Easter (Великдень) for most Ukrainians is this Sunday, April 27th (find out why). Brama (as always) is a great resource on the topic of Easter and all things Ukrainian. Have a great holiday, enjoy the food and check out Martha Stewart’s Paska recipe. Also, it’s also never too late to take up the practice of making pysanky. And of course don’t forget to go to church 🙂
ХриÑÑ‚Ð¾Ñ Ð’Ð¾ÑкреÑ!
KYIV, Ukraine — Shining with Orthodox golden domes that rise from forested hilltops, crisscrossed by narrow cobblestone streets and speckled by quiet, leafy parks, Kyiv draws visitors with an Eastern European charm.
And for those who seek the exotic artifacts of the Soviet era – Lenin statues, imposing bronze monuments and colonnaded subway stations – Kyiv has those too.
Founded over 1,500 years ago, Kyiv is one of the oldest and historically richest cities in Eastern Europe. The site of the ancient Kyivan Rus state, forerunner of the Russian empire, it is considered the birthplace of Slavic civilization. The city endured the Mongol-Tatar invasion, was an important provincial capital in the Tsarist and Soviet eras and in 1991 finally became the capital of an independent Ukraine.
Today, Kyiv strives to be a proper European city, at the same time preserving its unique Slavic appeal. Cut in two by the broad Dnieper river, the city is a mix of medieval onion-domed Orthodox cathedrals, elegant turn of the 20th century buildings and some stubbornly durable artifacts of the Soviet times, including giant statues and gloomy apartment blocks on the city’s outskirts.
Cool article from the Canadian Press!
UPDATE: It’s too bad when the Associated Press circulated the article they Rusified the capital. Even in Canada.
UPDATE #2: A very sobering reply to this article
I just got back from the first of two screenings of The English Surgeon from HotDocs in Toronto, and I must say it was quite an amazing movie! Excellent story, beautiful music and cinematography makes this movie a must-see. It is airing only once more this Wednesday at 4:30pm if you can make it, I would highly recommend it!
Here is a HotDocs interview with director Geoffrey Smith, and another interview from the Glasgow Film Festival last month:
UPDATE: More details have been added for cities
The Holodomor Remembrance flame was in Winnipeg on Sunday and got its first mainstream media coverage. There was no mention anywhere when it made its debut in Toronto last Friday. The Flame will be escorted at these events by Holodomor survivor Stefan Horlatsch (bio). If you know of any pictures, please let us know in the comments! Here are the dates for the rest of the tour in Canada:
From CTV:
MOSCOW — The Soviet Union may be in the dustbin of history, but there’s one place the socialist utopia lives on: cyberspace.
Sixteen years after the superpower’s collapse, Web sites ending in the Soviet “.su” domain name have been rising — registrations increased 45 percent this year alone. Bloggers, entrepreneurs and die-hard communists are all part of a small but growing online community resisting repeated efforts to extinguish the online Soviet outpost.
Russian nostalgia for the Soviet empire is part of the story. Nashi, or “Ours,” is a pro-Kremlin youth group that gained notoriety for raucous protests against Kremlin critics. The group loyally praises President Vladimir Putin at “nashi.su,” though it denies its choice of the “.su” domain was meant to send a political message.
read more…
According to Wikipedia:
.su was assigned as the country code top-level domain for the Soviet Union on September 19, 1990. 15 months later the Soviet Union ceased to exist. It remains in use today, even though the Soviet Union itself no longer exists, and is administered by the Russian Institute for
Development of Public Networks.In 2001, the managers of the domain stated that they will commence accepting new .su registrations, but it is unclear whether this action is compatible with ICANN policies. ICANN has expressed intentions to terminate the .su domain, and the IANA states that the domain is being phased out,[1] but lobbyists stated in September, 2007 that they had started negotiations with ICANN on retaining the domain.[2] In the first quarter of 2008, .su registrations increased by 45%.[3]
No surprise here. Nashi is the new Hitler Youth, and their members will defend Czar Putin no matter what with a skewed sense of nationalism. How can you expect less from a leader who still thinks the USSR exists today? Putin reportedly told Bush at the NATO summit:
“You see, George, Ukraine is not even the state at all! What is Ukraine? Some part of its territory is the Eastern Europe, some its part, the greater part, is our gift!â€
Of course if you’ve been keeping up with this crowd you would know this has been their mentality for years and everyone knows it.