Presentation about Ukraine

• Goal: general introduction of Ukraine.
• Target audience: German and international students, including PhD students.
• Duration: approximately 25-30 minutes.
• Presented: January, 16, 2015, in Canossa, Universität des Saarlandes, Campus, 66123 Saarbrücken, Deutschland, during the Ukrainian Evening (Landerabend Ukraine).
• Presentation planning group: Dima Panfilenko (Landerabend organizer), Bogdan Tokovenko, Varvara Obolonchykova, Zarema Ibragimova, Ivan Pryvalov.
• Slides: Dima Panfilenko (initial version of tourism slides and text), Bogdan Tokovenko (all the other slides/text and final tourism slides/text).
• Useful feedback and criticism: Varvara Obolonchykova.

Презентація про Україну

• Мета: загальне ознайомлення.
• Цільова аудиторія: німецькі та міжнародні студенти, аспіранти.
• Тривалість: приблизно 25-30 хвилин.
• Представлена: 16 січня 2015-го року у Canossa, Universität des Saarlandes, Campus, 66123 Saarbrücken, Deutschland, під час українського вечора (Landerabend Ukraine).
• Цей твір ліцензовано за ліцензією Creative Commons Із зазначенням автора – Розповсюдження на тих самих умовах 4.0 Міжнародна.

You can also download slide notes as a text file.
Original PowerPoint presentation file is available on request.

License
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On Sunday, the 18th of May, the sad 70th anniversary of Crimean Tatars deportation by the Soviet regime, in Saarbrucken journalist Olaf Sundermeyer was giving a lecture titled “Ukraine: Die rechte Freiheit – Nationalismus und Rechtsextremismus” ( http://www.a3wsaar.de/aktuelles/details/d/2014/04/15/ukraine-die-rechte-freiheit-nationalismus-und-rechtsextremismus/ , or as a PDF).

I was unable to attend it, but looking at the abstract I felt the need to analyze and criticize the viewpoint Olaf presented. To do so, I went sentence by sentence through the abstract from the link above, picking items I cannot agree with, and providing my arguments.

“Rechtsextremisten und radikale Nationalisten gehörten zu den treibenden Kräften der Maidan-Proteste in Kiew.”
This statement, as it is written, is misleading. I do agree that starting mid-January radical forces were much more noticeable in the Euromaidan movement. However, I disagree that they were the driving force. I would rather say that the appearance of such groups was historically inevitable and awaited for by the less aggressive protesters. Let me provide a brief overview of the events, leading to the escalation of the conflict and appearance of radical groups.

After about 1.5-2 years of promising European future for Ukraine (and actually making some steps in that direction), in November 2013 the Yanukovych government had absolutely unexpectedly (and without any clear reason, other than Putin’s pressure) announced that it will not sign the Association Agreement. During the last decade of November, groups of journalists, students and other activists protested against this decision, demanding that Ukraine continues its integration in Europe. The protests were futile, totally ignored by the government and then-president, and it was clear that the protests would dwindle within a few days. At the verge of November and December, Yanukovych was visiting China to sign some agreements, giving his government quick money support (apparently, Yanukovych “family” has stolen too much from the budget, and it was already in a near-catastrophic state). This visit might have been the reason behind ordering a ruthless, exceedingly cruel, clearly illegal night attack (~4 AM) of the special police forces on the few hundred activists still remaining on the Independence Square (Maidan). It is also important to understand who was there at night: mostly patriotic students, who strongly disagreed with the pro-Russia stance of the government, understanding that closing with Russia will result in Ukraine freezing in Soviet-like time – becoming the like of a few Russia satellite countries, where presidents are more like monarchs – they do not change for decades and even longer. And these Ukrainian patriots were beaten ruthlessly – an unprecedented crime for Ukraine as of 2013. Next day, on the 1st of December, dozens of thousands of people were protesting and demanding that those responsible for the mass beating are prosecuted. On the 1st December, had Yanukovych actually punished some of his people, the protests would calm down. Instead, the protests of the 1st of December were also heavily suppressed, injuring dozens of people (including journalists), and arresting 9 clearly non-radical protest participants. The 1st of December was the first day when some young masked guys were attacking the police with chains and stones; these were referred to as provocateurs by other protesters, as these masked guys could have been used by the government (or even external adversaries) to justify the (again too cruel) suppression of the protests. None of the actual provocateurs were arrested. There are videos showing some of those provocateurs actually freely walking through the police cordon – behind it and then back to the front.

Anyway, instead of actually listening to the reasonable, legal demands of the initially peaceful protests to punish those who have exceeded their authority on the 30th of November, the government and the president chose to ignore the protests – not even publicly acknowledging they happen – while trying to suppress them with police. When this failed, Euromaidan entered the “latent phase” – starting longer-term camping on the Maidan, resisting attack attempts on the 11th of December and after that. During this latent phase, Maidan activists were kidnapped, beaten, and killed for being Ukrainian and speaking Ukrainian. (This hatred of everything Ukrainian was manifesting itself again in Sloviansk, occupied by Russian and pro-Russian terrorists – at least 3 Ukrainians, including a local people’s deputy, were tortured and murdered in Sloviansk within the first days of occupation.) This turned the protests from being “for justice” into “against anti-Ukrainian government”. I will give only one example of why the government was indeed anti-Ukrainian, though there are many more examples: the “minister of education” of Yanukovych government claimed that… there is no such thing as Ukrainian language and Ukrainian nation! There were massive and prolonged student protests to remove that “minister”, but he stayed in his chair until the Ukrainian Parliament voted a new cabinet of ministers in February 2014.

If you have been following my line of thought, then by this paragraph it should be clear that Euromaidan evolved from being “for European future of Ukraine”, to “for justice and prevention of exceeding authority”, to “for defending Ukraine and defeating the anti-Ukrainian government”. Until mid-January, the government and the president were ignoring protesters’ demands. Any negotiations of the Ukrainian political opposition (which chose to support the protests and to serve as a negotiator between protesters and the government) with the president ended with nothing, other than untruthful promises not to attack the Maidan. According to a former member of the former president’s Party of Regions, these negotiations were always terminated after a call from Moscow; even when the foreign ministers of several EU countries had night-long negotiations with Yanukovych, those were interrupted (paused) for a call from Putin.

Up until mid-January, there was hope for a peaceful resolution. All Yanukovych had to do by that time was disband the government (especially the internal affairs minister), and have a new government formed.

Instead, the former president’s Party of Regions, in a scandalous hand-voting, passes laws which basically forbid any protests, and also increase criminal penalties for participating in the protests. This is when protests extended to the Hrushevs’koho street and became violent, with stone and (eventually) fire cocktails throwing. This is when the guys attacking police were no longer referred to as “provocateurs”, but rather “activists”. This is also when the first Ukrainian patriots, Ukrainian nationalists were shot dead by the police – one was ethnic Armenian, another one – ethnic Belorussian. They both moved to Ukraine searching for better life, they both loved Ukraine, and they did not want Ukraine to become a russified satellite of Russia.

After mid-January, radical forces did obviously participate in the protests. Were they driving the protests? I wouldn’t say so; they had popular support, but couldn’t really do much more than they were already doing. Was it possible that these patriots would not appear? Not after the anti-protest laws; conflict escalation was inevitable, and sooner or later even previously-peaceful protesters would start throwing stones.

After this context, does the statement “Rechtsextremisten und radikale Nationalisten gehörten zu den treibenden Kräften der Maidan-Proteste in Kiew.” hold? No. Nationalists and radical forces did not drive the protests; they were the spearhead of the protests, but not the spear-wielding hand.

“Militante Kräfte des „Rechten Sektors“ ebenso wie bürgerliche Funktionäre der „Svoboda“ (Freiheitspartei).”
Here, a distinction must be made – what is really meant by “militant”? Is it “militant” as in Slovians’k, where helicopters were shot down using well-timed double rocket-launches? Obviously not. Is it “militant” as in Kalashnikov-wielding Russians and separatists killing Ukrainians? Obviously not. So what does “militant” really mean here? I wish the author had used a more precise term.

“Diese ist nun an der Ãœbergangsregierung beteiligt, und in der Westukraine fiel ihr die Macht auf allen Ebenen zu.”
Using “militant” in the previous sentence, the author seems to imply that somehow aggressive and/or armed protesters were in the government. This is entirely false. The temporary government was likely the best one (professionally) Ukraine had since its independence. Indeed, some people (I know 2) entered the government circles after being active in the protests; however, one of these never took part in any radical activities (he was more of a social activist, actually), and the other one is not technically in the government (he’s in the state security council). I personally do not approve of these two quickly ascending to governmental positions, but the reality I am describing is quite far from the author’s statement that “radicals are now part of the government”. In addition, the second part of the statement makes no sense at all. First of all, Ukraine is a sovereign country; “Western Ukraine” is a geographical notion, not administrative – so it is plain impossible to have “Western Ukraine” fully fall under someone’s control (well, except for military occupation, as happened after Russian invasion in the Crimea). Also, how does the author imagine this “complete transfer of power”? Ukraine has a vertical of executive power, with the government/president at the top. Also, the temporary government was appointed by the Parliament of Ukraine – exactly the same parliament as elected a few years ago – same people there. How does the author imagine people’s deputies from all over Ukraine allowing something like the claimed “full power takeover” in the Western Ukraine? This statement is a clearly demagogic one. It is a pity that the author who claims to be a journalist allows himself statements like these.

“Hier versucht sie ihren ethnischen Nationalismus umzusetzen, während sich die „Svoboda“ in Kiew als moderater Partner der Europäischen Union präsentiert.” (“here” refers to Western Ukraine from the previous sentence)
Nationalism in Ukraine is not ethnic. Nationalism in Ukraine has the following primary goals: 1) make sure Ukraine is a de facto independent and prosperous state, deciding its fate on its own (this, by the way, does not go well with any kind of EU association); 2) make sure Ukrainian language is safe, and is also the single common language for all citizens of Ukraine – just like German is in Germany, also for immigrants. I have no doubt that there is a small, marginal percentage of people who wish to live in a mono-ethnic state – just like there are similar marginal communities in all countries. However, neither Svoboda, nor the Right Sector ever claimed “ethnic purity” to be their goal. Moreover, Right Sector was the first to help the Jewish community in Odesa, Ukraine, to eliminate the consequences of the vandalism on a Jewish cemetery in Odesa; the head of Jewish Odesa community, together with a representative of Right Sector, then made a statement, a part of which included the promise of Right Sector to actually protect Jewish memorials from vandalism. Would Mr. Sundermeyer still refer to the Right Sector in the context of ethnic nationalism after this?

Ukraine is a multi-national country, and as the deaths of the Armenian and Belorussian show, Ukrainian nationalists can be of different ethnic origin. I wish Mr. Sundermeyer did more facts research before claiming “ethnic nationalism” as being “implemented” in any parts of Ukraine.

“Dorthin verfügt sie allerdings über langjährige Kontakte zu europafeindlichen Parteien wie dem „Front National“ (Frankreich), „Jobbik“ (Ungarn) und zur rechtsextremen NPD.”
Here, only a quick comment regarding the “Jobbik” party: I heard it supported the Russian annexation of Ukrainian sovereign territory (Crimea); I cannot really sanely imagine how would Svoboda or any other patriotic party actually maintain ties with Jobbik after they supported Putin’s aggression.

“In der Ukraine bildet die „Svoboda“ gemeinsam mit militanten Paramilitärs und gewalttätigen rechten Fußballultras eine eigene „nationale Front“, die durch die Machtteilhabe der „Svoboda“ stark unter Spannung geraten ist. Unterdessen muss die EU mit einem unheimlichen Partner verhandeln, weil der tatkräftig mitgeholfen hat, das verhasste Oligarchenregime zu stürzen.”
Just a few quick points here.

• What does the author mean (again, see above) by “militant paramilitary” here?
• Mr. Sundermeyer claims the link between Svoboda and the football fans. He should know that normally football fans of different teams may even start fights with each other after the games of their teams (I guess British football fans are the most widely known for this). However, when the Yanukovych regime was trying to suppress protests, Ukrainian football fans had united in their patriotism, and they stayed united throughout military invasion of Russia into Eastern Ukraine. Football fans are mostly young guys; there were born and raised in the independent Ukraine, and they are patriots of Ukraine. This does not mean there is a link between Svoboda and the fans.
• By the way, Svoboda is not in any way radical. Yes, some of its representatives have somewhat less brains than others, and make ridiculously xenophobic statements, to be later announced as their private opinions by the party itself to shield from nonsense. Let me give you an example of Svoboda being a usual patriots party: during the recent celebration of Israel’s independence in their embassy in Kyiv, a lot of Svoboda representatives came with their congratulations. Would a radical nationalist party do this?
• It was not the “oligarch regime” which was overthrown by the parliament, but the “criminal regime”, where the “family” of Yanukovych relatives and friends were sitting on all the financial streams, including the state budget. I think there is a significant difference between “criminal regime” and “oligarch regime”.

(Speaking of the May 25 presidential elections in Ukraine) “An diesem Tag könnte es einen Rechtsruck vom Atlantik bis zum Don geben.”
Not really. Candidates from nationalist parties do not, unfortunately, have enough support to realistically win the elections. I believe this statement was added purely for the “artistic effect”.

“Veranstaltung der Svoboda, an der auch Unterstützer rechtsextremer freier Gruppen teilgenommen haben.”
Mr. Olaf Sundermeyer shows a photo, where, among other people, there is a guy in the national Ukrainian upper clothing, and wearing a black full-face mask, with the subscript above. I wonder, what is so “right-extremist” about the guy? His face mask? Well, I agree this is not normal in the civilized society, but is it “right-extremist”? Definitely not. Wearing a mask is not extremism by itself. Ok, then maybe its the national clothing he wears – because there is nothing else unusual about the guy? Well, if national clothing is the sign of “right-extremism” to Olaf, then he should probably never attend Oktoberfest. Or is Mr. Sundermeyer working for the guys who believe that “there is no Ukrainian nation”? That would explain the “right-extremism” of the national clothing. That would also explain why Mr. Sundermeyer is focusing so hard on the invisible “right extremists” in Ukraine while Russian chauvinists hunt and kill Ukrainians, Gypsies and Jews in Eastern Ukraine, and proclaim Orthodox Christianity as the “state religion” of the so-called “Donetsk people’s republic”.

I believe that Mr. Olaf Sundermeyer does not really work for Putin – I did see Olaf mentioning something about the plethora (between 17 and 33) right-extremist organizations in Russia (like the “Славянский союз”). However, I think that Mr. Olaf Sundermeyer, focusing on his field of research (which is right-extremism), sees too much of it in Ukraine, while ignoring both the marginal state of any such movements, and the context of the current events in Ukraine.

Suggested reading:

• StopFake
• 5 important facts that the Western press is getting terribly wrong in Ukraine
• The Battle in Ukraine Means Everything

Manipulating and distorting facts, and even making up fictitious “events”, Russian state mass-media (and personally Dmitri Kiselyov) tried very hard to depict protesters in the least favorable light possible – as violent gangsters, thugs, fascists, attackers of innocent policemen. (Dmitri Kiselyov, apparently for his fervent propaganda services, was promoted by Putin to become the head of the newly-created Russian state news agency.)

Russian state mass-media never reported about kidnapped and tortured and murdered protesters, protesters who lost eyes after being shot to the head with rubber bullets, heavily beaten protesters with broken ribs and internal organs rupture.

They also somehow failed to notice that after the night of November, 30, 2013, the protests were no longer about the EU association treaty, but about the responsibility of those guilty of badly exceeding authority during the night beatings of protesters in Kyiv.

Further escalation of the crisis and street protests was always the (delayed) consequence of authorities using illegally excessive force against the protesters. After the “Party of regions” tried to basically forbid the entire protest movement with a set of laws in mid-January (while the president-controlled police and prosecutors office were opening hundreds of criminal prosecution cases against the protesters), Euromaidan, out of well-understandable desperation, escalated into open fighting with the now-disbanded “Berkut” special police forces. The Russian propaganda machine was omitting causal events, while depicting the protesters’ response to (unrevealed) oppression, and this was probably the least disgusting technique used.

Further Yanukovych actions made crystal-clear the primary reason for strong Russian media support: Yanukovych response to the protests was fully coordinated with (and, highly likely, suggested or even ordered by) Moscow. Multiple pieces of evidence support this claim, I’ll only mention two:

• according to, if I remember correctly, Inna Bohoslovska (member of parliament, the former president’s “Party of regions” faction), every time after tension-decreasing agreements were negotiated and nearly finalized between the former president and opposition leaders (who were representing protesters), the phone call to Moscow followed, after which negotiations were aborted without finalizing any agreements;
• when the EU officials had a night-long negotiation with Yanukovych, discussing ways out of the crisis, Yanukovych interrupted negotiations to call Putin.

Clearly, Yanukovych was good for Putin because he was, in fact, a nearly-puppet “president”. Had Yanukovych survived the crisis, the 2015 presidential elections in Ukraine would be as clear and honest as the Crimean referendum, most likely extending Yanukovych presidency for the 2nd term. He could have then followed in the steps of the presidents of Belarus or Kazakhstan (who keep being presidents for many years and even decades). A controllable president of Ukraine was a clear win for Putin, and he didn’t care (and still doesn’t care, of course) about the citizens of Ukraine.

But I digress, as there is indeed a lot to write on the subject. When the Russian military invasion into Ukraine started at the end of February, Russian mass-media kept generating propaganda; now it had the goal to help Putin gain support inside Russia, to brainwash the citizens of Russian Federation (and, to a certain extent, the Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens who haven’t yet realized that Russian mass-media are poisonous) into believing in (totally ungrounded) scary tales about the hardships and life-threatening conditions of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine.

To counter Russian propaganda, a group of journalists and volunteers created an anti-propaganda, anti-lies website StopFake.org, which collects lies from Russian mass-media and finds materials proving those are indeed lies.

Rule of thumb: don’t trust Russian media.
Especially when they are talking about Ukraine.

There exists, however, an imposter website, which blatantly edits news reports to discredit Ukrainian people disagreement with the recent actions of the president and the government.
I call this website “imposter”, because they have the same name (but in Russian) as the above-mentioned original website, a similar domain name, and they also use exactly the same short-name (“УП”). Not a single serious news website would do so.
They, however, only post news in Russian, while the original website is published in both Ukrainian and Russian (with blogs available in the language of the blog’s author). It is clear that the idea behind the fake news website ukrpravda.ua is to influence and manipulate the opinions of the Russian-speaking people unaware of the true nature of that imposter website.

It should be of no surprise that domain name of the imposter is currently hosted by a Russian web-development company “rossiysky.net”:

$ whois ukrpravda.ua
% This is the Ukrainian Whois query server #I.
% The Whois is subject to Terms of use
% See https://hostmaster.ua/services/
%

% % .UA whois
% Domain Record:
% =============
domain: ukrpravda.ua
admin-c: IIK32-UANIC
tech-c: UARR133-UANIC
status: OK-UNTIL 20141008151510
dom-public: NO
license: 110961
nserver: ns1.rossiysky.net
nserver: ns2.rossiysky.net
mnt-by: UARR133-UANIC (ua.parkovka)
created: 0-UANIC 20121008151510
changed: UARR133-UANIC 20131107145540
source: UANIC

% Administrative Contact:
% ======================
nic-handle: IIK32-UANIC
remark: Whois privacy protection service
remark: http://hostmaster.ua/priv.html
e-mail: iik32-uanic@priv.uanic.ua
mnt-by: NONE
source: UANIC

% Technical Contact:
% =================
nic-handle: UARR133-UANIC
organization: CL “BTM GLOBAL GROUP”
organization: ТОВ “БТМ ГЛОБАЛ ГРУП”
organization: ООО “БТМ ГЛОБАЛ ГРУП”
address: Not Available
e-mail: info@parkovka.biz.ua
org-id: N/A
mnt-by: NONE
changed: UARR133-UANIC 20100705153326
source: UANIC

Administrative contact of the domain is hidden using “privacy protection service”.
Technical contact takes us to the “BTM Global Group” domain record (parkovka.biz.ua does not have a website attached to it, but has records pointing at the functional parkovka.ua, which lists exactly the same owner organization):

$ whois parkovka.ua
% This is the Ukrainian Whois query server #I.
% The Whois is subject to Terms of use
% See https://hostmaster.ua/services/
%

% % .UA whois
% Domain Record:
% =============
domain: parkovka.ua
admin-c: TBGG-UANIC
tech-c: UARR133-UANIC
status: OK-UNTIL 20140727121154
dom-public: NO
license: 141995
nserver: ns1.vhost1-ua.parkovka.ua
nserver: ns2.vhost1-ua.parkovka.ua
mnt-by: UARR133-UANIC (ua.parkovka)
created: 0-UANIC 20110727121154
changed: UARR133-UANIC 20130627103250
source: UANIC

% Glue Record:
% ===========
nserver: ns1.vhost1-ua.parkovka.ua
ip-addr: 176.111.63.115

% Glue Record:
% ===========
nserver: ns2.vhost1-ua.parkovka.ua
ip-addr: 176.111.63.115

% Administrative Contact:
% ======================
nic-handle: TBGG-UANIC
organization: ТОВ “БТМ ГЛОБАЛ ГРУП”
address: каб. 216, вул. Орджонікідзе, ,, 67/1
address: 50005 КРИВОЙ РОГ
address: UA
phone: +3 (044) -454-08-82
e-mail: yastreb@profitmark.com.ua
org-id: 37064520
mnt-by: NONE
changed: TBGG-UANIC 20110726164045
source: UANIC

% Technical Contact:
% =================
nic-handle: UARR133-UANIC
organization: CL “BTM GLOBAL GROUP”
organization: ТОВ “БТМ ГЛОБАЛ ГРУП”
organization: ООО “БТМ ГЛОБАЛ ГРУП”
address: Not Available
e-mail: info@parkovka.biz.ua
org-id: N/A
mnt-by: NONE
changed: UARR133-UANIC 20100705153326
source: UANIC

I have no idea how deeply affiliated this “technical” contact is with the fake website.

Finally, the fake news website is currently hosted through – again – a Russian virtual hosting provider “maxiplace”.
“maxiplace” hosts at least this specific server at the German dedicated servers provider Hetzner; I’ve removed Hetzner records from whois output, as they are not relevant to the case:

$ nslookup ukrpravda.ua
Name: ukrpravda.ua
Address: 78.46.152.149

$ whois 78.46.152.149
% This is the RIPE Database query service.
% The objects are in RPSL format.
%
% The RIPE Database is subject to Terms and Conditions.
% See http://www.ripe.net/db/support/db-terms-conditions.pdf

% Note: this output has been filtered.
% To receive output for a database update, use the “-B” flag.

% Information related to ’78.46.152.144 – 78.46.152.159′

inetnum: 78.46.152.144 – 78.46.152.159
netname: XENHOMERU
descr: xenhome.ru
country: DE
admin-c: AR8160-RIPE
tech-c: AR8160-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: HOS-GUN
source: RIPE # Filtered

person: Alexey Roshchin
address: maxiplace.ru
address: Komsomolskaya 6
address: 114256 Moscow
address: RUSSIAN FEDERATION
phone: +79169223288
nic-hdl: AR8160-RIPE
mnt-by: HOS-GUN
source: RIPE # Filtered

Do not trust “random” websites you find on the internet – they may want to misinform you on purpose.

Dmitri Tabachnik is the Minister of education in the new (Yanukovych team) government.
He is well-known for his anti-Ukrainian rhetoric and for the denial of everything Ukrainian.

The other day he canceled obligatory Ukrainian language university entrance exams, proving again with his actions that he does intend to enact his phobia of Ukrainian identity.

A social response website tabachnik.net.ua has a number of materials on the perception of Tabachnik’s assignment as a Minister of education. The video below is a nice artistic interpretation of the organic resentment of this assignment.

Support from Volodymyr Lytvyn fraction, the Party of Regions and the Communist party helped Dmitri Tabachnik to stay in the Minister’s seat for a while longer: his removal by the Parliament was short of only 24 votes.

Hopefully, sane representatives will keep pushing for the removal of Tabachnik from the position he should have never been to in the first place.

Fortunately, I haven’t lost anything valuable, and don’t plan to. However, I did come to realize that false leads may and actually do obscure some simple happiness bits we fail to notice in our everyday life. Especially when that happiness comes from someone close, someone you literally got used to as to something inseparable from your life – but still fail to give value to.

Take care of your happiness and inner peace – do stop sometimes to thank and praise and value the oh-so-inseparable people around you.

Copyrights note: this is not my image, and I do not know who is the proper copyrights holder. It is used here for illustrative non-profit purposes, with a proper disclaimer. Contact me if you own the copyright and wish this image removed.

A total of 80k people were registered with respiratory infections (not classified by flu type). Several small samples tested for A/H1N1 (which is the cause of swine flu pandemic) indicate that 30-50% of all cases could be swine flu (with other cases being “seasonal flu” – that is, previously known influenza types and subtypes). It is reported that ~37 died since Monday, with symptoms matching those of swine flu. Most of the statistics come from the Western regions of Ukraine, which were the first to face rapid daily temperatures decrease – which could have been the trigger of massive infections.

Today I’ve seen a number of people in Kyiv’s underground railway wearing medical face masks (or just pulling their scarfs up to cover noses). Drug stores were literally stormed for anti-virus medications, immune system stimulators, medical face masks, vitamins, etc.

If not the virus, then panic is definitely in the air. I do not recollect seeing something like that before.

an organization that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, and DIY biological engineers who value openness and safety.

DIYbio also has a google group, where a wide range of questions – from bio-patents to DIY gel electrophoresis shopping list and model organisms is dicussed. There is also a DIYbio/biohacking FAQ.

Today for me is the day of discoveries. I learned about the International Open Space Initiative (to give robotics enthusiasts a way to send their tele-controlled and/or intelligent robots to the Moon and Mars), about the DIYbio and biohackers, about OpenManufacturing (which doesn’t seem to have produced enough content to link to), Open Source Medicine (ouch!), BioBrick Assembly Kit (with an assembly manual), OpenWetWare, and a whole bunch of other awesome and inspiring community efforts, which do not belong here.

Do you feel the wind of change?

The Crisis of Credit Visualized by Jonathan Jarvis.

I’m now registered in both systems (and getting “verified” in CS), and so far I stayed with three people (at two places) found via HC and CS. Both experiences were highly positive. Actually, my world outlook changed quite a bit after my first stay: I heard from someone that

it’s better to trust wrong person once, than always distrust all the people

But building trust, despite being central to HC ans CS, is only one – basic – component. Cultural exchange and knowledge sharing are also important, though so far I was unable to comprehend these components sufficiently to write on them.

At the CouchSurfing.com website, it appears to be popular to put some test/quiz results into profiles. These are the tests:

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant. Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all men You are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

And two kinda funny Nerd Tests, version 1 and version 2:

On Sunday, the 10th of December, 2006, the grandmother of my wife died – almost three days after she had a cardiac infarction.

She was a kind, calm, warm-hearted old woman. She was just a little bit over 79 years old.

What did she leave behind?

She had brought up and educated her children and grandchildren to be People. None of her offspring went the way of crimes, or even disrespect towards others. The likes of her children could form a quasi-ideal ethical society, with no exaggeration – given she would be able to teach and bring up all of them.

She served the society well, working as a psychotherapist at a hospital. She helped people regain peace of mind, she cured mental diseases in the best way she could. She happened to meet her old-time patients in the street from time to time, and they expressed gratitude for her help.

She left a memory of a good, reliable, helpful person. This memory lives with all the people who were lucky to know her.

———

Death is the final evaluation for the person’s deeds during life.

What are the measures for this evaluation? What is really important? What matters after death?

First, it appeared to me that human memories are what matters. Memories of good deeds, memories of helping others, memories of being valuable for the society and mankind. “To put the mark on history” and “to be placed on record” are the expressions of the desire to have people remember someone even after death.

However, I have doubts that memories are what is really important. (I cannot explain what I mean with really important at the moment – I’m risking to get into circular argumentation. So let us consider this property to be something metaphysical, which isn’t directly related to the majority of phenomena we come to know during our lives, but which is a constituent component of all the deeds and actions.) Take stage, movie and music stars, for example. “Stars” often have huge numbers of people remembering them for decades and sometimes even centuries. But these are memories of “performers”, of “personal abilities to play well”, of “being able to live a role, not play it”, to “bring enjoyment to the lives of others” etc – these are not important per se. To put it simple, I consider “fame memories” generally not really important.

Thinking of fame memories, I can’t reject the notion of brightest stars and best artists directing the development of culture and pushing “into the masses” the understanding and the measure of the beautiful, the aesthetic side of existence. In my opinion, this is especially true of the Renaissance artists – taking into account the pre-Renaissance notions of culture and beauty, and the drastically different Renaissance art. Note the difference here: it’s not the artists we remember, but their art and the whole period. Of course, the names of Da Vinchi and Michelangelo cannot be forgotten – it’s just that their creations had outgrown the authors. What was done – was a massive change, and change is important. If it were for a single artist, not making the change happen – yes, we would probably still know his name, but that would only be primarily a part of the history book, not mankind’s heritage.

If I do ignore (personal) stage fame, and also drop memories within smaller groups and communities, then memories can be excluded from the list of really important attributes, following one’s life. Not to mention that “fame” also needs lots of manual refinement – e.g. the case of the “famous Herostratus”.

Let’s make an intermediary point: fame is not important, change in society is.

———

Let’s continue the never-ending search for the sense of life.

Evidently, anything valuable/material/physical you earned and spent during your life doesn’t matter – salaries, bonuses, dividends, etc – that was to support your body during life.

Any property you had during your life is not a measure as well. Your property might be inherited by your children, if you have them – but it is not a measure of your deeds. Being a land-owner, an industrialist, or a multi-billionaire is not a thing to write on a grave stone (in my opinion).

A thing to consider is charity. There is an idea that charity is good. Gifting fully-equipped computer-room to your school will likely bring benefits to the quality of education of the quite a number of pupils of that school. Not all charity is beneficial, though: only that is, which does change (improve) the state of things. However, I do not recollect any act of charity, which would exit the bounds of an enclosed society (be it even the whole country) or the time-frame of two generations. What I mean to say is: charity is the way to convert your financial wealth into the well-being of many others, if it makes a change. And the bigger the change, the longer its effect – the more real importance was created.

Another intermediary point: changes are really important for the final evaluation. The larger the scale of the changes you make, the longer the effect of those changes – the more value, the more real importance you create. (Granted, of course, that the changes you make aren’t against the principles of morality, ethics, and well-being.)

———

What do people consider important to do during their lives?

I know a number of people who live “for new impressions”, who want to “try everything” and gain as much as possible of “new experience”. However, these impressions and experience are personal – they die with the person. Thus, they cannot be a measure of one’s final evaluation, one’s “value-added real importance“.

A lot of people consider travelling to be a synonym of self-development. They think that travelling is worth the time. Is it so, when it comes to the death still? Evidently, it’s not – travelling is just one of the types of gaining personal impressions, personal experience. It (mostly) serves the selfish, traveller-centred desire to soak cultures and impressions, and only rarely produces “value-added real importance“.

The importance of self-development and gaining experience becomes evident when it comes to the actual use of one’s knowledge. If the knowledge/experience/impressions just cannot, or will not be used – then it’s a waste of time.

———

There are four points, serving as real importance approximations for me: strive for the changes to the better in whatever you are doing, do the good in your everyday life, pass on your worldview (principles, ideas, the best you could come to during lifetime), and exercise useful self-development (which is necessary to grasp more features of the world, for a more complete and reliable view).

———

This is clearly incomplete. Additions and corrections are due, for a lifetime.

In 2007 in Ukraine, there were over 62 000 road accidents with over 9 000 killed and 77 000 injured.
This is 20% increase comparing to 2006.
And this is also almost two people dead from road accidents per 10000 of population, and 16(!) people injured per 10000 of population.
Based on these numbers, every Ukrainian is (on average) at 0.16% risk of being injured and at 0.02% risk of being killed in a road accident.

(An increase in the number of new cars sold in 2007 relative to 2006 was 46.1%: from 371000 sold in 2006, up by 171000 to 542000 new cars sold in 2007.)

On average, road kill accidents take 3-8 times more lives in Ukraine, then in other European countries.

If you visit Ukraine – watch out for reckless, drunken, stupid, blind, ignorant drivers and violating, unpredictable, dummy pedestrians.

The further from the Kyiv’s downtown you are – the more watchful you should be.

This post used the numbers from this press-release (in Ukrainian).

Via webplanet.ru – reddit.com.

Also: 5 content theft myths, and why they are false.

And more links:

• free internet fax
• anti-spam email 1 (recommended)
• anti-spam email 2
• create on-demand snapshot (archive) of the cited web-page

On the other hand, Lytvyn’s block did jump the 3% barrier. By the way, if we take the absolute number of votes Lytvyn had in 2006 elections (619 905 votes), and the number he had at the 2007 snap elections (924 538), the difference is only 304633 votes. When multiplied by 20$, it gives 6 million USD – which isn’t too high a price for getting into the parliament, isn’t it?

Overall, I’m satisfied with these elections. Politicians this time were wise enough to avoid prolonged court trials over the miserable, non-differentiating numbers of votes in distinct voting districts. It saved both time and money. It’s also good to hear that immediately after the official results announcement, the Our Ukraine – Self Defence block and the Block of Yulia Tymoshenko agreed upon the coalition treaty. It’s not yet evident if the treaty will hold, or if it won’t be beaten by the PR – Lytvyn – Communists probable political block – but that is still a good sign of political agility, unseen since the end of 2004 between the two political forces.

I’m also glad that society intelligently handled these elections, which were unfavoured by many. Everything went overall smooth and with no troubles.

The only thing, which is not directly elections-related, is the fighting over the status and interpretation of the OUN-URA (Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists – Ukrainian Rebel Army) during the World War II. But I hope that in part with the help and actions by the President, this issue will be settled and finally resolved as soon as possible (I expect this to happen within 10 years from now).

Early in the morning, I heard from my wife’s sister that some of her friends were offered 100 UAH (20 USD) for promising to vote for the Lytvyn’s political block (based on his People’s party – “Narodna partiya“, in Ukrainian only). I said “that’s ugly, and they could just take the money and vote for whomever they want, as it’s impossible to enforce them to vote exactly for Lytvyn”. But that was it as for my reaction in the morning.

Later in the day – when I voted – I learned that my grandma was approached by her neighbour pensioner and offered 50 UAH (10 USD) to vote for Lytvyn’s block. My grandma didn’t know that the “true offer” is at least twice as big, and agreed. Clearly, that neighbour pensioner decided to earn some extra by robbing her fellow pensioners for at least 50 UAH each when offering to sell their votes (offering 50 UAH to just a hundred pensioners gives 1000 USD of pure profit; there are at least 150 pensioners in my grandma’s house).

After paying the “half-price”, that neighbour pensioner woman wrote down my grandma’s passport number and the serial number of the invitation sent by the local elections committee. She also asked to report to her the number of the bulletin after voting, so that they can check if my grandma really voted for Lytvyn. (This is yet another violation of the law, as it is supposed that voting is anonymous. It also indicates that the local committee’s representatives of the Lytvyn block, instead of just counting the votes, may also keep record of all the bulletins, which is also clearly illegal.)

But the worst thing in all this is that my grandma actually… voted for Lytvyn’s block, because she’s honest and she has promised to do so! (Clearly, the Lytvyn block didn’t go far enough to actually check if the bought voters really voted for Lytvyn, as my grandma wasn’t asked about the bulletin number after the voting.)

I can only guess how many honest pensioners were simply bought by Lytvyn to help his party/block jump over the minimal barrier for parliament representation. I strongly doubt that Lytvyn will make into the parliament: his chances were slightly below marginal, based on pre-election polling.

I must say that the practice of buying votes (either with money, goods or some privileges) is quite widespread during elections to local governance bodies; the recent example was the election of Igor Balenko in 2006 to the Kyiv city council. I do remember that a number of 10% discount cards valid in the “Furshet” supermarkets chain (established and owned by Balenko) were distributed among the pensioners all over the city before the elections; there is no doubt that it helped Igor Balenko to enter the city council as people’s deputy.

However, for pan-Ukraine parliamentary or presidential elections, most of the money is put into advertising and agitation tours, not into buying individual votes. If someone’s buying voters, this indicates the disbelief of the corrupted political force in it’s own victory unless marginal and unethical measures are taken.

I believe this is exactly the case with Lytvyn’s block. They do not believe they will make into the new parliament, and try to primitively buy votes.

Frankly speaking, I would expect the Socialist party (headed by Oleksandr Moroz) to do something of the kind, taking into account several critically unfavourable steps undertaken by Moroz, which were (correctly, I presume) interpreted as treachery by his electorate. After the highly successful previous elections, Moroz did everything he could (but shouldn’t, really) to stay in the power. This led to the Socialist party losing 90% of electorate (based on pre-snap-elections polling). Another factor pushing socialists rankings down is that Yuri Lutsenko, the highly charismatic and honest-image minister, left Socialist for his own party, but didn’t have eough time before snap elections and had to join some well-established political party to make it into the parliament. I’m sure this was the second factor for decreasing the ratings of Socialist party.

Finally, I won’t dare predicting the results of the elections, but I think there will be nothing vividly unexpected. The three leader blocks will clearly pass the barrier, also with probably two of the smaller parties (hope not the socialists and not Lytvyn’s block). I leave it to political analysts to predict who will form the coalition with whom in the new government.

Generally, I think these elections were necessary. The least they do is stimulating the development and purification of the Ukraine’s political system.

At the end of the video, when future supercomputers are described, it hinted me at two distinct long-living ideas: that of singularity (in the sense of a breakthrough leading to the immediate exponential growth and even probable abrupt mankind transformation), and that of Artificial Intelligence. The video suggests that this will happen somewhere between 2013 and 2049, which is hard to believe.

Information overload is definitely a feature of the modern world. There’s still space for further overload, but what will be the result? Psychotic workers, or super-intelligent and hyper-efficient “infohumans”?

China, India and their bordering states (sorry, no offence here – just to shorten the list) were long known to constitute the largest mono-national parts of world population. It’s clear that after fairly recent joining of the Asian states into a superstate cooperation commonwealth, half of the world’s population already resides in that commonwealth. This projection for the future seems the strongest of all shown in the movie.

I would strongly doubt the “largest English-speaking country in 10 years” to be China. Imagine: you live in a 1+ billion people country, and you are financially stable (we all know that China is the fastest growing world’s economy); why would you need to learn English, which is so different from your native language? Chinese language is the way – so start learning it as soon as you can (BTW, seen somewhere that the number of Japanese blogs, as expected, became larger than the number of English blogs. Now waiting for Chinese blogs? )