Ukraine's Orange Sunset

[LAz]

Skank lost. Eu is not being enlarged through the addition of (the)ukraine. Cheers.

 

[andrewmp]

If one thing Lenin had right it was the useful idiots

 

[LAz]

Meh, don't worry man. ukies and russians go together, unlike cyrillic and latin.



On topic - official election site... http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=uk&tl=en&u=http://www.cvk.gov.ua/vp2010/wp0011.html

 

[andrewmp]

Thanks for bringing your Putin brainwashing to Toronto - it's no surprise how this city has been going downhill

 

[urbandreamer]

It was always interesting travelling from Kiev to Warsaw--Poland seemed so much more relaxed, modern etc than backward Ukraine.

 

[LAz]

It was always interesting travelling from Kiev to Warsaw--Poland seemed so much more relaxed, modern etc than backward Ukraine.

Give us the details or else what you say is not true!

 

[urbandreamer]

^Ukraine: very cold (Russians: Ice cold) ppl. Poland: cold. The closer you move to France, the more open and friendly the people become. The closer you move to Germany, the more organized and modern Europe feels. Ukraine--need to bribe officials to get anything done; Poland--almost feels like you're in Canada in comparison!

 

[vz64]

Intersting article in Newsweek discussing how Yanukovich victory can be good for Ukraine. Some observations:

"Irritating Moscow may have played well with a hard core of Ukrainian nationalists concentrated in the west of the country, but it did Ukraine as a whole no good at all. The gas cutoffs of 2006 and 2007 that followed Ukraine's failures to pay for its gas supplies (and badly damaged its reputation as a secure transit country) are just the most obvious examples. Endless tension with Russia increased the political risk for foreign investors and depressed the economy.

That in turn meant that Ukraine failed dismally to diversify away from rust-belt Soviet industries like steel and aluminum production, which it badly needs to do if it's to have any hope of real economic recovery."

I grew up in eastern Ukraine; back in 70th-80th Ukraine was industrial (east) and agricultural (center and west) powerhouse of USSR. The living standards there were considerably higher than in Russia (well, with exception of Moscow and Leningrad areas). I remember that visiting some parts of Russia was like flying to Mexico from Canada. Since then the situation completely reversed--travelling from Russia to Ukraine a few years ago was painful... Numbers agreed: Ukrainian GDP per capita in 2009 (~6K) is a fraction of Russian GDP (~15k). I was both skeptical and hopeful of the Orange revolution, but, as history demonstrated again and again, the revolutionary changes bring unintentional consequences...

 

[LAz]

I was both skeptical and hopeful of the Orange revolution, but, as history demonstrated again and again, the revolutionary changes bring unintentional consequences...

The quasi-revolution was not a democratic thing. It was funded by the West. The intentions from the start were bad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa

Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box.

...

The Democratic party's National Democratic Institute, the Republican party's International Republican Institute, the US state department and USAid are the main agencies involved in these grassroots campaigns as well as the Freedom House NGO and billionaire George Soros's open society institute.

US pollsters and professional consultants are hired to organise focus groups and use psephological data to plot strategy.

The usually fractious oppositions have to be united behind a single candidate if there is to be any chance of unseating the regime. That leader is selected on pragmatic and objective grounds, even if he or she is anti-American.

...

Officially, the US government spent $41m (£21.7m) organising and funding the year-long operation to get rid of Milosevic from October 1999. In Ukraine, the figure is said to be around $14m.









Here is what is in store for ukraine...

Presidential candidate, oppositional Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych, in case of his victory will initiate Ukraine's accession to the Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. He said this during a meeting with nongovernmental organization leaders on Friday, according to National radio.

In development, regionalism is much better for the less developed. Otherwise they can not compete with the more developed. The EU would love to have them - to take their cheap labor in, to replace and assimilate into their societies whose populations are falling.



edit:

Ukraine: very cold (Russians: Ice cold) ppl. Poland: cold. The closer you move to France, the more open and friendly the people become. The closer you move to Germany, the more organized and modern Europe feels. Ukraine--need to bribe officials to get anything done; Poland--almost feels like you're in Canada in comparison!

But but but... Ukraine has subways. Poland can only dream of having such systems. Well, they have one in Warsaw, but it's puny compared to Kiev's or Kharkov's. Well, poland's expanding theirs... while ukraine is not doing anything on theirs - in fact their metro project in donetsk is about to collapse on itself.
In the past it was well known that the orthodox nations were much more warmer than the catholic ones. But, those were old times when there was some prosperity. When things are poor, it all goes to hell.
How are the sidewalks in the two places? Dilapidated buildings and such stuff? The roads? The signage? And such stuff?