 ‘Two-headed’ Ukraine By Serhiy KHARCHENKO |
Many Ukrainians think that they are building not a unified state but the Tower of Babel. This unstable "construction" consists of unequal regions with different social and economic fates. Some of the regions are comparatively prosperous: other regions are depressed and desperately lag behind others.
Some countries have already gone through such national shame as "dying cities" and "agonizing regions". But the governments of those countries invariably took those processes under control and more or less effectively led their states to economic and social harmony.
Ukraine has to go the longest way. Its internal integration process is being hindered by the regions themselves which sometimes demonstrate a straight-out opposition to the process. The regions have different cultural values and heroes as well as different views on their own history and even on their future.
According to its administrative-territorial division, Ukraine consists of 25 regions and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. But an artificially created political "minefield" has divided Ukraine into two equal parts — the East and the West.
Recently I visited several cities of both regions. Here I share my impressions, confirmed by sociological and statistical data.
Western Ukraine is the "spiritual locomotive" of the Ukrainian nation and for over one hundred years was a part of five neighboring countries. The region "tasted" European freedoms and traditions; it is rich in European style towns, with the customary cafes in all cozy places. Small and middle business, especially tourism is developing more intensively there than in other regions. Local residents, as rule, speak several languages.
The national leaders of the region, who took the key positions right after Ukraine declared its Independence, "drowned" in patriotic rhetoric and appeared ineffective in economic innovations. That's what they are accused of by the representatives of more "pragmatic" parties, which are gradually crowding out national-patriots in the power structures. But even under the new leaders the region remains behind the general process of economic development of the country.
Poor financial resources (they don't even have their own oligarch), more scarce raw materials, a high level of unemployment, traditionally intensive outflow of labor force, and the main thing - an uncertain future for large local enterprises. Economists characterize this region in such parameters. Foreign investors are very careful in investing money in the food and transport industries there. It's notable that the "private investments" of relatives who work abroad are very often considerably higher than the official incomes of local people. That is the most significant reason why European orientation supporters prevail there.
Now I'll discuss the East.
According to sociologists' opinions, the East is very slowly starting to identify itself with Ukraine. After the period of the Cossack republic the East came under the influence (the "strong claws") of the Russian Empire. Early, even before the revolution of 1917, rich nature resources transformed the East into a panto-Russian industrial center, where cities of the same type grew very quickly. There was no place there for the Ukrainian language; the East was being filled up by settlers from Russia.
The East faithfully served the Bolsheviks. Regional governments were formed by Lenin's orders (they included few Ukrainians). It was in the East that the march of victory through all the territory of Ukraine from the new capital - the city of Kharkiv — began and forced out into emigration the successors of the Central Rada. It was the Ukrainian national parliament in Kharkiv which wasn't afraid of Petersburg's "anger" that proclaimed Ukraine's Independence in 1918 and created the Ukrainian People's Republic.
The East has always remembered this "shameful" page in the history of Central and Western Ukraine and is still a citadel of the Communist party. The East was proud that for many years it used to be called the "All-Union boiler-room". This lasted until the Soviet Union exhausted the raw material resources of Donbass - a region known in the entire world. Plus the natural environment in that area was spoiled by pollution. And now liberal Russia, monopolist of energy resources, sells fuel to Ukraine and Donbass at world prices (including coal).
This is only one demonstration of Russia's dictate. Using the small presence of European capital in the Eastern region, Russian businessmen invest in the Ukrainian economy in a peculiar way: they buy controlling stakes of strategic enterprises. Russia is interested in oil processing, aluminum, the power industry and ports on the Black Sea coast. Russia isn't against buying the Crimean peninsula - the whole of it, up to "the waves on the coast".
On the other hand, Russia is indifferent to Eastern Ukrainian coal and its metallurgical industry. First of all, the chain "coal - coke - iron ore - rolling - pipes" is the main income of all the self-sufficient local businessmen. There are oligarchs in Donbass who possess not only metals. Hotels and the beer industry, newspapers and machinery construction, banks and soccer clubs, many agricultural companies all are in their hands. Actually, Donbass is a "joint-stock company" of "The Party of Regions" members.
Further, the Ukrainian metallurgical industry is a competitor of the same sector of the Russian economy. As a rule, no one invests in competitors. But Ukrainians are more distressed by another thing - the weak investment between the Ukrainian regions, especially between the East and the West.
Very often instead of complex economic programs we deal with ideological fights.
Here are the examples: Big cities in Eastern Ukraine contest their rights for erection of monuments devoted to Russian emperors. In response, one Ukrainian city in Western Ukraine shocked the public by naming one of its city streets in honor of soldiers of the notorious "SS Halychyna" division, which fought for the "freedom of Ukraine" but ...as a part of the Wehrmacht.
But our life is full of opposite examples:
The miners of Donbass and the Western coal basin understand each other very well, especially now, when many coal enterprises are "dying out". "I work as a grandee, I lie on a couch all day", they joke bitterly, hinting that their main implements are spades. It's not surprising that right after the flood of 2001 in Western Ukraine volunteers from Donbass were the first who came to help dwellers of the Carpathian mountains region. A new tradition appeared: children from mostly atheistic families in Donbass go on special trains to the "Catholic" cities of Western Ukraine for Christmas. There is no paradox in such opposite facts. The confrontation is provoked by local and regional authorities. Population and social organizations, as a rule, demonstrate mutual sympathy or loyalty.
This constructive trend could be used by the leading "The Party of Regions", moreover particularly since it has appealed to all sound powers of the country to unite. The "sound powers" are probably those, which close Ukrainian schools, demand the grant of state status for the Russian language and the immediate reunification with Russia and Belarus, and initiate proclamations for an independent "Tavric Republic" in Crimea.
The city of Donetsk - the capital of Donbass and the citadel of "The Party of Regions" - has found only one enemy of Ukrainian nation consolidation. It is the Ukrainian national-patriots, named publicly as "Nazis" by the teenagers of Donetsk. From that moment "The Party of Regions" turned into the party of one region, which uses its electorate for political struggle. If needed, those young wisenheimers with bottles of beer in their hands can call Christmas sweets from Lviv not the presents from Saint Nicolas but "Nazi sops".
Ten years ago Western Ukraine tried to impose their ideological and cultural values on the East. This overhasty action failed. Now the Ukrainian national-patriotic movement of Western Ukraine is in a mess as usual. There is even a proverb appropriate for this case: "where there are two Ukrainians, there are three hetmans".
In contrast, the Eastern region is experiencing its renaissance. It is most likely to build the kind of society in Ukraine where all nationalities living in Ukraine will be "native nations", especially those speaking Russian.
Russia is likely to approve of that.
The idea of "United, great and patriotic Russia" is liked by most people who wish prosperity to their country under a coat of arms with a double eagle. It is predicted that Ukrainian patriotic powers will be gradually crowded out of the political arena. This will be a long process because the territory of the national-democratic movement activity is so far not yet a reservation and Western Ukraine is not going to pay court.
The world is apparently to observe a "two-headed" Ukraine for a long time — this is not a usual happening in the administrative-territorial history of countries. The origin of this paradox was the "Double Eagle" coat of arms of the Russian Empire and the Red Stars of the Bolshevik Kremlin.
Which national symbols will Ukraine's leading parties choose? This is more than just a topical issue. In Donetsk, young hooligans have been outraged at a Ukrainian national symbol: in front of city residents and the militiaa fascist swastika was pinned to the Tryzub, which was the emblem of the Kyivan Rus.
If this is a signal for reorientation of national values, then it will find support with the Communists in Russia and Ukraine, many deputies of the State Duma of Russia and even a big part of the electorate of that narcissistic country, once again displaying its muscles.
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More in the section:
Oligarch: To Be Or Not To Be
Read also previous issue' articles:
Are Ukraine's Political Habits Unique?
Is Ukraine's Economic Growth Speculation-led?
Ukraine is Drifting to the West - Slowly but Surely
The Unfinished Orange Revolution?
Vacuums, Reforms and the Need to Regain the Initiative
Pirates of the 21st century
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