister's decree."

In fact, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko issued a recommendation for higher payments, not a decree. And, so far, no costs for municipal services have increased, said Valentyn Vasylovskyi, an aide to the assistant chair of the Donetsk Regional State Administration. Such increases are planned for August however, although the rate is still unknown, he said.

"Do you think Boris Kolesnykov is an innocent man?" I asked.

"Our organization supports Boris Kolesnykov ... because this man didn't break the law ... All his constitutional rights were violated, and there are 28 laws that were broken by the procurator general ... The commission created by the Rada in order to examine the case of the Kolesnykov detention made a conclusion that his constitutional rights were infringed upon and he should be released on his own recognizance. But neither [Internal Affairs Minister Yurii] Lutsenko nor [Procurator General Sviatoslav] Piskun agreed to a compromise - they are afraid that this man will be able to lead the people into rebellion as a Party of the Regions leader because of unjust actions against Ukrainian people."

It has yet to be proven whether Mr. Kolesnykov, a Donetsk businessman and former oblast council head, actually broke the law. Authorities arrested him on April 6 and charged him with extortion. He allegedly led a campaign of threats and violence, including two bombings and a spray of machine-gun fire, to pressure another businessman into selling his shares in a Donetsk department store at a discount.

No lawsuit has been filed against Procurator General Piskun for breaking any laws in his handling of the Kolesnykov case, according to his office. A Verkhovna Rada commission examining the upholding of constitutional rights in Ukraine also examined the Kolesnykov detention and determined that some law-enforcement procedures were violated, said Yurii Syrotiuk, the editor of Deputat, a prime website for Verkhovna Rada analysis. However, the committee never recommended any action and never determined that Mr. Kolesnykov should be released from custody, Mr. Syrotiuk explained.

"Do you consider yourself to be a patriot of Ukraine or Russia?" I querid.

"I am a patriot of Donbas," Mr. Hlushko replied. "I am a patriot of my motherland. Why am I forbidden to speak Russian? I speak Russian and I think in Russian. I can speak Ukrainian, but I like Russian more because this is the language of my father, grandfather and great-grandfather ... I learned it with my mother's milk. Russian is more native to me than Ukrainian."

Mr. Hlushko makes an interesting point. During my time in Donetsk, I was surprised to learn that many Donetsk residents consider themselves Donechany above all other identities, including Ukrainian.

They have a unique loyalty to the Donbas, similar to how the Lemko people prefer to refer to their ethnographic region, instead of saying they are Polish or Ukrainian.

And I can't blame someone for wanting to speak in the language that his family has spoken for generations. At a minimum, however, a Ukrainian citizen should at least know how to speak, read and write Ukrainian. Actually using the Ukrainian language can only depend upon a person's free will, unless an employer requires that Ukrainian be spoken.

I continued the conversation by asking: "Do you think there will always be problems in Ukraine?"

"This situation is becoming a boiling pot. And if the government keeps on being inactive and passive, the wave of rebellion will rise ... After the congress in Severodonetsk, he [Mr. Kolesnykov] was first accused on a charge of separatism. But we didn't want to separate Ukraine ... We wanted to divide it economically ... Let Ukraine be together, but we wanted the money we earn in metallurgy, in mines to stay here. We give 70 percent into the treasury and live on 30 percent. And I want this situation to be the other way around as in Poland, which is a federal state. In Poland, they give 30 percent, and they live on 70 percent. Why can't we do that?" Mr. Hlushko asked.

Mr. Hlushko's comment reflects a sentiment in Donetsk that the oblast is an economic powerhouse frequently exploited by the central Ukrainian government. It proved challenging to reach a government official to confirm whether Mr. Hlushko's statement was true. However, it states in Ukraine's Budget Code that 75 percent of tax revenues from physical entities, or individual income earners, goes to the oblast budget. Further tax information was not available.

As for the comparisons with Poland, that nation identifies itself as a democratic state, not the federal republic that its neighbor, Germany, is. The distribution of tax revenues is also a bit more complex there. Polish government revenues are based on income taxes derived from physical entities (individual income-earners) and legal entities (business enterprises), according to Anna Skovronska-Luchynska, an advisor-envoy at the Polish Embassy in Kyiv.

The Polish central government receives about 35 percent of taxes collected from the physical entities and 90 percent of the taxes collected from business enterprises, she said. Given that taxes obtained from businesses are always significantly higher than those received from individuals, Mr. Hlushko's estimate of only 30 percent of revenues going to the Polish central government can't be accurate.

At this point, I was graced by the presence of the leader of the Union of Those Borne of the Revolution, Andrii Purgin, who took the baton from Mr. Hlushko.

"The Donetsk Oblast produces 25.5 percent of the GDP in Ukraine. Those five Western oblasts, where about 5 million people live, produce about 2.5 percent of GDP," Mr. Purgin pointed out.

In fact, the Donetsk oblast accounted for 12.4 percent of Ukraine's GDP in 2002, the latest such figure available, according to Tatiana Nikitenko, the assistant chair of the Main Economics Administration in Donetsk.

I asked the 33-year-old Mr. Purgin to give me three examples of how life has gotten worse in Donetsk since Mr. Yushchenko assumed the presidency.

"One example is in Donetsk-Makiyivka, where a big metallurgical integrative business was closed. There are 3,000 unemployed now. The second example is that for the last one and a half months miners haven't received a salary. People have been working without pay. There has been a total reduction in places to work. My mother works as a mayor's substitute in a suburb. They decreased the staff of the health center, closed a kindergarten, a library ... Teaching jobs are being cut," Mr. Purgin continued. "These things are happening because the local budget is empty. The economy has been deteriorating so quickly you can't even keep track of the process."

Apparently, the metallurgical business to which Mr. Purgin is referring has been under repair between May and August, said Hennadii Diukarev, the first assistant chair of the Main Industry and Energy Administration. No one was laid off from this metallurgical plant, he said, and all industrial workers in the oblast have been paid to the last kopiyka, he said.

Unemployment in Ukraine was 3.0 percent in June 2005, compared with 3.5 percent as of December 2004, but these statistics are largely meaningless because we all know unemployment is far worse in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government hasn't posted any unemployment statistics per oblast on the State Statistics Committee website.

"They want to transform me into a Ukrainian though there are eight different nationalities mixed in my blood, and my surname is Russian ... I feel as though I'm a Donechanyn. I'm not a Russian or a Ukrainian. If they want to force me to join the Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate where they pray in Ukrainian, when the whole Orthodox Church prays in Old Church Slavonic, then they've created a new religion, because that is not the Orthodox belief," Mr. Purgin related.

"I want to be a citizen of this country, but I want my rights to be respected. If my rights are to be respected, then in Donetsk 99 percent of people speak Russian and 70 percent do not understand Ukrainian. People are forced to fill out inquiries or some other documents and to read these in Ukrainian, especially old people. There is one more problem - to find a non-Ukrainian television channel. My grandparents have a problem of finding out what is going on in the country ... They lived in the times of the USSR and it wasn't necessary to know Ukrainian. Their rights are being violated," he argued.

No one's transforming Mr. Purgin into a Ukrainian because he is already a Ukrainian just by the fact of his citizenship. Unfortunately for him, I suppose, there is no Donechanyn citizenship status available - or not yet anyway. And no one is forcing Mr. Purgin to join any Church.

According to the 2001 census, 24.1 percent of Donetsk Oblast residents said their native language is Ukrainian. Therefore, I find it very hard to believe that 70 percent of Donechany don't understand Ukrainian. Having just spent nearly a week in Donetsk, I think Mr. Purgin can sleep well at night because there is no shortage of Russian-language television programming in Donetsk, or in Lviv for that matter.

"Don't you think that Kuchma and his clan are guilty of stealing and corruption?" I asked.

Mr. Purgin's answer didn't make much sense: "If our government and our president are not implicated, they're not guilty of what happened. The oligarchs are guilty, and bad Donbas [a slang reference to the region's criminal element] is guilty ... If the government is not implicated, and it cannot master the power they were given, maybe we do not need such a government and such a president."

Pessimism is growing in Ukraine and there are many problems in the economy, Mr. Purgin said.

"The specific structure of Donbas is that 5 million people live on a small piece of land. I have no potatoes in my cellar. I have no land. I buy all my food at the market. If I am not paid, my family will starve. If you talk about a peasant, he can slaughter a chicken or a duck and he won't starve. He will have no money, but he won't starve. Here, 80 percent of people will starve," he said.

Mr. Purgin makes a valid point about the unique limitations placed on those Ukrainians living in dense, urban environments such as Donetsk. However, aside from some homeless people, perhaps, no one is starving to death in Donbas. One cannot even compare the improved economic conditions of today with those hyperinflationary conditions of the early 1990s, when stores were virtually empty. It's as though their contempt for Mr. Yushchenko has created a tunnel vision in these people's minds.

"We were separated for about 600 years and then we were united and told to live in this country and that we are one nation. We are not one nation. In Western region, they do not speak Ukrainian. Half of their language is Polish. It's a mixture of Slovak and Polish and so on. It's not a Ukrainian language at all," Mr. Purgin stated.

No comment on that misrepresentation.

Mr. Purgin returned to the Kolesnykov matter: "Do you know how they put Kolesnykov into prison? Somebody came and said that he threatened this person. It's the same as if I came and said that you hit an old man with your car and you were put in prison, even if there were no body, no evidence. That is the way Kolesnykov was imprisoned. Somebody said that Kolesnykov tried to get shares from that person. And Kolesnykov has been in prison for four months. The same situation could never happen in Europe, but in Ukraine everything is possible. Even if they prove that Kolesnykov is not guilty, another person will come and testify that he threatened and so on."

When appearing before the Verkhovna Rada two days after Mr. Kolesnykov's arrest, Internal Affairs Minister Lutsenko said no laws were broken in Mr. Kolesnykov's arrest. As for accusations that Mr. Kolesnykov was arrested without sufficient evidence, that can't be proven until Kolesnykov's trial, Mr. Lutsenko said. It would be unacceptable to disclose evidence of the investigation before a trial, he said.

"It's a breach of any boundaries of jurisprudence," Mr. Lutsenko said. "If I pass all the evidence of the case into the hands of [national] deputies, I am afraid that tomorrow there won't be many living witnesses."

When I wrapped up my interview with Messrs. Hlushko and Purgin, they concluded by saying that businesses are afraid to contribute to their organization. Instead, they can rely only on small donations made by regular folks who visit their stand at the city center.

I don't know whether to believe that or not.

What's clear is that, if they are acting on their political beliefs, then Mr. Hlushko, Mr. Purgin and their colleagues at the Union of Those Borne of the Revolution have a lot of fears about Ukraine's future. They seem to perceive that they don't fit into a society that is increasingly asserting its independent, Ukrainian identity.

I wouldn't have spent all this time analyzing their arguments if I had met them in a bar drinking beer and shooting their mouths off after a long day in the mines. But they have positioned themselves in the center of Donetsk. They are spreading false information, projecting their own fears and thereby inflaming other people's fears.

I don't think these fellows are intentionally malicious. But misinformation is always dangerous.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 31, 2005, No. 31, Vol. LXXIII

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