About Ukraine...
I'm following the situation in Ukraine with more than passing interest as I've been to the country 5 or 6 times and my wife is a still a citizen of Ukraine (although a green card US permanent resident).
That BBC article is fairly accurate in laying down the demographics of the country, although to classify Eastern Ukraine as being pro Moscow and anti Western Europe is somewhat misleading. In Kharkov and Lugansk, where my wifes family lives, quite close to the Russian border, I've found the younger generation in particular to be very Western oriented. Indeed, my parents-in-law split their vote, as I suspect happened frequently across the country.
The prevalence of the Russian language in the East and Ukrainian in the West is true, as is the religious difference (Orthodox East, Catholic West). And of course there are American missionaries busy at work over there (I'll refrain from commenting on that).
My wifes maternal grandfather is a fascinating guy. He's 91 years old and was born before the 1917 Soviet revolution. That he and his wife, who just passed away last month, managed to survive the wars and famines that decimated the population of Ukraine is close to miraculous. He has very few surviving contemporaries, for sure.
Crimea is the homeland of the Crimean Tatars, who were deported to Central Asia in 1944, but have slowly been returning.
Crimea is a semi autonomous region of Ukraine and the most beautiful part of the country, IMO. I did get a taste of what Soviet security was like a few years ago when I was visiting Yalta at the same time that a CIS economic summit was being held there. Lots of fairly scary looking guys in uniforms with automatic weapons. I got checked out more than once... But I'd recommend a visit to the Crimea and Yalta to anyone who's planning a trip to Eastern Europe.
As to the political situation, from my perspective the last thing that Ukraine wants is civil war or fracture of any kind. I think the situation will resolve peacefully and soon. We'll see.
And finally, although the MSM has finally learned to pronounce Yanukovych and Yushchenko mostly correctly, I wish they'd do the same about Kiev. It's pronounced Keeve, not Key-ehv... |
