| On the cover |
| ¹33 (2010) |
.jpg) |
A Load of Hot Air!
Take a balloon ride and see Ukraine from a different perspective
more... |
| 10 September - 16 September 2010 | |
| Active Kyiv |
Full of Hot Air
Growing up, I was always a passionate reader of Jules Verne, and having reached the tender age of 25, I’ve still yet to fall out with the adventurous spirit all of his books are imbued with. What I’ve found, however, is that the excitement and serenity that exist between the pages of those books can be had in real life, all you have to do is make an appointment.
|
| Kyiv Kino |
Mr. Nobody (in English)
Directed by Jaco Van Dormael
Drama, Fantasy, Romance – Belgium, England, France 2009
Starring Jared Leto, Diane Kruger, Sarah Polley
Nemo Nobody leads an ordinary existence at his wife Elise and their 3 children’s side until the day when reality skids and he wakes up an old man in the year 2092. At 120, Mr. Nobody is both the oldest man in the world and the last mortal of a new mankind where nobody dies anymore.
|
| On the sofa with... |
A Techno Dare-devil
 Being witness to the crazy sounds coming from the I Am Techno party held out at the Kyiv Expo Plaza last weekend, What’s On spotted a highly professional young man behind the turntable. Going in for a closer look, turns out that DJ Sender’s real name is Eugene Evtukhov, and getting him over on the sofa for a little R&R, we get the goods on all of the messages DJ Sender is sending out to his fans.
|
|
| Ukrainian Culture |
| |
 10 September is Ukraine’s day of Cinema. But with the cinematic branch of artistic endeavor in deep decay these days, the question remains – what is there really to celebrate? The truth is that unlike many curious kids in most parts of the country, Ukraine’s loins, when it comes to cinema anyway, have never really been flexed.
Roksolana, filmed in 1996, starring Ukrainian beauty Olha Sumska,
promised a very bright future for independent film-makers in Ukraine,
but the fate of the movie’s main character – held captive in unknown
lands, has unfortunately been an apt metaphor to the reality they too
have faced.
2 (Comments) |
|
|
|
| |
 Women’s Day, 8 March, is actually a relic of the Soviet era. While some Ukrainian women ignore the holiday and others are happy to receive flowers and chocolates on the occasion, the National Opera House has planned something sophisticated: a concert called the Declaration of Love, dedicated as much to the age-old celebration of the coming of spring as anything. Conductor Herman Makarenko sat down in his rehearsal room at the opera to talk about the problems and delights of working in classical music in Ukraine.
|
|
|
|
| |
 Any Westerner can you tell the thousand ways Ukraine isn’t like home. But the foreigner needs to find what they call an obshchiy yazyk, a common language, with the locals. And what matter is more urgent to foreigners and Ukrainians alike than money and booze? What’s On explains how to talk about both like a local.
|
|
|
|
| |
 Svyatoslav Vakarchuk is hard to get a hold of. Whether on vacation, touring, or recording new albums, the Okean Elzy frontman and well-known Ukrainian is constantly on the go. But with the release of his new album At Night (which came out 1 December), What’s On made sure to track down the former parliamentarian. Ksenia Karpenko met up with Vakarchuk at Volkonsky Cafe to get the lowdown on his brief political career, his new record and why he plays more in Moscow than in Kyiv.
|
|
|
|
| |
 Grygoriy Skovoroda is probably the most mystical and mysterious figure in Ukrainian history and literature – a smiling travelling teacher and a freak rebel, all rolled into one. Yet Skovoroda remains an outstanding Ukrainian philosopher. Given his approaching birthday, What’s On decided to take a look at the legends and the facts about Skovoroda.
Back when I was in high school, Skovoroda always seemed to me a boring and incomprehensible thinker. Later, at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, I got a different view of him. At the university I had to undergo the traditional hazing: cleaning the statue of the man on Kontraktova Pl. Students armed with rags descend on the philosopher’s form on 15 October every year in celebration of the academy’s founding. Those most devoted to Skovoroda climb a huge ladder brought from the
library and shine the statue’s head.
|
|
|
|
| |
 Ukrainian publishers are ringing the alarm bell. As the financial crisis progresses, the purchasing power of average Ukrainians is falling, and people are starting to try to save money. That means that they’re going to buy less books, which will weaken the native publishing industry even more. Is there light at the end of the tunnel?
The brothers Kapranovy, well-known Ukrainian writers and the heads of the Zeleny Pes (Green Dog) publishing house, have studied the history of their trade in independent Ukraine. In the first years of independence, explains Vitaliy Kapranov, the publishing of Ukrainian books fell dramatically. By 1997, the country was printing almost no books. “In that year, there were hardly 600 titles available in the country.” In 1998, when Ukraine introduced the hryvnia and inflation was somehow tamed, publishing in the country began to grow.
|
|
|
|
| |
 The year 2008 is officially the year of Vasyl Stus in Ukraine. Had the KGB’s labour camps not destroyed the Ukrainian poet, translator and literary critic, he would be 70 this year. In commemoration, the state has released a jubilee coin and a jubilee envelope emblazoned with an image of the man, and over a hundred events in his honour are being held across Ukraine. A look into the life of a great Ukrainian martyr and cultural hero.
Vasyl Stus was born in Vinnytsya oblast on Christmas Eve in 1938. Later his parents were sent to work at a chemical factory in the city of Stalino (today Donetsk). After receiving a diploma as a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature, Vasyl went to work in a school in Kirovograd oblast. While there, he began to publish his poetry in literary magazines, and in 1963 he became a PhD student at the Institute of Literature of Ukraine, which marked the beginning of his prolific Kyiv period.
|
|
|
|
| |
 The girls of Reflex would seem to have it all: good looks, money, and fame. But despite all that, much of the girls’ lives is fairly simple: they shop, walk their pets, listen to pop music and go on vacation in the summer. Of course, they vacation in Thailand and Jamaica, and their jobs consist of video and magazine shoots and concerts in posh venues across Europe. It seems that work and play blend together when you’re a Russian pop goddess. They were in Kyiv for a video shoot, and met up with us.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
 She was called ‘Wagner’s Prima Donna’, ‘The most beautiful and most charming Butterfly’, ‘a grand Salome’ and one of the most outstanding opera singers of the twentieth century. She was Solomiya Krushelnytska, a Ukrainian opera star who made the whole world listen to her.
Krushelnytska was born on 23 September, 1872 in a small village in Ternopil region into the family of a Greek Catholic priest. Her singing talent was evident from an early age and she received her preliminary musical education in a Ternopil gymnasium. At school she performed for the first time in public as part of the student choir.
|
|
|
|
| |
 As they have every September since 1993, Ukraine’s literati gathered in Lviv this month for the annual Forum of Publishers book fair. As participants flocked to the event in Lviv’s Palace of Arts, Ukraine’s most charming city temporarily turned into its cultural capital. But while the Lviv book festival is doing better than ever and attracting more and more visitors, due to its close proximity to the early elections, it was perhaps invevitable that it would become a highly politicised event.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Kyiv Culture |
Corruption: Good or Bad?
Corruption is endemic in Ukraine, of that there is no doubt, and its presence in the higher echelons of government is dragging the country down to its knees. But it permeates all levels of society, and is often the way many a low paid government official provides for himself and his family. And if you ask most Ukrainians about corruption they will smile and say, “If the answer is no, and you really need it to be yes, you can make it yes.”
|
| Ukraine Today |
|
A Wine Story
I read somewhere that the motivation behind the drinking of wine equals five: the arrival of a friend, one’s present or future thirst, the excellence of the wine, or any other reason. It certainly could be argued that the first, second, third and/or fifth reasons are excellent arguments as to why the good people of Ukraine treat themselves with this little indulgence. With regards to the fourth, however, the jury is still out.
more... |
|
