Ukraine: Cyprus ripples not negligible.
News headlines about a Cyprus-crisis contagion have so far focused largely on Slovenia, Malta, Italy and Spain.

But Ukraine could also take a hit. While Ukrainian businesses are said to have possibly just $1-3bn in Cyprus – much less than the $30bn that has been estimated for Russia – if this money gets confiscated by the bailout levy or tied up by financial transaction limitations, it could be enough to tip the country’s troubled economy deeper into crisis.

As London-based Capital Economics points out in a report this week, the Cyprus bailout deal “may pose much bigger risks for Ukraine, which is already on the brink of a balance of payments crisis.”

Russian and Ukrainian businesses, it said, “appear to be using Cyprus for their financial transactions to pay for imports and to receive payments for exports for tax optimisation reasons. When the money comes back to Russia/Ukraine, it shows up as FDI inflows on the capital account, rather than as export earnings on the current account.”

This would explain why “tiny Cyprus” is Ukraine’s main source of investment, accounting for some 30 per cent of FDI.

From Capital Economics:

The introduction of capital controls in Cyprus risks disrupting these flows, which may ultimately affect business activity and hit vital capital inflows. In marked contrast to Russia, Ukraine’s economy is already on the brink of a balance of payments crisis. The current account deficit is currently at a record high of 8% of GDP, and on top of this Ukraine is facing an onerous external debt repayment schedule, with a total of over $55bn due to be repaid this year. We estimate that Ukraine’s total external financing requirement over the next 12 months stands at close to 40% of GDP. At the same time, Ukraine’s FX reserves have dropped below three months of import cover, which is the minimum recommended reserve coverage by the IMF. To make matters worse, the economy slipped back into recession towards the end of last year. And despite all this, there has been little progress in negotiations with the IMF over a new financing package.

Summing up, Capital Economics said:

The upshot of all this is that although the direct impact from the levy on deposits in Cyprus on the Ukrainian economy is likely to be limited, wider vulnerabilities mean that the Cypriot crisis may still be enough to tip Ukraine into a financial crisis of its own. Without an IMF deal in place, Ukraine is extremely exposed if the Cypriot bailout triggers a fresh spike in financial market tensions.

On the ground in Kiev, the Cyprus crisis ripples are not sparking panic just yet, but they are being felt.

Auditing and accounting giants such as PwC have held seminars advising businesses how to adjust.

Adam Mycyk, partner at the Kiev law offices of Chadbourne & Parke LLP, said that Ukrainian business using “Cyprus as a ‘cash collection’ centre for transactions with their related Ukrainian entities may indeed face an issue, whether because of a shortage of available cash and/or any capital controls that Cyprus puts into place.”

Tomas Fiala, CEO of Kiev-based investment bank Dragon Capital, said “the impact is not too big, but not negligible.”

He added: “A lot of investment, loans and trade flows are structured through Cyprus. It takes time to set up accounts at other banks in other jurisdictions. Several billion US dollars got frozen there but should be available within a couple weeks. Several hundred million will be lost at Laiki and the Bank of Cyprus.”

In talks with an IMF mission that arrived this week for discussions on a potential $15bn bailout, government officials have talked down the effects of the Cyprus situation.

Meanwhile, locals say the Cyprus contagion could increase the cost of borrowing on the Eurobond market for Ukraine’s cash-strapped government. This in turn could force it to accept the tough IMF bailout conditions.

Fiala said: “There is a bit of contagion, which together with large Eurobond supply from Ukraine caused prices to move down over the last two weeks. For instance, the long sovereign went down 4 points. If it should drop further, Ukraine would have a harder time accessing the market (it). And this could push Ukraine towards an IMF deal.”

Ukraine’s grain exports have risen to 19.7 million tonnes so far in the July 2012-June 2013 season from 15.8 million a year ago, due to higher sales of maize and wheat, the Agriculture Ministry said on Friday.

The former Soviet republic has exported 11.1 million tonnes of maize so far this season versus 9.6 million in the same period of last season, the data provided by the ministry showed.
Ukrainian wheat exports rose to 6.31 million tonnes from 3.9 million tonnes in 2011/12, when the harvest was smaller and export restrictions imposed in the first months of the season.

In March, Ukraine exported about 1.61 million tonnes of grain, mostly maize. Grain exports totalled 1.67 million tonnes in February.
The ministry said grain exports totalled 316,000 tonnes in April 1-5.
It has said exports could reach 24.4 million tonnes in the full season to June 2013, which compares with 22.8 million tonnes in 2011/12.The 2012 grain harvest totalled 46.2 million tonnes after it was threshed by end-December.

Ukraine’s gas buys from Europe “fraudulent”, Gazprom says.
Ukraine is using a “fraudulent scheme” to carry out reverse shipments of Russian gas from the European market, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said late on Saturday, further raising tensions in a price dispute with Kiev.

Ukraine, a transit route for more than half of Russian gas shipped to the European Union, wants to pay less for gas from Russia because it says a 2009 deal with Moscow set an exorbitant price, and aims to buy more gas from Europe.

The two ex-Soviet neighbours have a record of pricing disputes which have resulted in interruptions of Russian gas supplies to Europe.

“There are no de facto and physical reverse supplies planned, but what is planned is to use Gazprom’s gas through some virtual reverse,” the monopoly’s head told Rossiya-24 state-run TV. “This is reminiscent of some fraudulent schemes and one needs to deal with it.”

Spokespersons for Ukraine’s deputy prime minister on energy issues Yuri Boiko and Fuel Minister Eduard Stavitsky were not available for comment on Sunday.

Miller said the scheme was enforced using technical manipulations at gas-measuring stations.

Reiterating Gazprom’s position, he said buying gas from Europe at spot prices will not be economically viable for Ukraine, which currently buys Russian gas at a fixed price of $430 per 1,000 cubic metres.

“There is no required gas volumes available there (in Europe) in principle, at least not the volumes which Ukraine needs,” Miller said. “Secondly, gas prices at all European spot platforms are higher than those on Gazprom’s long-term contracts.”

Spot prices have been on the rise in Europe due to unseasonably cold weather in the past few weeks. The March average UK spot gas price is around 85.6 pence a therm, some 10 pence below the Russian price.

Ukraine began importing a small volume of gas from Europe last year and wants to import up to 8 billion cubic metres of gas a year from central Europe to replace expensive Russian supplies.

Moscow has demanded concessions as a condition for reviewing the price agreement, such as Ukraine joining a Russia-led trade bloc or giving up control of its pipeline network.

Moscow has already made it clear it was unhappy with Ukraine reducing imports from Russia and sent Kiev a $7 billion bill in January for what it says are volumes of gas Ukraine was obliged to buy under the “take or pay” contract. (Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; Editing by Catherine Evans)

EU should welcome Ukraine as a partner for Europe’s own good.
Ukraine is important to Europe as a source of economic growth and energy security, as well as a bridge to Russia. Western interests and values are best served by engaging Ukraine as a solid European partner.
Moreover, energy security is another advantage that Ukraine offers Western nations. Ukraine has the third-largest shale gas deposits in Europe – 42 million cubic feet of technically recoverable reserves that are currently being developed by Shell and Chevron. This is an environmentally friendly energy source not only for Europe but also for an entire planet whose population will continue to grow through the middle of this century.
As it leaves behind the legacy of Soviet-style communism, Ukraine can serve as a source of inspiration to its neighbors and nations throughout the world for how a country can move forward to free-market democracy and the rule of law. Ukrainians demand democracy, free speech, and a free press, in line with European traditions.

Bringing Ukrainian laws and norms in accordance with those of the EU will help to achieve symbolic and substantive progress for democracy regionally and worldwide. It is of economic, political, and geostrategic importance to Europe and the US that Ukraine comes under the European umbrella of shared values and free trade.

While Ukraine is not a member of NATO, it has proven a reliable partner. So bringing Ukraine closer to the EU is also positive in terms of Western security interests, especially since recent polling shows Ukrainians are caught between clashing loyalties to the West and the East and closely divided on whether to join the EU or the Russian-sponsored Customs Union.

Indeed, Ukraine is perfectly positioned to become a geopolitical and economic bridge between Europe and Russia. In many ways, Kiev was the original cradle of Russia, and Ukraine still has strong ties to Russia in terms of heritage, faith, culture, and language. In fact, alongside its Ukrainian population, Ukraine boasts a large, Russian-speaking population, with familial and cultural connections to Russia. But Ukraine wants to align itself with Europe and with European values, and Western nations should embrace this opportunity before we lose it.Make no mistake: Western interests and values are best served by engaging Ukraine as a solid European partner. This is a serious geopolitical opportunity for Europe and the US. We should make the most of it.

Ukraine’s opposition thwarted over Kiev mayor.
Thousands of supporters of Ukraine’s re-energized opposition rallied outside parliament on Tuesday to press for early elections for the mayor of Kiev and oust an ally of President Viktor Yanukovich from the powerful post.

But despite the show of strength, Yanukovich’s Party of the Regions defeated the attempt to set a June date for the ballot.
The outcome means that Yanukovich, whose first bid for power was doomed in 2004 by street protests in Kiev which became known as the “Orange Revolution”, should be able to keep his man in control of the capital when he bids for a second term in 2015.

A crowd led by the three main opposition leaders marched from the center of the capital to parliament, holding aloft banners calling for the release of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and denouncing Yanukovich’s policies.
The protesters’ direct target was Olexander Popov, appointed by Yanukovich as head of Kiev city’s administration and now effectively mayor of the capital.

The Party of the Regions is pushing for the Kiev mayoral election to be delayed for two years until after the 2015 presidential election.The last mayor, who left office in mid-2012, was effectively replaced by Popov.
Banners read “Popov as mayor means Kiev dies” and “Do not let Yanukovich steal elections from the people of Kiev” in the biggest such action this year by the united opposition which performed well in a parliamentary election in October.

But, despite impassioned pleas in the chamber by former economy minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and far-right nationalist Oleh Tyahnybok, opposition parties failed to muster enough support to secure a June election.

Tuesday’s demonstration came as Ukraine’s leaders hesitate between forging closer ties with the European Union or aligning themselves more closely with former Soviet master Russia.

The European Union warned Yanukovich in February that a free trade deal could be jeopardized if Ukraine did not show progress towards political reform by May.

For the EU, the deal is conditional on improved human rights and ending the practice of “selective justice” – meaning the jailing of political opponents such as former prime minister Tymoshenko, Yanukovich’s arch rival who is serving a seven-year jail sentence for abuse of office.

Swedbank

Swedbank to pull out of Russia and Ukraine.
While Swedbank has avoided losses in Russia, the bank’s operations in Ukraine have lost 11 billion kronor ($1.69 billion) since 2007.

“Looking back, this clearly hasn’t been a good investment for Swedbank’s shareholders,” Swedbank’s head of investor relations Johannes Rudbeck told the TT news agency on Monday.The company expects to complete the sale of its Ukraine operations during the first half of 2013 while it also plans to wind down existing operations in Russia, where it has a lending portfolio of approximately 2.6 billion kronor.

“This is the final step in our strategy to concentrate Swedbank’s business activities to Sweden and the three Baltic countries. The executive management can now turn its full attention to our home markets,” Swedank CEO Michael Wolf said in a statement.The Ukraine operations are being sold via a share purchase agreement with Mykola Lagun, the majority owner of Delta Bank and will result in a 340 million kronor hit to Swedbank’s first quarter earnings.
According to Rudbeck, Swedbank’s fortunes in Ukraine have been “heading in the wrong direction”.

“Our assessment is that it’s been harder and harder every year we’ve done business in Ukraine,” he told TT, adding that in Russia, Swedbank is only a bit player in the market.

“We are very small.”Swedbank announced in 2011 it was closing retail banking operations in Ukraine, part of a longer-term shift away from Russia and Ukraine, two countries for which the bank had high hopes prior to the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
“There was another strategy in place then and different management,” Rudbeck explained.

RE-ENERGISED OPPOSITION.
Opposition parties, whose leaders also include world heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko, have shown their teeth by paralyzing parliamentary proceedings, often for weeks on end, by blockading the speaker’s rostrum.

“This is not just about the Kiev mayoral election. If they put off this election, what do you think will happen to the presidential one? The same,” Yatsenyuk said before parliament voted.

One of their central demands is the release from jail of Tymoshenko and her allies. Her continued imprisonment could now threaten free trade and political agreements with the EU which would anchor the former Soviet republic in the Western camp.

But Yanukovich, despite an often-stated commitment to taking Ukraine into mainstream Europe, has so far refused to bow to pressure either from the opposition or from Western governments and intervene in the case of Tymoshenko, his fiercest rival.
Although Ukraine is keen to cut its dependency on Russia, particularly its gas supplies, Kiev has yet to make a clear choice between a closer relationship with the EU or Moscow.

There has been strong speculation that one of Tymoshenko’s jailed allies, former interior minister Yuri Lutsenko who is serving a four-year sentence for embezzlement and abuse of office, might receive more lenient treatment.A Kiev court began hearing Lutsenko’s appeal against his conviction and later adjourned until Wednesday.

Outside View:Cub helps Ukraine seek energy independence.
If Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma then Ukraine must be even more so.
One of the most important lessons we have learned from observing Ukraine is that labels commonly used by Western journalists of a country divided between “pro-Western” and “pro-Russian” political forces don’t reflect the far more complicated reality on the ground.Nowhere is this more so than in the realm of energy.

Presidents Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko both talked a lot about Ukraine’s energy independence but did very little to move beyond rhetoric. Under Kuchma an oil pipeline was built from Odessa to Brody to import Azerbaijani oil but the project failed to move ahead. Eventually, the oil flow was reversed with Russian oil pumped south to Odessa.

Ukraine’s reliance on Russian increased following the 2006 gas contract with the opaque RosUkrEnergo gas intermediary whose golden era was in 2006-08 under the “pro-Western” Yushchenko.

Gas tycoon Dmytro Firtash told the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, a cable from Kiev reported, that “He described himself as a close friend and confidante of the President — someone the President can trust totally.”

Moving from rhetoric to real work on Ukraine’s energy independence only began after Viktor Yanukovych came to power in 2010. With Ukraine paying one of the highest gas prices in Europe, the Yanukovych administration rejected the idea of taking the 2009 gas contract to Stockholm and instead launched four policies to increase the country’s energy independence from Russia.

The first is to explore Ukraine’s vast shale gas deposits which are reportedly the third largest in Europe at 1.5 trillion cubic meters and 2.5 trillion cubic meters of technically recoverable shale gas. Royal Dutch Shell signed a $10 billion contract to develop the Yuzovsky shale gas deposit and drilling is to begin this year with production beginning in 2015. The Donetsk regional council controlled by the ruling Party of Regions voted to approve the deal.

U.S. company Chevron signed a shale gas exploration PSA to drill in Western Ukraine but the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) Party which is in power in the region has led opposition to fracking, the term used for shale gas production, on allegedly environmental grounds.

It is indeed ironic that the anti-Russian Svoboda is opposed to energy diversification that will assist Ukraine in becoming independent of Russia.

The second policy is to construct a liquefied natural gas terminal that would satisfy immediate demand by importing gas 20 percent cheaper than currently. Vladyslav Kaskiv, head of the State Agency for Investment and National Projects, who was a parliamentary deputy from Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine, has led the project.

Ukraine launched the LNG project on the Black Sea near Odessa in November, beginning construction of a $145 million, 40-mile link from the terminal to the national gas network.

Unfortunately pressure to quickly secure a deal led to imposter Jordi Sarda Bonvehi signing on behalf of Spanish company Gas Natural. The company announced it had no intention to invest in Ukraine’s LNG terminal and the search continues for LNG partners. But, it also remains unclear if Ukraine can convince Turkey to permit the passage of large quantities of LNG through the Istanbul Strait.

A third policy is to increase oil production on the Black Sea coast. The Vanco contract will explore the 5,000-square-mile Prykerchenska region of Ukraine’s Black Sea shelf that reportedly holds large reserves of oil and gas.

In spring 2008, the Yuliya Tymoshenko government annulled the contract but it has been revived after a positive decision by the Stockholm Arbitration Court. Donetsk oligarch Rinat Akhmetov is searching for joint investors in the Vanco project.

Royal Dutch Shell won a tender in 2012 in a consortium with other international petroleum companies for the exploration of offshore deep-water reserves in the Black Sea’s Skifska field. They agreed to pay an upfront premium of $300 million upon signing the PSA and pledged to invest $200 million in the exploration phase.

The fourth policy, probably the most important, is supporting an expansion of gas production

Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell Ukraine Graham Tiley told the Ukrainian edition of Forbes magazine last year that it is entirely feasible for a three-fold increase in gas production from the current 20 billion cubic meters.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Ukraine was the biggest gas producer in the Soviet Union and much of this infra-structure of pipelines, underground storage and expertise remains. From the late 1970s the center of Soviet energy moved to Western Siberia and Central Asia.

One of the companies supporting Ukraine’s drive for energy independence is Cub Energy, a relatively small player in Ukraine’s energy sector registered in Toronto, a city it chose believing it offered better opportunities than London or Oslo.

Chairman Mikhail Afendikov, who was born in Donetsk, says Cub Energy brings together Albertan and Texan expertise and Western technology. Currently, it has nine gas wells in Transcarpathia and the Dnipro-Donets basin with up to 10 new wells planned this year in the 70,000 gross acres of underdeveloped land purchased this month lying adjacent to existing wells. The purchase of contagious land close to producing gas wells mitigates exploration risks enabling Cub Energy to draw upon existing infrastructure and in place Western technology.

Afendikov has high praise for Ukraine’s conditions for foreign investors saying Cub Energy has not experienced problems from local authorities while receiving encouragement from the central government. This is in contrast to earlier experience by Robert Bensh, who is a senior adviser to Cub Energy and Afendikov’s partner on day-to-day operations, with the Yushchenko administration. In 2008, after failing to resolve conflicts with oil and banking oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, who was then allied to Yushchenko, Bensh decided to close Cardinal Resources in Ukraine.

It is no coincidence that Ukraine’s energy independence is being spearheaded by Cub Energy, a city at the center of the large and active Ukrainian diaspora. It is also no coincidence that the majority of the Western companies that have won tenders in Ukraine’s energy sector are North Americans. The Yanukovych administration says that if Ukraine’s geopolitical importance grows in Washington’s eyes it will be given greater flexibility to pursue domestic policies and will be treated in the same manner as Russia.

Whatever the enigma, on-going steps toward Ukraine’s energy independence from Russia and the country again becoming a major European energy player are now on the cards for the first time since 1991. Cub Energy is one of the Western companies assisting in this strategic development.

One hundred years ago, at the beginning of the history of the National Art Museum of Ukraine, which was first called the City Museum of Antiques and Art, there was hardly any concept of Ukrainian professional art. Ukraine was always famous for its national ethnographical applied art. The founders of the museum’s collections decided to prove that this opinion was wrong and defined the list of main representatives of Ukrainian fine art. These scientists have included in the list not only those who were born and worked in Ukraine, but also those national-conscious artists who lived abroad. They thought that foreigners who worked in Ukraine have enriched a national culture too. These principles were the basis of their collective work. So works of T. Shevchenko, I. Repin, V. Borovikovskiy, V. Tropinin, N. Pimonenko, M. Vrubel, N. Ge, G. Narbut, A. Murashko and V. Krichevskiy became a part of the museum’s collection. The collectors have found even some older works ranging from medieval icons to Cossacks times portraits of military and church leaders and humorous comic pictures “Cossack Mamay”. Things came to collection from different areas ranging from far western Galitsia to eastern Tchernigovshina areas. They looked for masterpieces of Ukrainian art in Moscow and Saint Petersburg and even wrote correspondence to Ukrainian artists living in Europe and America. Though this activity was stopped during the Stalin’s repressions, and a big part of collection was dispersed or hidden, the tradition is still alive. Today there are a lot of new works of art coming to museum’s collections. Among these new comings are: unique icon relief “St. George in His Lifetime” dating to the 12th century; works of the founder of international abstractionism Kazimir Malevitch, who was native Ukrainian; masterpiece of Ukrainian rococo “The Great Martyr” icon, graphics of world famous Ukrainian living in the USA, Y. Gnizdovskiy. Now there are thousands of exhibits presented in the museum’s collection.

The 1990s, the first decade of Ukrainian independence, were the time when museum came to an international level. For the first time in the museum’s history its collections were exhibited in famous museums of Canada, France, Denmark, Croatia. The world discovered an advanced culture of the country with 10,000 years of history. As a result, some previously infamous artists became a part of international art elite. For example, A. Petritskiy is considered to be one of the best set designers of the 20th century, V. Yermilov is known as the most laconic constructivist of the 20s, and O. Bogomazov is ranked as one of the best futurists of Europe. Those exhibitions also have discovered the Ukrainian side of some famous Russian artists as O. Exter, A. Arkhipenko, D. Burluk. The items from museum’s collections often become the sensations on international exhibitions. In 1997 on “The Fame of Byzantium” exhibition the 12th century icon “St. Geroge in His Lifetime” gained the steadfast attention of the specialists. The National Art Museum of Ukraine is of course not the oldest in the list of most famous museums of the world. But its prestige is constantly becoming higher. And the belief of museum founders that Ukrainian culture is valuable on international level today has spread around the world.

Kiev Art Gallery offering various works of art to everyone’s taste is a modern American and Ukrainian joint project. The gallery works with similar companies in the field of art promotion and selling all over the world. The art presented here is suitable for home interiors, office decorations, as it helps to make a really sophisticated and luxurious present. The works of the best Ukrainian artists as well as of artists from other countries are represented in the gallery.
There is also an ability to perform individual orders, and experienced specialists in the field of art are always willing to help. They can create the unique style for your apartment or office and to select the paintings of the same style or themes, such as flowers, animals, mountain landscape or marine and so on to embellish the walls. Also there is an ability to order a variety of icons executed in accordance to ancient traditions of icon painting – the family icons, the ones depicting the Savoir, holiday or gift icons. Kiev Art Gallery accomplishes any orders and suggestions at really high creative level.
The gallery is located in the 19th century building in Nizhni Val Street in Podol, a historical district of the Ukrainian capital. A lot of ancient cultural monuments and famous landmarks of great tourist interest are located there. Podol was always an artistic district of the Ukrainian capital and one of the most favorite places of artists, actors and musicians. A lot of embassies, including the Embassy of the United States, museums, banks and other establishments are located very close to the gallery.
This famous gallery works only with the best Ukrainian and foreign artists, including such famous names as Vasyl Lopata, Anatoliy Gaidamaka, Ilya Glasunov and other artists.

Holy Trinity Day
…It comes fifty days after Easter and celebrates the Descent of the Holy Spirit who poured himself out on the apostles. On this day people decorate their houses and apartments with greenery, which is a reminder of the new life that comes through baptism. The wildflowers blessed on the festive church service are dried up and kept behind the icons, as they are believed to possess special spiritual powers. For example, if the mistress of the house puts dried flowers in the garret, they will protect the house from fire. On Holy Trinity Day young girls make garlands and throw them in the river or lakes to foresee the future. If the garland sinks, the girl who made it will die in the following year, if not, she will get married. This tradition originates from the pagan holiday celebrating the beginning of summer, which was forbidden after the Christening of Kievan Rus.

May 9 Victory Day
…Owning to the closeness of this holiday to May Day, often the first week of May is weeklong holiday for the whole country. It is a very important holiday for all the Ukrainians, while you hardly find a family, which would not suffer from Nazis in the World War II. Large military parades are held, wreathes and flowers are put on graves of soldiers and those who died in war. Family and friends congratulate veterans who wear their uniforms and medals on this day.

Orthodox Easter

…The major holiday of the Orthodox religious calendar. It is usually about two weeks after Catholic Easter. For many people this holiday starts with church attendance on Saturday evening, where the festive church service is held and the father, or Orthodox priest blesses kulichi (traditional Easter cake) and pisanki (painted Easter eggs). The father greets the congregation repeating many times over: “Christ is risen!” and the congregation replies in chorus “Indeed He is risen!” During the day people visit relatives and closest friends and present them with Easter basket, filled with kulichi and pisanki, which are believed to posses a spiritual power. Everybody greets each other with “Christ is risen”, then follows the answer “Indeed He is risen!” and exchange with triple kiss, the so-called Khrystosuvanni.

March 8 Women’s Day

…Originally introduced by the Communists, this holiday has lost its political content and has become a cultural tradition. On this extremely popular holiday men are expected to do everything around the house and give their women the possibility to have at least the only day off from all that cleaning and cooking. Men present chocolate, flowers and small gifts to their wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, female friends and colleagues.

Feb 23 Former Red Army Day
…Men’s Day In Soviet times it was the holiday of all those who had ever served in the military. While the Soviet Union was rather a military state, about 90% of men were at some point connected to the Red Army, so later it became a holiday for men. It is not a public holiday in Ukraine, but most women make some presents to their male relatives and friends and do their best to please their husbands and boyfriends.

Feb 14 St. Valentine’s Day
… When the so-called Iron Curtain fell down, people of the Former Soviet Union saw that there are a lot of nice European and American holidays and have eagerly adopted some of them. There is no point in describing Ukrainian St. Valentine’s Day as there is practically no difference from the Western holiday of the same name.

Jan 25 Tatiana’s Day
…or Students’ Day. The holiday originates to the 18th century. In 1775, on the day of Maiden Tatiana the Martyr Empress Elizabeth Petrovna signed the regulation about the foundation of Moscow University, which went down into history as the first Russian University. In the 18th and 19th centuries this day was celebrated as the Day of Foundation of Moscow University, but already in the second half of the 19th century it became a holiday of all the Universities and students. Today, Tatiana’s Day is a kind and cheerful holiday, when students enjoy the freedom, youth and coming vacations. Those who have been students decades ago remember their old good days at universities.

Jan 13 Old New Year’s Day
The strangest holiday of the Slavonic calendar. In fact, it is also connected with the conservatism of Slavonic people. After the 1917 Revolution, Russia and Ukraine switched to the western calendar. Before that time they have been 13 days behind the rest of the world. However, even though the official calendar was switched, many people did not want to change and others refused to celebrate New Year before Christmas. The celebrations are not of such an enormous scale as the ones of the New Year’s Day and it is not a day off.

Jan 7 Orthodox Christmas
Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar, used in Europe and North America. Therefore the Ukrainians celebrate Christmas on January 7, 13 days later than the Catholic world. A very important religious holiday, Christmas wasn’t celebrated under the Soviets almost during the whole 20th century and only at the end of 1990s it was resurrected. On January 6th, Christmas Eve, many families gather for Sviata Vecheria (Holy Supper). The twelve-course meal is dedicated to Christ’s twelve apostles. The traditional meals included are kutia (home-made bread with honey and red poppies), borsch (beet soup), vushka (dumplings filled with onions and mushrooms), a variety of fish, vareniki (dumplings filled with cabbage, potatoes, or prunes), andholubtsi (stuffed cabbage). In the last few years many forgotten traditions like Kolyadki (masked children going door-to-door to receive candy in exchange for traditional songs and jokes) have being reviving.

Jan 1 New Year’s Day
…is no doubt the main holiday of the year. According to the most recent polls about 90% of the Ukrainians have called it their favorite holiday, everybody impatiently waits for round the year. People decorate the New Year Tree, cook festive dinners, buy presents, go to numerous New Year’s parties that are generously held not only at the end of December but also in the first two weeks of January. There is a saying that a person will spend the year the way he has welcomed it, so many do their best to have fun on the New Year’s Day. One usually spends this day or, to be more precise, evening and night with his family or friends. The local channels show loved-by-all Soviet films and a few minutes before midnight, the annual festive address of the President to his nation is broadcasted. This bright holiday is loved by people of different ages, but it is especially dear to children. They believe that Ded Moroz, or Santa Claus, comes this night and puts gifts under the tree, of course if they haven’t been naughty in the old year.

History of Kiev

According to the ancient legend, Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, was founded by three brothers, Kyi, Schek and Khoryv, and their sister Lybed, at the end of the 5th-beginning of the 6th centuries. The city was named after the eldest brother Kyi. Kyiv means the city of Kyi. Kyiv is a Ukrainian spelling and Kiev is Russian, more known worldwide since the Soviet times.

Many ancient tribes gathered around Kiev, and at the end of the 9th century the city became the political center of the Eastern Slavs. In the year 988 Christianity, introduced by Great Prince Vladimir, became the official religion of the Kievan Rus. This helped to establish political and cultural relations with such states as the Byzantium Empire and Bulgaria. At that time almost 50,000 people lived in the city; there were about 400 churches and 8 markets. When Vladimir Monomakh died in the year 1152, the mighty Kievan Rus began to decay. In 1240 Kiev was demolished by Baty-khan. Only in the 14th century Kiev began to revive. But in 1362 Great Duke of Lithuania captured the city. For more than one hundred years it was under the command of Lithuanian and Polish dukes. People’s liberation war of 1648-1654 against the Lithuanian-Polish Yoke led to liberation. But Cossack armies, headed by Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky, couldn’t manage to conquer the enemy without help from Russia. As a result, Ukraine plunged under a long period of domination by the Russian Empire. Since that time the history of Ukraine and Kiev was closely connected with Russian history.

Archeological excavations show evidence of the first settlements on the territory of Kiev 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.

The early settlers of Kiev built their citadel on the steep right bank of the Dnepr River to protect themselves from Nomadic tribes. Later, Kiev’s Grand Dukes built their palaces and churches on Starokievskiy Hill, while artisans and merchants settled next to the wharf on the Dnepr. By the end of the 9th century, when the Grand Dukes of Kiev united scattered Slavic tribes, Kiev became the political center of the Eastern Slavs. The city maintained wide foreign and commercial trade links due to its favorable position in the middle of trade routes between the Vikings and the Greeks (strict way from Northern Europe and the Baltics to the Mediterranean). Kiev`s development accelerated during the reign of Grand Duke Vladimir the Great (980-1015). In 988 Vladimir established Orthodox Christianity as the official religion of the realm in order to strengthen the power of Kiev on the broader international arena. During that time the first stone temple in Russia, Desyatinnaya church, was constructed.
During the 11th and 12th centuries ancient Kiev Rus reached its greatest period of ascendancy. By the 11th century Kiev was one of the largest centers of civilization in the Eastern christian world. At that time, there were about 400 churches, 8 markets and more than 50,000 inhabitants in Kiev. For comparison, at the same time the population of London, Hamburg and Gdansk was about 20,000 people. Kiev was among the most prospering craft and shopping centers of Europe. After the death of Kiev`s great Prince Vladimir Monomakh in 1125, Kiev Rus became involved in a long period of feudal wars. Foreign powers were quick to take advantage of this situation. In the fall of 1240, the Tatar-Mongols headed by Baty-khan, captured Kiev after series of long and bloody battles. Kiev fell into a prolonged period of decline. The Tartar-Mongols ruled for almost a century. Despite a foreign rule, Kiev retained its artisan, trade and cultural traditions and remained an important political, trade and cultural center. In the 14th century, the Kiev region became the cradle for the modern Ukrainian nation.

In the 15th century Kiev was granted the Magdeburg Rights, which permitted greater independence of the city in matters of international commerce.

Until the 14th century Kiev paid tribute to the Golden Horde. Then it passed under the control of Great Lithuaninan Duchy, which in 1569 was united with Poland. With the establishment of the Kiev-Mogilyanskaya Academy in 1632, the city became a center of Ukrainian learning and scholarship. The long road to the independence of Ukraine began with Cossack military campaigns. In 1648-1654 Cossack armies, headed by Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky, Ukraine’s Cossack leader, waged several wars to liberate Ukraine. In 1648, when the Ukrainian Cossacks rose against Poland, Kiev became for a brief period the center of the Ukrainian State. But soon, confronted by the armies of Polish and Lithuanian feudal lords, Bogdan Khmelnitsky sought the protection of the Russian Tsar in the Treaty of Pereyaslavl. After Ukraine’s union with Russia in 1654, however, the city was acquired by Moscow. During a long period of domination by the Russian Empire Ukraine in the 17th and 18th centuries managed to preserve and enjoy some of its rich political, economic, cultural, and religious achievements. In January 1918 after the fall of Russian Empire, the independence of Ukraine was proclaimed and the Ukrainian National Republic was established.
During the Civil War that followed the October Revolution Bolshevik Party seized power and expanded their sphere of control into Ukraine. Ukraine becomes a part of the Soviet Union. Kiev suffered severely during the World War II, when many unique architectural and artistic treasures were destroyed. Earlier, in the 1930s, the Soviet authorities systematically destroyed many churches. Extensive restoration of the after-war days has revived much of Kiev’s historical and cultural heritage. Despite repressions, suffering, political turmoil, and ecological disasters, Ukraine’s spirit and national identity have never died. On August 24, 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine proclaimed its independence. This was the beginning of the whole new period in the history of Ukraine and its beautiful capital.

Quick Facts about Kiev
Kievan region, on the River Dnepr

Geographic coordinates:
2,900,000 (2001 est.)
Foundation:
482 A.D.
Climate:
Temperate continental. It is mainly characterized by plentiful precipitation and cloudiness in winter and fall. Winters are usually long and cold. Summers are short but can be pretty hot.
UTC/GMT Offset:
UTC/GMT + 2 hours
Area code:
44
Major attractions:
St. Sophia’s Cathedral, Uspensky Cathedral, St. Michael Monastery, Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra, Golden Gate, Andreyevsky Spusk.
Major industries:
Metallurgy, engineering industry, chemicals, textiles, food processing, building materials, electric products, gas, oil, coal and peat production, woodworking industry.