Thursday, July 06, 2006

At the city administration, that rude woman told me garbage collection's the districts' responsibility, not the city's. She didn't know what district Pushcha is - she asked me and I told her it's Obolon. The thing is, it became part of the city only recently, a few years ago, and before that it was a separate entity.

It all doesn't really matter, though. Garbage is a tiny problem compared to the land/real estate ownership one. I've never studied it closely, but just by looking around you sort of know what's going on: all the deserted buildings, sanatoriums, huge chunks of wonderful land turning into a Pripyat/Chernobyl look-alikes. Their new owners probably sit there quietly, waiting for the complete collapse, and then they can move in, fence the area off and build their mansions or whatever. And the brave/impatient ones are already building - just like they do in the center of the city: huge, ugly stuff squeezed in on impossibly tiny plots of land, and all those poor huts or ruined sanatoriums surround them. And the locals talk about it, too, curse the rich guys, are scared of them. A woman who works at the post office talked yesterday about some guy who recently died of a stroke because they wouldn't let him privatize his hut or something - most likely because someone rich wanted his land in order to expand.

I don't really want to get into all this: I don't want to ruin my first impression - that it's a paradise. I know it's more of a volcano, but I'll pretend it's not for the rest of the summer and then we'll move on.

As for Yushchenko, well, would you guys bother distracting George W. Bush from the war in Iraq to have him clean up the July 4 litter?

***

More garbage photos are now up but I still have to sort them. There are five containers - though it does seem as if there are more, both on the pictures and in reality.

8 comments:

  1. At least it's not like Athens and other places in Greece. There property developers (especially members of parliament) hire thugs to start fires to clear forest. Then they build illegally, or get their friends to approve building permissions and more natural forest disappears every year under more ugly concrete sprawls.

    You should also google Athens and rubbish if you think you have it bad. Try http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4118776.stm. I don't suppose it is solved yet. The pile of rubbish in your photo is quite common even in the middle of Athens. It's a horrible environment. The Greeks don't care at all about their public space.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ? ??? ???? ????????? ??? ?????????? ? ????!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've heard that about Athens. Shame, really.

    As for Bush, you can't have him. As soon as I'm through in Iraq, I'm going to make him wash my dishes. My sink looks just about like your garbage photos.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Um... I totally read that wrong. "July 4 litter" got changed to "Puscha-Vodytsia garbage", changing "would" from a question to a polite request.

    It was funny, though.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Damn. I should've thought about it. Wasn't Bush supposed to come to Ukraine but then he changed his mind? Maybe I should try sending him the pictures - just imagine him and Yushchenko coming over in one of those stinky orange trucks, giving out autographs and all? Your dishes can wait, R. Smith.

    ***

    Mish jan, even I can't read what you've written in the Cyrillic script...

    ReplyDelete
  6. i eti lyudi zapreschayut nam kovyryat'sya v nosu (greece, eu)

    ReplyDelete
  7. meanwhile there's a real time thriller going on in the parliament now. after insidious fuck moroz refused to vote for poroshenko despite the previous agreements the coalition practically ceased to exist. moroz decided to become a speaker himself. poroshenko withdrew. region's azarov won't get enough votes since moroz is running too. moroz will get about 20 votes unless regions decide to vote against their own guy. all of this is happening right now.

    i guess it's a matter of hours when we see nu-regions coalition.

    ReplyDelete
  8. wow, now moroz is explaning his act as preventing his fellow party members from voting for region's azarov. meaning their votes were already bought by regions.

    very much like judas, now from the gospel of judas...

    ReplyDelete