Tag: people

Can you explain Ukraine?

This website (bluetoyellow.com) was set up with a simple mission: uncover Ukraine.

It is a fun mission and it is a fascinating mission – but we need your help. We need you to help us explain Ukraine.

Our writers and editors all work full-time on other projects and for other companies, but we write whatever we can, whenever we can and then we share this with you and with the world. The problem is, Ukraine is a big place.  Actually it is very big place and it is incredibly varied.  Even if we never slept and wrote non-stop 24 hours a day – it would still be too big for us to cover.

So, we want all our readers and followers to help us. We want you to send us stories about Ukraine.

Do you live in Ukraine? Are you Ukrainian? Have you spent some time in Ukraine? If so, then I’m sure you have a story to tell  …and we are all waiting to hear it!

We want this site to be a detailed collection of essays, articles, opinions, stories and videos which will lift the lid on Ukraine and shine light on the many curious aspects of Ukrainian life.

Don’t worry if you are not a native English speaker, we will work with you to correct your grammar and in some cases we could even translate articles from Ukrainian and Russian.

Unfortunately, we can’t pay you (we don’t make any money) and writing for us won’t get you an invitation to the Oscars. But you will earn the love and admiration of our readers, and you will be able to sleep well – happy in the knowledge that you are helping to promote this country around the globe.

Here are some ideas for articles:

Stories
We all love stories, and somehow life in Ukraine leads us on the craziest of journeys. So, please share your experiences with us. This could be something short (maybe something happened while you were out walking, riding the metro or during your work) or perhaps you’re a keen writer and have written a longer story about a journey or other mission.

Reviews
The obvious option is to review businesses, events and restaurants, and these are all very good. However, we also want to read about interesting buildings, or places. Do you have a favourite place to sit and relax? Where can you see an amazing view? and where’s the best place to drink vodka and eat shashlik on a summer day?

People
Tell us about the Ukrainians. The good the bad, the ugly and the incredible. What do they do, how did you meet them, why are they interesting? what did you learn from them? Do they have interesting or strange jobs? We want to know about them.

Photos and funny stuff
We all know Ukrainians LOVE taking pictures, so please share the best/most interesting/funniest with us.

Guides
Here’s your chance to help others. Help us survive in Ukraine, share your expertise and teach us something useful. Where should we shop and how do we get there? How do you find an apartment? What about studying here? or booking a holiday? What should I do if I want to eat salo in a Ukrainian village in spring?

Nature and the Environment
Ukraine is a large and diverse place. From the mountains in the West, to the wonderful Black Sea coast in Crimea – the country has some inspiring natural sites and some unique wildlife.

Food and Drink
We all love food, share your recipes or suggest a good place to eat.

Sport
Tell us how you keep fit. What’s happening in the sporting world? Where can we try these sports? What are the latest health crazes sweeping the nation? From pilates to parachute jumping, we want to know.

We look forward to working with you and we look forward to sharing your stories with the world.

For submissions, or if you have any further questions please write to Ian Bearder at ian@bluetoyellow.com

Kind Regards
The bluetoyellow team

PS, many thanks to all of you who have already submitted articles and work.


Up in smoke

Ukraine is a heavy smoker – that’s no secret, and anyone who’s ever been will know that smoking is pretty much a national sport. According to a report published in 2009,‘Ukraine has about 16.5 million smokers and one of the highest rates of male smoking prevalence in the world’.

Cigarettes are advertised everywhere, cigarettes are cheap, you can smoke inside (almost anywhere) and cigarette brands even manufacture a wide range of trendy brands to cater for the huge market of fashion conscious Ukrainian smokers. Slims, menthols, normal cigarettes with a menthol ‘button’, super slims, apple slims, rainbow coloured slims with golden filters, cigarettes without filters… Marlborough white, silver, gold… the list goes on and on.

Unfortunately, as we all know, smoking isn’t a healthy habit and tobacco-related diseases are believed to be responsible for approximately 115,000 premature deaths a year. That’s a lot in a country with a declining life expectancy and population.

The cost to the Ukrainian economy is obviously huge, but while I was reading some other blog about Ukraine last week, I realised this was part of a bigger trend. The author explained that, in Ukraine…

“Financial literacy is generally quite low even among intellectuals. When ordinary Ukrainians start making decent money, they tend to “waste” it on friends and relatives rather than hold on to it to build personal wealth.”

This certainly seems to be true in my experience too, and I’m sure it explains the ridiculous number of high-end luxury jeeps and cars which Ukrainians drive. Ukrainians don’t often save and they don’t invest so much in the future – they live for the moment and they want everyone to know about it.

In some cases, and certainly on a personal level, this short-term ‘live for the day’ approach to money is endearing. Extravagance at weddings and birthdays etc is as fun as it is frivolous and on more than one occasion I’ve heard Ukrainians complain that westerners are ‘penny pinchers’ and not generous etc. We’re ‘boring’ and cold.

The same goes for efficiency and economizing. Heating in the cities comes on in October and stays on, full-blast, until it gets warm again. If you want to cool down, you have to open the window.  I once heard another story about a Ukrainian who went to London and was outraged because the family she was staying with told her not to take a long shower because it used all the hot water. This was interpreted by the unhappy Ukrainian (whose was presumably used to un-metered and therefore unlimited hot water and heating) as supreme stinginess.  How can the UK possibly limit something as simple as hot-water?, right?  Our little princess was not happy with the idea of individual restraint.

It seems that western Europeans and Ukrainians really are at different ends of the spectrum on some things. Efficiency and conservation are not concepts that are taken very seriously, if at all, here.

Sadly, despite all this extravagance, the reality is that Ukraine is not a wealthy country and it is a country which is desperately in need of investment. Yet, every time a Ukrainian gets his or her hands $20K they blow it on a Mercedes and make German pension funds ever richer. What money they have left literally goes up in smoke, either fueling a 4 liter engine or fueling a 20-a-day smoking habit.

Ian

Blue to yellow, is sponsored by Ukraine Business Online, the only site you need for English language news about business in Ukraine. 

Why do Ukrainians fear drafts?

A few weeks ago my eye started to hurt. Actually, it was the bottom part of my eyelid – the soft part where tears well and where flies always end up if they get into your eye.

It wasn’t a bad pain, but I kept rubbing it and it swelled up a bit and went red. It was a small infection and it looked funny.

However, the funniest thing about my eye infection wasn’t my puffy face, it was the ‘medical’ advice I recieved from my well-meaning and genuinely concerned Ukrainian friends.

Apparently, in Ukraine, small eye infections can be ‘cured’ in the following ways:

  • holding a hot egg against it
  • eating bread crusts in the toilet
  • Some kind of Ukrainian voodoo spell performed by an old woman
  • washing it with tea
  • taking a thread (preferably white) and tie it around the middle and ring fingers (fix with a knot) on the hand opposite to the side where you have the infection. Then bury the thread.
  • Strapping up (criss-crossed) two fingers (third and fourth finger after thumb) on the opposite hand

You don’t believe me? well, I can’t confirm or deny any of these medical ‘facts’ because I walked across to the pharmacy, pointed at my eye and said ‘u menya yest problema’ (I have a problem) in my best Russian accent and walked away with some ointment.   This seemed to fix the problem in less than 48 hours.

However, the episode did inspire me to gather as much info as possible on Ukrainian medical advice, beliefs and fears. Trust me, there are many.  I will write them up as soon as I have all the info.

In the meantime, here’s a great article about drafts. Yes, those deadly breezes that Slavic people fear so much. It was posted by a guy called Christopher who’s living in Eastern Ukraine. You can read the original here.

Why do Ukrainians fear drafts?

Ukrainian drafts can kill you. Seriously

Last summer, in the August heat, I was on a bus with two other volunteers on our way to visit our friend in Novaazovsk. People were packed into this bus like sardines in a can, many standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the aisle way.

The three of us occupied most of the rear bench seat. The temperature outside was somewhere near 40 degrees, putting the temperature on the bus somewhere near an unbearable 43 degrees. The trip would take about five hours.

The minimal free-flowing air on the bus came from a ceiling vent positioned near the front. It felt like our only lifeline. Leaning toward the center of the bus, into the airstream of that vent, was all I could do to keep from inhaling what felt like everyone else’s exhalations.

An hour into the trip, the vent was shut, my lifeline closed. Hot, moist, stagnant air. I felt panicky, overwhelmed with a feeling similar to that of being trapped under a dense pillow. Slow suffocation.

I wasn’t sure during the bus ride, when the woman closed the overhead vent, why someone would choose to cut off the only fresh air supply to a bus full of sweaty, overheated people.

Later, I told the story to a Ukrainian friend of mine. What she said to me made very little sense to this American.

“A cross breeze can make you ill,” she said. “It’s called skvazniak.” It might be an old Ukrainian superstition, but a lot of people believe it can make you sick and lead to death.”

Death? I was shocked. Letting your hair blow in the wind while driving down the highway is what many Americans live for. I looked forward to doing that very thing each summer while cruising Oregon’s Highway 101, tracing the curves of the Pacific coastline, chasing the sun.

I guess that doesn’t cross over into this culture.

***

In the same vein as skvazniak is the idea that drinking cold water will make you ill.

In America, we prefer our drinks cold, often times with ice in them. Iced tea, iced lemonade and iced coffee are just a few examples.

In my time in Ukraine, I can recall seeing ice just once (the kind used in drinks, not the stuff that forms on the streets in winter, which there is plenty of) and it was when I was at the apartment of another American volunteer. Her parents had sent an ice cube tray to her as a gift.

***

To my surprise, as miserable as it was, I didn’t die on that bus. In fact, no one did – not from heatstroke, or skvazniak.

I’m not a doctor, so I can’t prove whether gusts of wind can cause illness, just like I can’t prove that when that woman closed the vent on the bus she saved my life. All I know is that I haven’t died from driving in my car with the windows down yet. Perhaps I just have a strong immune system.

http://borderland-chronicles.com/

Gallery: Kiev

A selection of photos from Ukraine’s capital city.

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