The actual
topic wasn’t important, my reaction was.
I told Tatiana, “You know, living
in this country, there are days when I really feel like I am in an episode of
the old American TV series, “Lost.” I
feel like my plane has crashed and I am stuck on an island with no trace of any
civilization anywhere in sight!” A bit
melodramatic from me, but she laughed and agreed. One thing about my wife, she
is definitely not your “typical Ukrainian” in her thinking. Obviously, or she
wouldn’t have married an American.
Just what does “odd” mean?
For a guy
who has become accustomed to the idea that if you have no electricity or hot
water, but have cold water, you don’t have any real problems, there are times
that living in Ukraine strikes me as more than a bit odd….as in strange and
illogical “odd.” Odd in thinking, odd in
ideas, odd in traditions, odd in the way people treat each other…just “odd”
in general.
Okay, given
the fact I am fully a foreigner that kind of thinking should not surprise most
people who aren’t. So, I thought I
would offer an expose’ on what it means to be a longer-term foreign resident,
married to a Ukrainian and living in Ukraine in this day and time….what do I
think is “odd,” really. I mean, after
all this was the first European country I ever came to see 12 years ago. So, my impressions should be fresh and real,
hopefully objective and not contrived or contaminated by first impressions of
other European countries, western or eastern.
Anomalies of
an emerging, or submerging nation?
In my first
two articles for Kyiv Post I talked about the cultural differences for
foreigners who come to work in Ukraine, and who come to marry Ukrainian
women. I talked about some of the things
and ideas which, as an expatriate resident, I have seen change here from my
very first visit in 2001. Those ideas
continue to change and my conversation with my wife only served to remind me of
them all the more. Let me offer my
impressions and thoughts, my observations and some opinions about where Ukraine
is compared to my own country and compared to the other countries of Europe I
have now visited.
Most Ukrainians in the big cities, I think, have lost
sight of the fact that over half this nation still lives in a village. That
means that 23 million citizens are village people, not city people. They still cling firmly to the “old way of
life and the old way of thinking.” If
there is anything in this nation which I see as truly holding it back from
joining the 21st century, I would say it is indeed “village thinking
and village norms.” Many well educated
and prominent young Ukrainians I know all tell me that same fact, “We suffer
from a village mentality and social immaturity. Until we overcome them, people
in other nations will continue to look at us as basically backward and
uncivilized [relatively speaking]”
For me as a foreigner from a predominately Judeo-Christian
country, all the ancient superstitions, rituals, taboos and so on are really,
really odd. Things like you never whistle inside the house or you never shake
hands across a threshold because its bad luck…or you shouldn’t be around bad
people or let them be around your family because their “negative energy” will
cause big problems for you. Things like spilling
salt on the table, never going back for something you forgot….whow, it is just
amazing some of these old babushka ideas and things are not just practiced, but
actually believed. How is that possible
in 2013…1613 sure, 1913 maybe, but people…this IS the 21st century?
“Love your
neighbor as yourself?”
Another big issue I find odd is the way that
Ukrainians have such a wide disparity in the way they treat each other, not
just how they treat foreigners. People
in the big cities nowadays are much more negative and pessimistic than 12 years
ago, if not downright angry, aggressive and antagonistic. One only has to drive on the roadways of Kyiv
to experience the phenomena of those attitudes. People drive without any
concern for the law or rules of the road, will cut you off recklessly, turning
left from the far right hand lane, and then flash their emergency signals to
say ‘thank you.”
People park their cars anywhere and anyway without any
regard for the passage of other vehicles around them, then get belligerent when
you tell them they are causing a major problem.
It sometimes seems like a war is about to break out, but no one is sure
whether they should be the one to start it or not. Everywhere it seems rude is becoming the norm,
not the anomaly. People go out of their
way to help stranded motorists in a snow storm, but will steal the car emblem
off a parked car just because it happens to be a “cool” thing to do…and that is
supposed to be the hallmark of a “civilized nation” that wants to join the EU?
Where is the “brotherly love” in all that?
Where are the
Cossacks of Democracy now?
On the political side of things, one of the biggest
oddities occurring to me is the zeal and zest of the Ukrainian people for their
sovereignty as a nation, yet they sit idly by and watch it be encroached upon
daily from within. Forget the so-called
“Putin pressure,” I see the biggest threat as prolific internal corruption and
semi-covert thievery from the very top down to the Militsia on the
streets. It appears there is only
superficial “law and order” in Ukraine today, and highly subjective at that. The government is about as transparent as
concrete and autocracy, not democracy, is its main rule of operation. It is medieval village fiefdom rule at best;
“what’s mine is mine and what’s yours will be mine if I can steal it, ‘legally’
or otherwise.” It is like some odd walk backward in time to watch the news
anymore.
It is especially odd to me because I was in Kyiv in
2004 for the “Orange Revolution.” I walked though the majestic “tent city” on
Kreshatik and spoke with dozens of Ukrainian zealots for democracy. At the time, I was so impressed by this
almost euphoric dedication among the people there that I likened it to standing beside Paul
Revere as he saddled his horse to begin his famous ride to free the American
people in 1775.
Where are they now?
Have those wide-eyed warriors who braved freezing cold in basic army
barracks accommodations returned to their villages and don’t care anymore? Was one fight all they had in them? It’s just very odd to me for a country to demonstrate
such deep emotions as there was then, and see everyone doing nothing to change
what they all tell me they hate about the way the government is now. Is there
some new standard of ‘honesty’ in elections that has come to be…or do
Ukrainians just take what they get and that’s it and they remain as serfs in
the fiefdom?
Where is the “tent city” now…where are the zealots,
the Cossacks of democracy and freedom?
It truly is odd. When I tell Ukrainians
who are complaining to me about the political situations, “It’s your country
and only you can change it for the better…do nothing and it will remain the
same or get worse,” I get very blank stares which equate to “you’re just a
stupid foreigner, you don’t understand our people.” What’s not to understand about indifference
and ambivalence? If you want freedom, as
the old idiom goes, “freedom isn’t free,” it has a price… sacrifice is
required to find it and keep it!
Paradise
found?
Of course, these are just the simply musings of one
man, a foreigner at that, not a native citizen, but merely a supplanted one.
These are just my observations from 12 years of being among the Ukrainian
people and seven years of living here.
Yes, before anyone starts telling me my country has its own oddities,
too, I will agree with you…it does. But
you know, in the 237 years of my country’s sovereignty, I don’t think there has
ever been a fist fight in our Congress.
And, to answer the next most common question; “Why are
you still in Ukraine…why haven’t you gone back to the USA…it is such a great
nation?” Well, as odd as this nation very often is to me, I still have great
love for the country; it’s incredibly rich history, its people (the vast
majority of which are warm and friendly). I also have hope that it will
continue to provide me with a good way of life, even if I do feel like being
“lost on an uncivilized island” sometimes. Likewise, for the most part, I also
hope Ukraine is still, and always will be, “paradise found;” an emerging great
nation, not a submerging odd one. However, only the Ukrainian people can
determine that one, not me.
Eric Gilliatt is an English language educator and business consultant
in Kyiv and a professor of business and tutor for the Edinburgh School
of Business. He may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].
