Ukraine: The Ruins and the Greed · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

LJ user sabeloff posts pictures of the ruined remains of a seaside young pioneer camp in Odesa and shares the recent history of the place (RUS) – which, unfortunately, is a rather common sight in today's Ukraine:
[…] This is an old summer camp near the 13th Station of the Bolshoi Fontan in Odesa. It's totally deserted, which is surprising, because all around it are elite mansions. The demand for such plots used to be VERY high.
The story of this land plot is more or less the following:
The plot together with the camp was acquired for a large amount of money (how much is not known) and it was decided to build a multi-story elite house there. A strange decision, because of the “cool” mansions around, whose owners didn't want to observe a multi-story building instead of the sea out of their windows. The construction of this elite multi-story building was canceled. The owners decided to sell the plot. They were offered $130,000 per [hundred square meters] last summer, but they wanted $150,000. In the fall, they were fine with $130,000, but the buyers lowered their offer to $100,000 and later decided not to buy it at all… In the past half a year, there hasn't been a singe offer for this plot. […]
Here is one of the comments to this post, by LJ user yelpat:
This isn't financial crisis. This the crisis of greed. Greed has become the post-perestroika morality and those who were able to grab – they've grabbed. And the country is falling apart, and people are fleeing the country exactly because greed has devoured the infrastructure that's supposed to facilitate people's lives.