· December, 2008

Stories about Ukraine from December, 2008

Ukraine: “A Democratic Question”

  27 December 2008

Ukrainiana writes about president Yushchenko's answer to the question that got over 85,000 online votes: “A straight question needs a straight answer. Instead, we got a rambling lecture, replete with peripheral thinking.”

Ukraine: Hutsuls and Crimean Tatars

  24 December 2008

My Simferopol Home writes about her dissertation plans to compare histories of exoticism in the Ukrainian Hutsul and Crimean Tatars cultures: “So, why these two groups? While distinct in ethnogenesis, history and territory, Hutsuls, the superstitious, hard-drinking subsistence farmers to Poland and Austro-Hungary’s urban intellectuals, and Crimean Tatars, the perceived...

Ukraine: Yushchenko's Press Conference

  24 December 2008

Tetyana Vysotska of What's Up, Ukraine? writes about the Ukrainian president's annual press conference and his response to one of the most popular questions posed to him via the internet: “Mr. President, how much money should the people of Ukraine pay to convince you and other top authorities to leave...

Russia: Patriarch; Yoshkar-Ola; Stalin's Legacy; Protests

  24 December 2008

A selection of recent posts from Window on Eurasia: a “Ukrainian” metropolitan who may or may not become Russia's next patriarch; Hungarians react to the Russian authorities’ suggestion to rename Yoshkar-Ola, the capital of Mari El, to Tsaryovokokshaysk, the city's pre-1917 name; some Russian history teachers’ efforts to educate students...

Russia: Gas News

  24 December 2008

Siberian Light and Robert Amsterdam's blog write about “the annual Russo-Ukrainian gas crisis”; the latter also writes about the fledgling “gas OPEC.”

Ukraine: A Loud Protest

  23 December 2008

Ukrainiana writes about and posts video of a very loud protest in Kyiv: “On December 22, at noon, Kyivites honked their horns to protest against rampant government corruption and endless power struggles wrecking the Ukrainian Dream amid the country’s deepest economic crisis since the early ‘90s.”

Central & Eastern Europe: Freedom in the Balkans; Visa Restrictions

  22 December 2008

Ari Rusila examines the Balkan-related results of the Freedom House's Freedom in the World survey at AriRusila’s BalkanBlog, and writes about the Henley Visa Restrictions Index, highlighting the results for countries of Central and Eastern Europe, at AriRusila's BalkanPerspective at Blogactiv.eu.

Ukraine: Coalition-Building Saga

  17 December 2008

A roundup of posts on yet another Ukrainian coalition-building saga: In-depth political analysis from Tetyana Vysotska of What's up, Ukraine?, including the latest item on the newly-formed coalition, which, despite having a name – “National Development, Stability, and Order” – appears to be “not constitutional.” LEvko of Foreign Notes wrote...

Ukraine: NATO; Crisis vs Luxury; Baba Paraska

  15 December 2008

A roundup of Ukrainiana‘s December posts: Ukraine and NATO; the math of the Russian-Ukrainian relations; ex-defense minister on “martial economic law”; Ukrainian PM's Chanel necklace and the First Lady's Chanel handbag vs. the president's call “to ‘live without’ expensive foreign-made items in times of crisis”; the beating of Baba Paraska...

Poland, Ukraine: Euro 2012

  3 December 2008

The 8th Circle notes that Euro 2012 will be moved elsewhere if the stadiums in Kyiv and Warsaw are not built in time.