This isn’t the first time I’ve appeared in print because I edited text for the European Business Associations weekly adverts for almost a year (not to mention my full page spread in Slovenia’s Anja magazine) but as far as I can remember this is the 1st time I have willingly contributed directly to the creative content of a publication.
It’s a modest start, but still I wanted to find a copy to keep as a souvenir, so I used this as an excuse for an expensive breakfast in Vernisage. Of course they had a copy and as I thumbed through the magazine over breakfast, I came across an interview by a guy called Martin Nunn – a PR executive and long-time immigrant here in Kyiv. I liked it for two reasons:
Firstly because it is hard not to agree with many of his observations about Ukraine, Ukrainians and Russians. Such as:
“Russians, particularly Moscow-based Russians, tend to have a glorified opinion of their own superiority.”
and
“…the roads [in Ukraine] are in a terrible state, but instead of fixing them people buy bigger jeeps. If you go into the tower blocks, the apartments themselves are beautiful, but the communal areas are in a terrible state. It’s this crazy mentality. You have people wearing very expensive clothes, and very expensive shoes, with very expensive cars, walking through some of the worst states of decay I’ve ever seen, into these mini-palaces. Nobody’s doing anything about the gap in between because nobody thinks it’s their responsibility. Until people realise it is their responsibility, nothing will change. The only people going to save the country is the people themselves.”
Secondly, because he picks up on the shockingly bad state of the countries PR industry, or more specifically political relations.
“The PR people in government have done more damage to the image of the President than anyone else. There’s a supreme arrogance in the way they work, and it’s probably been one of the most deplorable cases of non-PR I’ve ever experienced”
If you have any doubt how bad it is, read their ‘newsletter’ here. It embarrasses me and I’m not even Ukrainian.
Anyway, I ‘Googled’ him and found another interesting article from Mr Nunn here http://www.ipra.org/archivefrontlinedetail.asp?articleid=879. If you’re curious and have nothing better to do, I recommend it.
As for me and my media fame, I’m currently working on a plan to move from free magazines to Hollywood film stardom.
I’ll keep you posted.
Eddy