Friday, December 19, 2008



I visited the new Holodomor Memorial last week, and that was a strange experience.

There were few people there, most of them construction workers: there's still a lot to be done before the Memorial is completed, even though it already looks presentable enough - the mournful spirit is all there for me. There were still some candles and other traces of the commemorative event documented so beautifully by Taras at Ukrainiana - here and here.



But, unfortunately, reality kept interfering.

I heard a few people passing through say bad things about Yushchenko as they glanced up at the Memorial. And there was also this hungover-looking guy who lifted the lid on one of the candles that stood by the statue of the poor barefoot girl - and lit his cigarette from that candle. A construction worker came up to the guy right away - they are filling in for security guards there, obviously - and asked what the hell he was doing there. I didn't hear what the guy replied, but I filmed him a little - I guess at some point you can hear him say something like, "Mne podkurit' nado" - "Need to light up":



When the guard was gone, the guy turned to me again, pointed at the Memorial and asked whether they had completed the thing recently or what. I felt too disgusted to talk to him.

This, and the media coverage of the costliness of the Memorial, as well as some people's comments - it's making it hard to focus on what really matters: the memory of the victims, their suffering, the grieving, the issues of justice and responsibility. Hard to think of the Memorial outside of the political, economic and social context of today's Ukraine.

The Memorial's projected cost is 748,853,000 hryvnias (UKR) - which was over $150 million at the time when hryvnia was still doing okay. Kyiv city budget got 80,000,000 hryvnias (UKR) from the state budget for this year's construction phase.

The Memorial kept popping up in conversations with friends while I was in Kyiv, and here reality kept interfering, too.

One person I talked to mentioned a TV documentary she had just seen about the horrible conditions in which tuberculosis patients in Ukraine were receiving their treatment. Another person spoke about Kateryna Chumachenko's fundraising efforts (UKR) for the new children's oncology center in Kyiv - they planned to finish it next year (RUS), but don't seem to have started yet.

I've looked up some figures. In 2007, the national TB prevention program reportedly got 200,182,000 hryvnias (RUS) from the state budget. For the construction of the oncology center, they need 600,000,000 hryvnias - and have so far raised 262,033,260 hryvnias, most of it - over 242 million hryvnias - two years ago, on Dec. 17, 2006, during the all-Ukrainian fundraising telemarathon (according to the fund's 2007 annual report, UKR, .pdf file).

The Memorial could have - and should have - waited, these friends of mine believe, and I agree.

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As part of the misplaced priorities aspect of the new Memorial comes a question of why Yushchenko was not content with the beautiful monument at Mykhailivska Square:



Yes, the scale there is different: that monument is not "monumental" at all (which, I think, is actually good, though I understand that it's a matter of taste).

But the old monument's size somehow never seemed to matter - definitely not on commemoration days, which have become a tradition over the past few years, a wonderful tradition observed by so many people. There was a very grassroots feel to those commemorations at Mykhailivska; among other things, they used to remind me of the 2004 Maidan. All things considered, it's sad that this did not feel sufficient to some.

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Photos from the 2006 commemoration at Mykhailivska are here.

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And here are some more photos from the new Memorial (the whole set is here):











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Update: There's an interview with Kateryna Chumachenko in today's Dzerkalo Tyzhnya/Zerkalo Nedeli - among other things, she's answering questions about the oncology center and the money raised for its construction. Interesting.

The interview in Ukrainian is here, in Russian - here.

Below are a few excerpts (RUS):

Мы никогда не думали, что сможем оказать настолько эффективную помощь первой леди Украины. И потому искренне рады тому факту, что уже через пару дней после того, как в пресс-службу Е.Ющенко были направлены наши 15 вопросов, в том числе и об отсутствии финансовых отчетов фонда «Украина 3000» за последние два года, на сайте фонда наконец-то появился отчет за 2007 год. Конечно, в конце декабря впору было бы ожидать появления отчетов уже за 2008 год. Нас заверили в том, что «над ним сейчас активно работают» и опубликуют в январе 2009 года.

[...]

— В каком банке и под каким процентом хранятся деньги, собранные на строительство и обустройство «Детской больницы будущего»?

— Они хранятся на депозитных счетах АКБ «Трансбанк» под 19% годовых.

— В каком состоянии сейчас банк? Надежно ли защищены эти деньги?

— Банк, в котором размещены эти средства, выполняет все нормативы Национального банка, он так же надежен, как и другие украинские банки.

— Какова стоимость реализации избранного вами проекта? Хватает ли на это собранных средств?

— Сейчас разрабатывается бюджетно-сметная документация с учетом последних изменений курса доллара и стоимости строительных материалов. Имеющихся средств хватает на все необходимое для больницы оборудование. Завершение этого проекта зависит не только от нашей работы по сбору средств, но и от того, изыщет ли государство возможность включить строительство больницы в бюджеты следующих лет.

— Насколько возросла сумма со времени проведения телемарафона?

— Хочу заметить, что во время телемарафона мы объявили сумму собранных и задекларированных средств — более 242 миллионов гривен. С тех пор сумма задекларированных средств увеличилась на 20 миллионов гривен. Это не означает, что все они сразу были перечислены на счет благотворительного фонда «Детская больница будущего». Согласно договорам, которые подписаны со всеми благотворителями, они перечисляют нам деньги несколькими траншами в течение определенного периода. Почти все благотворители выполняют взятые на себя обязательства, и почти все средства поступают в сроки, определенные договорами. Мы болеем за всех наших партнеров и благотворителей и надеемся, что они с легкостью выйдут из этого экономического кризиса. Сейчас на счету благотворительного фонда «Детская больница будущего» более 114 миллионов гривен.

[...]

Мы искренне желаем Катерине Михайловне успехов в благородном деле создания «Детской больницы будущего», которую в 2007 году журналисты назвали одной из самых ярких благотворительных акций. И очень надеемся, что люди, взявшие на себя обязательства по выплате денег на строительство столь необходимого украинским детям медицинского учреждения, обещанные средства перечислят. Но к сожалению, потеряно время. И, как признается сама Катерина Ющенко, поскольку «наша страна поражена инфляцией значительно больше, чем другие страны», то сумма в 114 млн. гривен, собранная на строительство ДББ в 2006 году и находящаяся на депозитном счете в «Трансбанке» под 19% годовых, на сегодняшний день в долларовом эквиваленте «весит» в два раза меньше. Поэтому, несмотря на заверения инициаторов проекта, большой вопрос — хватит ли на него денег. Ведь до вышеприведенного заявления Катерины Михайловны нам не удалось обнаружить ни одного упоминания о том, что строительством здания для ДББ должно заниматься государство. Это не внесено ни одной строкой в бюджеты этого и прошлого годов. По словам организаторов Всеукраинского телемарафона «Детская больница будущего», речь тогда шла о возможности участия государства в финансировании расходов на зарплату специалистам, которые будут работать в больнице, но никак не о строительстве государством здания.

[...]

17 comments:

  1. Thank you for this important report and for all the links!

    It's a shame we have people like that cigarette guy.

    While we can argue about the project's timing and government spending priorities, I think this grand Memorial should have been built a long time ago. Every Ukrainian town and village should have its own memorial to commemorate the millions who perished in the Holodomor.

    Instead, we still have those Lenins. We still have those Kosiors and Petrovskys, the local demigods of genocide.

    And what's more, the babushka-loving mayor of Kyiv wants the Lenin monument preserved, because "God wants it so."

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  2. I think the Mikailivska monument is moving, on a human scale, and tells the story.

    A more fitting monument to those who died in the Holodomor would be to create a society in which no-ones dies needlessly for want of resources, attention, or care. My work with older people in Ukraine shows me that we are far from that still.

    The new monument serves the politics of mass distraction in a vulgar, almost obscene manner.

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  3. Taras, perhaps we can avoid the argument if we choose to agree that health care, education, culture and historical heritage should be at the top of our government's "spending priorities" list - while fancy cars, houses and other costly items for the folks running the country and their extended families shouldn't be there at all. If we don't agree on this - sure, let's argue.

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  4. "Every Ukrainian town and village should have its own memorial"

    Including villages that are dying out?

    Potemkin village.

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  5. While I certainly like the Mikhalivsky monument, it simply was not satisfactory. The Holodomor was a historic tragedy and deserves a place where people can not only come together and mourn, but learn about it. The new complex, as I understand it, will also contain a museum and research area, something the Mikhalivsky site doesn't have (beyond a handful of placards).
    But yes, I agree that the funds at this time probably should have been allocated for more pressing needs. They couldn't raise private funds for the Holodomor monument?

    As for the damn smoker, enough has been said about him. I just hope people have enough sense to not dump their cigarettes or beer bottles on the monument grounds.

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  6. The more I think about arguments about the funding, one can argue that the recognition of the Holodomor is part of the process for Ukraine to mature, overcome the Soviet past, and look West. If this monument can become a site where people rediscover their humanity and/or become more determined to work for their native land, the monument may be worth the hryvni.
    On an somewhat related note, the US government has set aside a parcel of land for a Holodomor monument in Washington, DC. It's right near Union Station, a great spot.

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  7. The Holodomor was a monumental massive crime, and a monumental tragedy for the Ukrainian people.

    It is not something that can be ignored, and is not something that should be ignored.

    The monument should have been built a long time ago.

    And it should be a fitting monument, complete with the displays and archives that Маркіян pointed out, so that people FULLY understand the scope and scale of this horrific crime against the Ukrainian people.

    The "let's wait until someday" attitude that is prevalent in Ukraine for almost everything - Ukrainian time - has no place here.

    At least this is a budget item which was actually implemented, rather than being "diverted," as happens with so many other budget items in Ukraine.

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  8. Монумент, що зараз збудован може буди пам'ятником тiльки абсолютнiй вiдсутностi смаку тих, хто його поставив.

    Ця потвора, зроблена, схоже, з декоративного покриття для батарей центрального опаленя з насунутим зверху китайським столом для вуличних кафе. Нiяк iнакше, як зухвалою зневагою до пам'ятi жертв голодомору цей турменбашiєвський дрючок назвати не можна.

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  9. I agree that the Holodomor was a crime of commission and an appalling episode in human history. It is less well known about than other episodes. I also come from a country that suffered famine - Ireland - and I can tell you that the culture of victimhood and resentment can very quickly become a huge barrier to becoming a mature country with the ability to face its problems honestly. Veronika has very adroitly pointed out those issues with her comparisons between the funding for the memorial and the funding for the hospitals.

    This budget line didn't get "diverted" because it serves the elite's purpose of domestic distraction from the real issues of corruption, suffering, inequality and social injustice.

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  10. "The Memorial could have - and should have - waited, these friends of mine believe, and I agree."


    But isn't this just another way of saying the memorial should never be built? Financially speaking there will never be a good time to build it. There will always, always be a better thing to do with the money. But if you weigh up between one hospital (though I don't think you can even build one hosipital with the money) and the memorial the hospital will of course "win", but you have to remember the memorial is just one and once. Hospitals you have to keep on building for ever, not to mention clinics, equipment, doctors salaries. Hence I don't think its a question of money but of whether the famine should be commerated or not. It's a question attitude. For example I can't imagaine a single Isreali saying at the time that the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem was too expensive and should be built "later".

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  11. Veronica,

    Sure we can. Like health care, historical heritage has long-term social value.

    I think the Holodomor Memorial does not belong in the category of personal luxury or political playthings, even if some politicians may feel like it.

    It's about memory and world recognition, not luxury and fanfare. The politicians will go, the Memorial will stay.

    I agree that, due to the crisis, it could have been postponed in favor of more burning government spending items. But I still believe it should have been built a long time ago.

    The scale of human tragedy during the Holodomor can only be compared to Ukraine's losses in WW II.

    Being adjacent to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Holodomor Memorial is right where it belongs.


    Anonymous,

    You have a good point about Ukraine's rapid depopulation.

    Now, wasn't it because the lessons of the Holodomor never really entered Ukrainians' awareness and went repressed for decades?

    Wasn't it because a nation that got screwed once and has no memory will get screwed again and again?

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  12. I probably didn't make myself clear enough, Taras. I meant to say that there is no reason for us to argue, as long as we do agree on what should be the priority and what shouldn't - and we do agree on that, while the folks in the government obviously don't.

    And arguing about whether the Memorial can or cannot be viewed outside the current political, social and economic context seems pointless to me: I genuinely envy your and many other people's ability to see things differently - and I wish I (and others) could see things this way, too.

    Speaking of the location of the Monument, I do agree that it's a good one. But the humongous apartment building in Mariinsky Park is also there - well, not right there, but very close - and, unfortunately, it's not the Memorial that dominates the hills, but this monster. And it looks like some of its residents are about to move in, if they already haven't: I saw light in some of the windows there as I was riding back home from the Memorial last week. The monster has been completed, in the past four years, despite everything, including Yushchenko. The Memorial is far from being completed, and I don't think anyone can tell you for sure when it will be. The first leg of the Memorial construction was done in great hurry, so that there was something to show for the 75th anniversary. If the government's spending priorities weren't upside down, the Memorial would be completed by now - and hospital conditions would be human, too. But that would leave them with no money to buy apartments in the Mariinsky Park building, right, and so as a result we have what we have.

    Speaking of money, there's this interview (RUS) with Anatoly Haydamaka, the architect on whose project the Monument is based, and here's a quote:

    "- They are reporting - and this is what all of Ukraine believes - that the funding that's been allotted is significant - 80 million hryvnias.

    - I don't deal with money myself, but all I hear is, this hasn't been paid for and that hasn't been paid for... I haven't got a single hryvnia for this project - let's think that I've saved money for the country."


    That's how he explains the delays and the general mess of the construction - but knowing what a black hole the Kyiv city budget is and what kind of people have their hands on it, it may be a bit too optimistic to think - as one of the anonymous folks who wrote here thinks - that "at least this is a budget item which was actually implemented, rather than being 'diverted'."

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  13. Well, we have Oscar here, who claims that Ireland has a culture of victimhood.

    Ireland built a ton of golf courses - and became very prosperous.

    This was, of course, after Catholics and Protestants kept blowing each other up for years and years.

    So maybe Ukraine should build golf courses, for economic improvement.

    In the very first Parliamentary elections after 2004, after the Orange Revolution, Moroz and other representatives of political parties went on their TV debates.

    One of the things that came out, and was sort of funny to watch, was the admission that money budgeted for hospitals and medical care was - not actually making it to the hospitals or for medical care.

    And a lot of finger-pointing ensued.

    It's easy to make everything emotional - geez, give the money to "the children." Give the money to "poor people." Give the money to "crippled people." Give the money to - me.

    Bottom line - there's always something to complain about in Ukraine, and plenty to complain about in Ukraine.

    Bottom line - Taras is absolutely right on this one.

    And to the idiots who keep claiming that commemmoration of the Holodomor is simply "diversion" or "distraction" - I have no doubt that the Jews and other victims of the Holocaust, among them Ukrainians, would vehemently disagree that commemmorating the Holocaust is just a political ploy.

    Because it's not.

    And neither is commemmorating the Holodomor.

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  14. For the record: No one here has written a word against the importance of commemorating Holodomor.

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  15. Elmer
    Ireland's prosperity came about after millions of Euros of Regional Aid funding from the EU built a decent infrastructure, and a new wave of business minded politicians made its economy one of the most open and lowest taxed in Europe. They did very well for a decade as the Celtic Tiger, but are now set to have a pretty bad recession. Golf courses were not the main driver of Ireland's modernisation.

    Your remark about Catholics and Protestants rather reinforces my point about the politics of victimhood.

    Commemorating and remembering crimes against humanity is right and proper. However, one shouldn't construct national identities on them, as Ireland did, or use them as excuses for the failings of today, as Ireland did. Ireland's political elite used our long and pretty horrible history to excuse corruption, cheating, distortion of democracy, and a million other betrayals of the population's trust.

    Similar processes are at work in Spain, another country I know well, by the way.

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  16. Neeka, I'm sure the Jews would be happy and pleased to learn that they don't need any memorials, museums, or anything else to commemmorate the Holocaust.

    And Oscar, I'm sure that the Jews would be happy and pleased to learn that they are nation-building when they build memorials of the Holocaust.

    The sad fact, Oscar, is that many is Russia, and some in Ukraine, still view everything Ukrainian as inferior - much as the English viewed the Irish.

    And the legacy of not only tsarist history (the analogy in Ireland is the English monarch), but also sovok history, is that there was not supposed to be a Ukrainian nation, or any Ukrainian culture or anything "nationalistic" anywhere (at the mention of the word "nationalist," the sovoks conditioned the people to recoil in horror.)

    To that end, for example, the sovoks spread the cultural impression that the Russian language was "superior," and that Ukrainian was just some sort of an inferior hillbilly language.

    Many people labor under all of that brainwashing today.

    So the reflex reaction of the people who are still affected by that legacy is to point to Holodomor memorials as "nationalist," as "divisive," as - nation-building.

    It's the same as pointing out that Stalin, the engineer of the Holodomor, was a criminal bank robber, who financed Lenin through those bank robberies - it takes away from all that wonderful propaganda and mystique that the sovoks, headquartered in Moscow, built up around their "society" in order to legitimize all of the things they did.

    Everyone knows about the Irish potato famine (was there really a shortage of food)? Everyone knows about the Jewish side of the Holocaust - there were other victims as well.

    Everyone knows about the "Irish need not apply" (for jobs) signs when the Irish first came to the US.

    The Irish thumbed their noses at the "Irish need not apply" signs. President Klinton went to Ireland to buy land and enjoy the golf courses. The US celebrates St. Patrick's day every year on a national basis, even though it's not an official holiday, with parades and everything, down to green beer.

    And, in repayment to the European Union, Ireland just thumbed their nose at Brussels on the constitutional vote - but that's neither here not there.

    Ukraine can, and should, learn some lessons from what happened in Ireland. And indeed, it has been the subject of furious discussion on the Urkainian Pravda forums, for example.

    The bottom line is still that this memorial of the Holodomor needed to be built much sooner.

    It may be an inconvenient fact. And it may lead to the tendency of some Ukrainians, who, under a culturual pretense of "politeness," want to sweep it under the rug, or bury their heads in the sand about it, or not talk about it, or view a suitable memorial of it.

    But Taras is still right on this issue - bottom line.

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  17. Well, Elmer, I'm glad that you have a more nuanced knowledge of recent and past Irish history than your first throwaway comments about golf-courses and Catholics and Protestants bombing each other indicated.

    The more I read your comments, the more I realise that we are discussing very small differences of interpretation. In fact we by-and-large agree.

    I still feel however that the best answer to the Tsarist legacy, to the sovok legacy, to the Ukrainians who are complicit in their own negative identity, would be to build a better society. One that is better than the past, better than Russia's, one that convinces the miners of Donbass and the sovok pensioners of Crimea that they'd prefer to be part of a modern, rights-based, just Ukraine. And it would be great if some of the money and energy that has gone into the memorial went into that project instead.

    What's the betting that the research centre and museum never get built, by the way?

    My last word in this discussion.

    Regards

    Oscar

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