Ukraine

My Account & Analysis of Ukraine’s Civil Unrest

On January 22 three Ukrainian protesters were killed by riot police, two by gunshot. It happened, strangely enough, on Unity Day. The holiday marks a proclamation of unity made in 1919 between the short-lived Western Ukrainian government, who was then battling Polish forces for control of Eastern Galicia, and the similarly short-lived government in Kyiv, which was soon overrun by Bolshevik forces. Tragedy has been the hallmark of Ukrainian history since the Mongols sacked Kyiv in 1240.

So we now have the blood of good people, but what exactly has it baptized? This remains up for grabs.

More: http://dailyanarchist.com/2014/01/23/civil-unrest-in-ukraine/

Why I’m against Ukraine joining the EU and you should be too

Cross post from romaninukraine.com:

Ukraine-EU-Protests-EU-flag To me, the story of Ukraine is the story of vanquished aristocracy. Twice in Ukraine’s history, first by the Mongols then by the Bolsheviks, the most capable Ukrainians, the successful, the talented, the leadership were obliterated — vanquished, killed or deported — a potentially ruinous blow for any society and testimony to the resilience of Ukrainians. Between these catastrophes, we have tremendous assimilation pressure from Russian- or Polish-imposed feudalism and its violent resistance by our kozaks.

These warriors kept the Ukrainian idea alive and for this we owe them a debt of gratitude, but for all their legendary self-reliance and ferocity, the kozaks failed to create a society prosperous enough to endure among hostile neighbors. An agrarian morality is insufficient for prosperity.

And the Ukrainian soul, if judged by the poets, is an agrarian soul — a peasant soul, if you’ll forgive the term — longing for the return of its ancient kings and glory.

Tonight, Ukrainians are in the streets. They say they want to join the European Union. I don’t believe them. I don’t want to believe them. I prefer to believe that they want three things: property rights, economic opportunity, the ability to travel.

I prefer to believe this because when I consider the other possibility, I see serfs begging for better masters. I see people who want all the benefits of a free society and none of its responsibilities.

No one has ever begged their way to freedom. Property rights which are true and lasting cannot be given, they must be earned. In the words of Lord Byron, “He who would be free must strike the first blow.”

http://romaninukraine.com/why-im-against-ukraine-joining-the-eu-and-you-should-be-too/

The Bus from Przemysl

posted on RomanInUkriane and on NH Novella:

I.

Yogurt. Juice. Mandarins. A bicycle chain repair machine. Coffee creamer. Goods tightly bound in plastic bags, or placed individually in the overhead compartment.

Constant, frantic noise of middle-aged women, like walking into a chicken coop. rows full of boxes. seats piled high. windows blocked. boxes and bags.

The business of clearing seats, of ladies reminding each other what belongs to whom.

Diapers.

The doors close. The driver climbs over some bags to find his seat. A woman calls for the man sitting in front. He pulls a roll of packing tape from his coat pocket, steps over bags. he seals a torn-open box, returns to his seat, resigned to the duty of his labor, completely silent, unlike the women. A woman hands him a bag of vacuum sealed sausages. Some tumble to the floor. He kneels to retrieve them from under a seat. He will hold them in his lap for the rest of the trip. Another bag of sausages goes to the lady across the aisle from him.

The driver insisting the under compartment is full, unpacking a bag of thermoses — each is boxed, ready to be shelved in some store — and placing them individually in the overhead.

Boxes of powdered milk under the seats.

Slowly, things settle to private conversations. There are big snowy fields and villages in the distant forested hills.

What a vulgar, vile idea it was to reduce all this to the brutality and ignorance of a post office.

II.

I see the traffic before I see the border. Three lanes of vans and cars. All still. People stand among in their coats. So many. Later, I’m told they will mostly be crossing on foot.

I’m happy to see the bus steer into the lane for opposing traffic. We skip almost the entire line, then the driver stops and cuts the engine. We wait. There’s a 100 zloty note prominent on the dashboard.

One of the women speaks to the driver. 150 zloty. A quiet conversation. Another 40 zloty. I am a bystander to this world. (my ticket cost only 25.) A shuffling of documents.

We wait beside a flatbed trailer with two cars chained in place. I think they have no tires, but then see the tires laid flat. The frames rest upon the tires. Perhaps these aren’t cars at all. Perhaps in this moment they are merely scrap metal. A different thing entirely.

I watch my travel companions. Fascinated by their world. They know this trip well. I imagine their lives, look into their bags: Kiwi. Mushrooms. Butter. Seeds.

The Polish guard collects passports, looks, each of us carefully in the face. No smiling. Soon they’re returned.

More waiting.

The Ukrainian guard does the same and then (rejoice!) we are through! Breathe again.

At a gas station, the flurry of activity, the frantic clucking crescendos. One woman can’t find her bag. Two men carry crates of juice to the gas station. A woman exits the bus and six bags are unloaded onto the curb beside her. The two come running back from the gas station, arms swinging. The driver yells hurry. Boxes go into the trunk of a waiting car.

Such intricate chaos. God bless it, I think. God bless these people, this system.

At the next stop, numbers — forty yogurts, no sixty. Counting. Such hustle and precision! Nothing like US Army logistics. Ha.

A box of yogurt and a box of butter become two boxes, half-full of each.

Now, there are hryvni on the dashboard.

A lady unloading the overhead places a large box of chocolate snacks in my lap without asking permission or speaking to me. She clears a space on the seat across the aisle and moves the box there. I feel . . . accepted.

Boots, crackers. Someone needs something from beneath the seat adjacent to me. I begin to help. The boxes of butter are heavy.

Men await our arrival beside one grocery. The women hand them boxes through the door. They stack them in the alley in the spots where snow had melted away.

Now, the hryvni are gone.

A microwave gets passed from the from to the back of the bus. They yell at the driver to open the rear door. They call him by his first name.

Four bags go beside the traffic circle where a taxi waits.

The stops get quieter, less frantic now with fewer people and fewer goods. It is dark when we finally reach L’viv. I am one of only three passengers when the bus parks beside the train station. I exit with my suitcase and walk home.

Snow is falling lightly. Everything is calm. Freshly returned from the west, Lâ vivâ poverty is clear. I carry the suitcase because its little wheels can’t handle the disastrous sidewalks, the snow and slush, the trolley tracks buckling the cobblestone streets. Yes, Ukraine is poorer that the west — run down in many ways. The roads and sidewalks, a disaster. But still, it’s very beautiful. Everywhere, under dustings of snow, in the shadows cast by electric lights, there are hidden treasures of architecture, history, religion, faith.

Interview with Roman Skaskiw — Property and Freedom Society 2012

“I had a chance to interview the very likable and intelligent Roman Skaskiw at PFS2012 this year. I met Roman last year at PFS2011 and had the chance to listen to his great speech about his journey from being an agent of the state to the conclusion that the state is wrong and evil. This was one of my favourite speeches last year. In this interview Roman tell us about what PFS means for him, about his speech last year and about his new adventures in Ukraine. I give you the great Roman Skaskiw.” http://www.mises.se/2012/10/07/interview-with-roman-skaskiw-property-and-freedom-society-2012/

Interview Roman Skaskiw – Property and Freedom Society 2012 from LvMI Sverige on Vimeo.

Here is a link to my speech last year.

Train Stations and Supermarkets in Ukraine

First published in the Ukrainian Weekly, July 1, 2012:

L’viv-born economist, Ludwig Von Mises made the case that capitalism forces people, even enemies, to cooperate and serve one another. This is so evident, we often fail to see it.

Consider buying something at a store. It is typical for both customer and cashier to say “thank you.” This mutual expression of gratitude reflects how both parties benefit. The customer receives his product, and the cashier, on behalf of the owner, the customer’s money. They are both happier and the world becomes a better place.

The mutual benefit only occurs for businesses relying on voluntary patronage. It doesn’t exist where people profit from tax dollars — for example, at the train station. This brings me to my personal experience buying tickets in Kyiv’s “Vokzal.”

I was been told you can buy tickets online in Ukraine, but the website looks confusing. You must register. Also, after you buy them online, you go to the train station and cut in front of the many exhausted travelers waiting on long lines just to receive online-purchased train ticket. I can’t imagine doing that. So, for my stay in Ukraine, I’ve resorted to standing on lines at train stations to purchase tickets.

For my non-Ukrainian readers, let me clarify how horrible this experience is: The station is perpetually crowded and smells like body odor. By my estimate, the average wait in Kyiv is thirty minutes. You have to demonstrate your capitulation to the system by stooping to speak through a little portal to the impatient clerk. You have no idea what train tickets are available or how much they cost until you get there. A decision must be made the instant you get the information and there doesn’t seem to be any way to get an overview of what’s available.

You ask for Thursday night, they tell you, very rapidly what’s leaving on Thursday night, which types of cabins, times of travel and cost. It’s an awfully large amount of information to process quickly, especially for non-native speakers and especially if you’re a nice person sensitive to the impatience of the people behind you.

It gets worse.

On a recent visit to the train station a young man asked to cut in front of me, just as I reached the front of the line. Perhaps he had bought a ticket online. “Thirty seconds,” he said. I nodded. Good manners are only a weakness in a bureaucratically managed enterprise.

He was indeed finished in thirty seconds, but a lady sensed her opportunity and asserted her place behind the young man. I told her she couldn’t cut, and even posted my arm, but she snuck around my other side as soon as he finished.

She jumped straight into a heated argument with the clerk. The clerk refused something but she wouldn’t accept it and kept arguing. Eventually, the clerk put a cardboard sign in the window that read “Technical break,” dropped the venetian blinds, and left her booth, switching off the light.

This shouldn’t have caught me by surprise.

Various times are printed on the glass of the booth. Though they weren’t labeled, I’ve since learned these were the technical breaks. Each booth has five or six technical breaks during the day and they range from ten to sixty minutes in duration. This one was supposed to be twenty minutes long, and I decided to wait it out rather than move to a different line. She returned on time, but then spent five minutes counting money with another lady. When I finally had her attention, she told me that nothing was available on the day I wanted to travel, or the day after that. I couldn’t make an immediate decision about what to do, so I left empty handed.

Most Ukrainians would probably think: “Of course, that it how it works at the train station. That is how it always worked, and that is how it will always be until the end of time. There is no alternative.”

One must be able to imagine progress before achieving it. Imagine a supermarket. I shop at the Mega Market near Olympiski Stadium metro station. In fact, I went there just to cheer myself up after my failure at the train station. I like choices. I like polite people.

At Mega Market, I don’t have to ask which products are available. They are advertised with beautiful pictures and sometimes, attractive people hand me leaflets as I wander the aisles at my own leisurely pace. I get free samples. I can touch, hold and even smell things before I buy them. The biggest miracle of all, however, may be the checkout.

There is no glass between me and clerk. I don’t have to stoop. They smile and demonstrate good manners. They never take technical breaks. A girl only leaves her station when her replacement arrives. Even if they did take breaks, it wouldn’t matter because the lines are always short. Do train station bureaucrats stumble through supermarkets in utter awe? Do they consider the managers there to be super-human geniuses?

Economist Frederick Hayek distinguished between two economies in every society. There is the voluntary economy, where exchanges rely on voluntary patronage, and there is the coercive economy — so called because it runs on taxes which are collected coercively. For the sake of good manners, peace, and making the most of the little time each of has on this Earth, we should remember how we are treated by each.