I took this picture from a cab a few days ago - a banner on the building of the Ukrainian People's Party on Shevchenko Boulevard, calling to dispose of education minister Dmytro Tabachnyk - send him to the trash bin. The banner's been there for a long time, I guess, but I've been more or less ignoring our "big" politics since the winter election, never had it in me to bother photographing it. But this time we were waiting for the green light right next to this building, so I quickly opened the window and took the picture, just in case.

The cab driver - speaking in Ukrainian, not Russian - asked me whether I really thought that a trash bin was where Tabachnyk belonged. Yes, I said. The driver continued: What about the education minister before Tabachnyk - who was it, by the way? - was he any better? I told him that if we were talking about Ivan Vakarchuk, then yes, he was better, a lot more presentable. The driver didn't seem to share my view. I assumed he was a Party of Regions fan and explained to him that Tabachnyk, among other things, was actually hurting whatever remained of his own party's image, by saying and writing things that made it appear as if the party represented some regions of Ukraine and not others. He even hurt the feelings of his comrade, Hanna Herman, I added, when he said all those things about Western Ukraine, where she is originally from.

I almost forgot about this conversation, but saw this item (RUS) on Korrespondent.net today - Volodymyr Yavorivsky's comment (UKR) on Tabachnyk's latest fart (RUS), which seems to target writer Yuri Andrukhovych more than anyone else - and decided to make a note here.

Yavorivsky, who is a BYuT MP, calls Tabachnyk "a politically sick person" and a foreign "agent" - and makes a special note of Tabachnyk's ethnicity:

[...] The worst thing is that this is done by a representative of the Jewish ethnicity. I'm surprised that the Jews themselves aren't protesting and demanding his resignation. Because he is casting a shadow on all the Jewish people. Every Ukrainian today knows perfectly well what Tabachnyk - who is pretending to be a peaceful rabbi - really is. [...]

Nothing's changed since I last paid attention: as before, most of our politicians, regardless of the political force they belong to, are so much better at making idiots of themselves than at moving the country in the right direction.