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cars from around the world and, well, just about anything you might find
in any other modern marketplace. Most large towns in Ukraine also have
modern shops and a good selection of restaurants, but Kyiv leads in variety
and luxury.
Kyiv is an
old city with a young spirit.
The many attractive girls strolling
down Khreschatyk Street, Kyiv's
'Champs Elysées', checking
out the glamorous offerings
in western boutiques, can be
striking. But there is a drive
beneath the casual surface
of young people shopping and
socializing. "Young people
here don't know the word 'no'," says
Kevin Whelan, an American film
producer from Washington, who
recently visited Ukraine. "They
work around the clock to get
it done."
The "it" here
is nearly everything, from
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to IT (Ukraine has
become the fourth largest country in
computer programming). Always a highly-educated
population, Ukrainians have tightened
their belts for the difficult transition
from a state controlled command economy
to a market economy. The growing pains
have been rewarded, and, after an economically
painful 1990s, in recent years Ukraine
has been averaging GDP growth rates
of nine percent, higher than any achieved
by West European economies.
A millennium ago,
the Kyivian Rus Empire was the dominant
power in East Europe. But after those
long ago glory days, one of its eastern
outposts centered in Moscow rose to
supercede Kyivian Rus as a powerful
Russian Empire. The lands now known
as Ukraine (which means borderlands)
have been subject to various conquests
and its people have suffered occupations
and persecutions, making Ukraine's
story a thread running through the
histories of the Ottomans, Byzantines,
Tzars, Habsburgs and Soviets.
All of these have
left their traces on at least some
areas of Ukraine, but none has had
such a profound impact as the Soviet
Union. Under Stalin, the Soviets first
crushed a staunch Ukrainian resistance
to inclusion in the USSR, then starved
millions of Ukrainians to death, especially
the independent-minded Kulaks. The
human toll of Stalin's conquest and
oppression is almost beyond belief.
It is estimated that between the Russian
Revolution in 1917 and the end of World
War II in 1945, some 26 million Ukrainians
lost their lives from Stalin's genocide
and wars. genocide and wars.
After seven decades
of Russian rule and a little more than
a decade of independence, Ukraine is
still closely connected to its former
motherland. Russian is the dominant
language in eastern parts of Ukraine
and the capital, although Ukrainian
is in ever greater use in the capital
and dominates in central and western
regions. And while Ukraine has clearly
embraced the modern ways of the western
world, in everything from style to
banking services and management techniques,
a strong affinity for Russia still
exists.
In fact the pull of
East versus West was a major factor
in the presidential elections last
year, in which incumbent Prime Minister
Viktor Yanukovych stressed the importance
of keeping close ties with Russia while
gradually integrating with the West,
and his rival, former Prime Minister
Viktor Yushchenko, advocated a more
rapid integration with the West.
Ukraine is learning
that it can benefit from being the
meeting place of West and East, rather
than the victim of tensions dividing
them. As another article in this report
details, investors are beginning to
flock to Ukraine to take advantage
of its proximity to the European Uion
and the huge marketof CIS countries. |
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