After days of walking around Kyiv and getting myself quite terrified and depressed by what I see and hear, and after yet another Friday night spent watching various political talk shows, I catch myself thinking this:

If I lived elsewhere and didn't really give a damn about this place, I'd just laugh at those pathetic idiots running this city and this country - they are horrible managers, with absolutely no idea of what a decent city should be like, tacky dorks, losers, nothing more, an embarrassment; and to distract everyone from their incompetence, they're screaming at each other on TV not only about politics, but also about literature, language and culture, which is often quite amusing, because they are as clueless in these fields as in most others.

But I do live here, and I do care, so it's heartbreaking to watch it all, knowing that they aren't going to stay away from any of it, because all these mismanaged projects bring them pretty huge personal fortunes, and all this hysterical screaming about culture issues keeps them popular with their voters.

And I know that things could be much worse - there're plenty of examples, everywhere - but I also feel that we are slowly getting there ourselves.