The passing week is reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s gaze: the EU hires militants on the Donbas, Medvedchuk dooms Stus again, and the epic arrest of Yanukovych’s tax collectors on helicopters turned out to be farcical. Fantasy, definitely. Quite like on the works of Ukrainian mural artists Interesni Kazki.
Oleksii Bordusov and Volodymyr Manzhos are path-breaker mural artists in Eastern Europe. Ukrainian artists, better known as Interesni Kazki, began with inscriptions on the walls, and now they are invited by the municipalities of European cities to paint the walls with their graffiti. Pictures of talented Ukrainians can be seen not only in their homeland, but also in the USA, Mexico, France, Denmark, South Africa, India, Croatia, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Matriarchy, Cologne, Germany
The protests in Romania seemed unimaginable even before the collision began in the center of Bucharest. First of all, because of its degree. More than 100,000 Romanians went out in the streets, demanding the resignation of the government and strengthening the fight against corruption. Another requirement is the adoption of a law, that wouldn’t allow people, charged with corruption, to occupy political positions.
Thousands of strong protests in Romania, which has been lasting from the beginning of the previous year, when the government came to terms of well-known corruptionists, and the Romanian president was forced to dismiss the head of the National Anticorruption Directorate, Laura Codruts Koveshi.
Romania is considered a role model for Ukraine in backlashing corruption. The National Anticorruption Directorate under the leadership of Koveshi began investigating corruption at the highest levels of government – up to criminal cases against the former prime minister, the ex-president’s family and acting officials.
And if in Romania, after the resignation of the legendary anti-corruption crusader, the fight against corruption will begin to collapse, it will be a signal for those who are inclined to believe in the victorious power of corruption in the countries of Eastern Europe. Including Ukraine.
Birds of passage Sandefjord, Norway
Fighting corruption in Romania? Look at ours: all those detained in the so-called “Klymenko taxpayers” case went out of custody or at the end of the term of possible arrest. Last year the police gathered evidence, that the tax service, under the leadership of the former head of the Ministry of Revenues and Duties Olexandr Klymenko, caused the state losses due to non-receipt of taxes in the amount of 95.921 billion UAH. This is one-fourth of the annual budget of the whole country. Not bad, isn’t it? In the case, there are more than a thousand bundles of materials, and the court over corrupted tax authorities has not yet begun. Only the indictment will be read over the years and will be considered – times longer. Well, you can expect, that the suspects will not die from their old age in their villas, but will still wait for a fair sentence.
Icarus, Mexico city
By the way, talking about a fair sentence. The Ukrainian Internet just broke out last week because of the scene with Viktor Medvedchuk which will be cut out from the film about the writer Vasyl Stus – right, Putin’s kum and leader of the Ukrainian (read “Kremlin”) choice. In his youth, he was a lawyer in the case of Stus and, in essence, was a second prosecutor – that is, he did not defend the poet in court. Because of this, Stus received 10 years of imprisonment, of which 5 years in exile. Vasyl Stus died in the security housing unit in high-security prison on September 4, 1985. After that, Viktor Medvedchuk headed the administration of President Leonid Kuchma, and later he became the kum of the president of the Russian Federation, Volodymyr Putin, who baptized his daughter, Darya, and is currently representing Ukraine in the Minsk negotiation process. Because of the reaction of the Ukrainian society, the scene with Medvchydchuk will still be in the film (and he has already said that he will take it to court). Certainly, we will go and watch the film, things are square, but it’s still a little tense.
Crossover, Fort Smith, Arkansas
Rates of currencies of developing countries are falling all over the world – the Ukranian hryvnia is not an exception. This is not news – the dollar is strengthened to it at least since the beginning of the year. But in August, the consistent decline was like a collapse. Thus, the Turkish lira lost 18% in one day (45% in a year). This is due both to the disadvantages of the Turkish economy and to Turkey’s quarrel with the United States. Due to the sanctions of the States Russian RUB also began free fall. Many financial analysts are afraid, that this process will hurt our hryvnia.
“The devaluation of the Turkish and Russian currencies will mean that our exports there will be more expensive and less demanded. The way out of the situation is a gradual devaluation of hryvnia, to synchronize the cost of our exports with pre-crisis prices.” Is there an alternative? Only an agreement with the IMF, but even in such a the situation with the NBU should not lower the dollar to the hryvnia below 27.0 UAH / $ ” – explained to the Ukrainian Pravda member of the executive committee of the Ukrainian Society of Financial Analysts Vitalii Shapran.
End of The Age of Walls, Cancun. Mexico
Oleh Sentsov is starving for 97 days. Recently, he determined his state as “pre-crisis”, but Oleh continues to stick to colours: all Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia must be released! Is the situation so bad that human rights activists started to do it, is it good that the Kremlin promises to consider Sentsov’s pardon if he writes it in private – is unknown. It is only known, that Oleh does not go to negotiations with terrorists, he does not acknowledge guilt and has nothing to apologize for.
The same opinion is shared by the UN, which has recently called for the freedom of a film director. But in this situation, the Kremlin reminds an angry dog, that every movement only provokes another aggression.
Will Sentsov be set free? Every day counts now and we should hope that our authorities will know the answer to this question.
Text by Kostyantyn Rul
