These questions are a topical theme now on the threshold of the Aug. 24 anniversary of Ukraine.
I think each Ukrainian at least once puts these questions to himself or herself and comes up with different answers. As a Ukrainian, I’m not an exception.
What is Ukraine for me?
For me, the nation is clean blue sky and unlimited fields of wheat, which are represented in our flag. Also Ukraine for me is our people. Our people are really unique. It’s majestic nation.
We have never been conquered and we have never given up. Our nation always was fighting for its independence and finally we have it!
But do we need the independence that we have now?
Independence means sovereignty. But what do we have now? Thanks to our politics, we are dependent onother nations in many ways. For example, when we are talking about gas questions, we depend on Russia.
But we have our own opportunities to provide ourselves with this strategic product. We can develop the offshore area of the Black Sea, which is rich in gas.
And if we start to do it, we will have no problems with gas and we won’t be dependent on anybody else.
I think that to be Ukrainian means to be proud of our country and to be fond of our country.
But the only thing that I’m really proud of is our people. Our people are very open-minded and friendly. Our people are affable and our hospitality is ournational peculiarity. Many people from other countries like this feature very much. And it’s cool. But this hospitality you can find mainly somewhere in villages.
I’m not really proud of my country as a state, because our politicians don’t want to do anything good for our country. They do things only for themselves. They don’t want to make our lives better and easier. I can’t understand why are they thinking only of themselves? What about the people? Who will take care about them?
We have almost the lowest salaries in comparison with other former Soviet republics. That’s why people don’t want to live here and that’s why they are looking for better lives abroad. This is very sad that our really intelligent and quick-witted people are recognized somewhere else, but not in Ukraine.
I think that if our politicians truly cared about our people – and not only during the election campaign — we will be proud of our country because it will be a really nice place to live. Not like now. Now we are living here because we were born here.
I don’t mean that our government has to give us everything for free or something like that. No way. I’m talking about worthy living standards and deserving salaries..
What have we achieved during these 20 years? Just one thing: Formal independence, and only in documents. Let’s pay attention to our history. We were fighting for our independence for a long time. Now that we finally have it we don’t know what to do with it. We are independent, on the one hand, but dependent, on the other.
There are many questions which divide our country. And one of them is language question.
Many people in Ukraine speak Russian and consider a native language. I don’t agree with them. We are Ukrainians and should consider Ukrainian as our mother tongue. Why don’t citizens of Russia speak Ukrainian and we speak Russian?
Is it possible that we want to besimilar to our neighbor? As long as this continues to be the case, what pride in our country are we talking about?
Finally, I want to say that all of us should think about our state and take care of it if our politicians can’t do it. I don’t know why are they aren’t doing it. They are people just like us, but they have more power. Only in this way will Ukraine flourish and obtain international recognition. And when we get it, we’ll be seriously proud of our country.
Oksana Markina, a student at Dragomanov National Pedagogical University in Kyiv, is a journalism intern with the Kyiv Post.
