Hopeless Ukraine (part 4)

In 2006-2008 Ukraine was in a complete mess.

The “orange” team has divided into 2 camps after the Orange Revolution – members of President Yushchenko's party “Our Ukraine” and the followers of “The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc”.

Party of Regions was in opposition, but had 32% seats in Parliament after parliamentary elections of 2006 and sabotaged every “orange” decision. A lot of "Donetsk clan” guys moved to Kyiv. Each party actively recruited supporters among the people and pulled the country in its own direction. I think that is when the practice of paid participation in rallies began.

Yushchenko's "orange" parliamentary deputies of 2004 were partially moved by their former colleagues from “The Yulia Tymoshenko’s Bloc” and Yanukovych's "white and blue" ones in 2006 and all parties tried to put their members to any profitable state position and these new “bosses” demanded money, money, money... Different parliamentary groups pushed through their own interests and the Parliament hardly adopted the laws which contradicted each other and the Constitution. The executive and judicial power took bribes almost without hiding and raider seizures of somebody else’s property flourished. The judges issued needed decisions and any person's property could be “legally” taken away. The police was on the side of whoever had more power and money. Each side threw mud at the others and all of them lied more or less. Civil servants of the country actually did not work, but were just resolving their own questions.


In 2007, President Yushchenko decided to dissolve the Parliament, but the Parliament didn’t obey and yet the opposition government of Mr. Yanukovych hadn’t assigned the funds for re-elections. The Constitutional Court has retired to consider the ruling. The way out of a deadlock were unscheduled parliamentary re-elections in 2007 which changed almost nothing. Coalition associated with the Orange Revolution (“Yulia Timoshenko’s Bloc” and “Our Ukraine – People’s Self Defence” bloc) obtained a narrow majority leaving the Party of Regions in opposition. The Ukrainian political crisis has not been resolved. The country was like a swamp in which neither good nor bad decisions can be enforced.
..........

Thus the country's elites fought each other badly and at the same time actively separated from the people. Both government and opposition rented (the purchase was forbidden) magnificent lands in picturesque Kyiv’s suburbs and built luxury mansions in "elite" separate townships, lived much beyond their means, educated their children in separate schools, vacationed and kept their money abroad. They constantly violated the laws that they wrote for their citizens, and were not responsible for that. I’ve heard that many of top state officials had permanent residence in other countries and each of them tried to grab something in Ukraine. They literally tore the country apart.

At that time I was training in the gym of a friend of mine, who rented it from one state structure. In 2005, the winners of the Orange Revolution showed up. They informed us that they had come into power and demanded more cash or we had to vacate the premises. In 2007 a representative of the Party of Regions came up with the same request. I understood that the government and the opposition of any color were the same legalized racketeers.


What were Ukrainian people doing in the meantime?

As usual they tried to survive at material plane, but also the Ukrainians began to divide into several warring groups – the fans of different political parties, deliberately created for them by different Ukrainian clans. People just didn’t understand why nothing changed after their victory in Orange Revolution and began to spill out their negative energy at each other, actively conflicting for almost any (not just political) reason. I could literally feel the hatred covering the country. And this growing hatred flowed out into the streets and roads.

At that time I was very much impressed by the number of people died in road accidents in Ukraine. It was a crazy number of around 8 thousand people a year. That was an indicator (for me, at least) how much people hate each other. It was a war of Ukrainians against Ukrainians. Mr. Putin's dream started becoming true long before his aggression in Donbass in 2014.

I know that people shouldn’t live together if they hate each other so much. This rule can be applied to any relationship - in family, friendship, at work and in a country. That hatred hasn't gone until now judging by the communication of Ukrainians in social networks, that's why I already saw Ukraine for a long while being divided into 3 parts - West, Center and East. I think that if there would not be Mr. Putin's hybrid wars in Crimea and especially in Donbass, which brought the rest of Ukrainians together, Ukraine would already collapse by now.


The Ukrainian authorities used their power positions to make money. This is a corruption which has always been and always would be in Ukraine.

The worst thing is that the corruption has driven its roots deep into the people. Ukrainians were tired of turning a blind eye to the outrages of the authorities and had begun to do the same. At the end of the 2000s it became a norm to go to different political rallies for money. Many people did that, and they (especially the elderly ones) cannot be blamed - they just tried to make some money, too. Nobody thought about the country. At last the people got the chance to make money from politics.

All the moral boundaries that should keep the nation within some kind of common sense were erased. This common sense and inner dignity of Ukrainians somehow quietly disappeared, everyone participated in some sort of theatre of absurd, arranged by the authorities of “independent” Ukraine. All rules of normal co-existence seemed to be ceased to exist in the country, including traffic rules.

For me, the respect/disrespect of the traffic rules is the explicit indicator of the well-being/ ill-being of any nation. Why?
Because it shows the true attitude of citizens toward each other. And yet if the citizens violate the traffic rules (which are in plain sight), so they clearly violate even more the rules which are hidden. 8 thousand dead Ukrainians on the roads of Ukraine yearly is a direct consequence of disrespecting all the rules, moral and traffic ones including.

I had an eye-popping experience while insuring my car in 2007. A charming young employee of the insurance company quite seriously offered me to include into my insurance the road traffic offence like driving through a crossroad at red light, entering the oncoming lane, etc. That costed twice as much as “normal” insurance. I asked how much it would cost the hitting of a police officer at a crosswalk and she looked at me as if I was nuts. I was looking at her in the same way and after a pause I asked if she thought it was idiotic. She answered, "Well, you are not obliged to buy that service, but a lot of people do.” I left in complete shock. They were legally selling the right to violate the law!
It was a moral degradation not just of the authorities, which I got used to, but of the whole nation.


Later on I called that all "selling Ukraine by wholesale and retail”. People envied the authorities who had the opportunity to sell Ukraine wholesale and began to "sell by retail” their own little pieces of Ukraine to whoever wanted to pay for that.
Unfortunately, this is the mentality of the Ukrainian nation (if to speak about the majority), which has been developed since the times of USSR. In Ukraine every (!) government official of any (!) rank sells (or tries to sell) the advantages of his power position. Corruption is a way of living of the Ukrainian authorities so no reforms proposed by the IMF will go through. The deep state of Ukraine is based on corruption. I think that if the salaries of all civil servants in Ukraine (legislative and executive authorities, law and tax enforcement agencies) would be abolished one nice day, the lowest rank employees only would leave the civil service because they are the only ones who live for the paychecks.

Thus the mess in Ukraine will continue until the collapse of the country because it takes a lot of time (at least couple of generations yet living in special conditions) to change the mentality of the nation. Biblical Moses intentionally made the Jews wandering about the desert for 40 years after the exodus from Egyptian slavery.


In 2007 I wrote a series of articles in which I formulated my vision of Ukraine this way:

“In general, Ukraine outwardly is very similar to a normal state, because all the attributes are present - coat of arms, flag, anthem, borders, constitution, people, power structures, laws, courts, army, police, etc. The only thing missing is the internal connections between all those parts, so the outwardly normal mechanism is working discordantly. Examples: a patient with cerebral palsy. Imbecile. Current Ukraine. USSR.”

Recently I have reread my articles of 2007 – it was like they were written yesterday, I just needed to change the names. Almost nothing has changed since then, it just got worse because another 15 years of lives of all Ukrainians were spent for fighting each other senselessly and irrevocably.

Couple of years ago I realized for whom I wrote these articles in 2007. I wrote them for myself. I explained to myself very clearly that Ukraine was hopeless. It was a hopelessness that made me leave in 2009 and so far it turns out that I was right.

P. S. Я дуже прошу тих небагатьох українців, що дійсно вболівають за український народ, вибачити мені деякі узагальнення у цій статті, котрі можуть завдати їм додаткового болю.

(to be continued)


P.P.S. Dear Reader! I am very much interested in your opinion on the subject of this article. Please, write a comment or ask a question if you want to clarify something.
Yours,
Igor Chykalov