online

translation

Ukr Eng

Ukraine does not often grace the international front-page news, and even fewer of them are in a positive context. The war between Russia and Georgia brought about one such occasion:
Ukraine was talked about as one of the next possible states where Russia might try to extend its sphere of influence.
From the time of the Kyiv-Rus, Russia and Ukraine have been intimately linked, the USSR had a Ukrainian ruler in Brezhnev, and the tearing apart of the interlinked industries of the two countries can still be partially felt 17 years after independence. Russians have never really accepted Ukrainian independence, and Russians living in Ukraine will sometimes claim that there really is no independent Ukrainian identity. I have, on occasion, even heard it said that Ukrainian is not a language, but a dialect of Russian. The assertion that any major differences in vocabulary and grammar were created by Ukrainians post-independence, obviously untrue to anybody who has had a look at the facts, shows how much this is a matter of propaganda.
The fear of Russia trying to reclaim parts of Ukraine did not focus on the industrially important and largely Russian-speaking Donbass area, however, as one might at first expect, but on Crimea. Formerly a part of Russia, it was decreed a part of the Soviet Republic of Ukraine in 1954, because of the geographical closeness. The peninsula has a special status as an autonomous republic within the republic of Ukraine, 70% ethnic Russians - and a Russian naval base in Sevastopol, due to be returned to Ukraine in 2017. Popular reasoning in western papers went that Russia might try to incite conflict between the Russians and the Ukrainian and Tatar people, and then step in to protect its citizens. Rumors of Russian passports being issued en masse to create said citizens in distress floated around.
We decided to investigate how much integration of Crimea into Ukraine has been achieved almost two decades after independence from Russia, and what inroads Ukrainian language and culture have made here >>>

Yekaterinburg - Day 3

A café as a cosy office” 

In Yekaterinburg, we have a big mission: we need to update our travel notes. Indeed, being on the road as we currently are, exploring the deep Russian countryside, we often have some troubles to get connected to Internet to write, send and share our adventures.
In Yekaterinburg, we are lucky: just nearby our hotel, we find a cosy café, with a nice atmosphere, and some delicious espressos. Moreover, they offer for free an access to Internet via Wi-Fi! What a paradise for travellers like us! In other words, this is the perfect place to set up our ‘office’ for few days. The waitresses are amused to welcome us some days in a row, just sitting at the very same table everyday and keeping on ordering some espressos! >>>

House slippers of death

My girlfriend's flatmate on the phone sounded scared - really scared. 'Am I cursed to die?' - beyond that she didn't make much sense, as I could see by the look on my girlfriends face. As she put down the phone, I knew our date for tonight was over. She had to go and help. What neither of us foresaw was that for the two of them the night would end with the burning of, among others, some house slippers and sweets.
I have written about before (link to the article on superstitions) how Ukraine is a country where superstitions are very much alive. Just whistle inside a building and you'll see what I mean. There are even new ones created, such as padlocks with the names of fiancées attached to the railings of a particular bridge for good luck >>>