All posts by Andrew

I'm the admin at ukrcdn!

Weekend watching: Teach me to Dance

February 14, 2009 Andrew 1 Comment

The National Film Board of Canada is Canada’s public film producer and distributor.Â It has been putting their old videos up online, and I’ve found a great one that I’ve seen back in elementary school featuring Ukrainian culture called Teach me to Dance (28 minutes):

In this drama, Lesia convinces her English-Canadian friend Sarah to perform a Ukrainian dance with her as part of their school’s Christmas pageant. Sarah’s father, angry at the growing number of Ukrainian settlers, won’t allow his daughter to participate. Despite the prejudices of their parents, the girls’ friendship remains strong, and they meet in Sarah’s barn to celebrate Christmas Day together.

For anyone who can’t watch the video, the story is outlined here.
The NFB has quite a few good videos about Ukrainian-Canadian culture, I’ll try to post them every weekend for some good watching!

canada, politics, Uncategorized

Ignatieff’s imperial roots stir trouble on the Ukrainian front

February 12, 2009 Andrew Leave a comment

Fellow blogger Steve Janke gets his opinion in the National Post:

Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj’s demotion to the backbenches is proving to be a big deal in the Ukrainian-Canadian community.

A lot of Ukrainian-Canadians are wondering just what Michael Ignatieff really thinks of them.

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s strongman prime minister, has not made it a secret that he thinks the Ukraine is part of Russia

Ignatieff has written at length about his Russian heritage, and ran into trouble over passages in one of his books that were criticized as dismissive of the Ukraine’s claim to statehood. A University of Calgary thesis on Ignatieff’s writings noted:

You don’t have to be paranoid to think that Ignatieff, the scion of Russian nobility, is depriving Ukrainians of a soapbox to criticize Russia. You just have to be Ukrainian, because that is exactly what a lot of Ukrainians are thinking.

I’ve been told, anecdotally, that Wrzesnewskyj’s banishment to the backbenches is a big deal in the Ukrainian community, much more so than it would normally be because of Ignatieff’s family background (which he can’t help) and the statements he’s made that seem to provide comfort to Russian neo-imperialists (which are entirely his fault).

The Liberal leader can claim to have revised his thinking.Â Again.Â Like he did on Israel (twice) and the coalition and Iraq and torture and, well, you get the idea.Â I suppose another revision can’t hurt at this point.

Read the article

It’s a great article with lots of references that makes his case very solid.Â Unfortunately Steve’s getting hammered in the comments with a lot of petty name calling.Â You know what to do.

book, canada

Correcting a book on Amazon

February 11, 2009 Andrew Leave a comment

Earlier this week I noticed on Amazon.ca that this book was listed as ‘Ukranian Cooking’.Â Luckily it was very easy to fix, at the bottom of the product page under the ‘Feedback’ section you can update the product information.Â I went to the page and filled out the form with the correct information and in a few days it was processed and I got my message:

Thank you for using the Catalog Update Form
to send suggestions for Festive Ukranian Cooking
(ASIN 0822936461)

Your update has been accepted and processed. It
will appear online within the next two to three
business days.

Attribute: Title
Current value: Festive Ukranian Cooking
Your suggestion: Festive Ukrainian Cooking

If you want something done you have to do it yourself!Â Don’t be afraid to make these corrections, it’s a more common spelling mistake then you think and needs to be corrected.

book

How Ukrainian is ‘A Short History of Tractors’?

February 9, 2009 Andrew 5 Comments

I was reading Marina Lewycka’s ‘A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian’ and noticed something very odd on page 11:

The Ukrainian flag is two oblongs of colour, blue over yellow â€” yellow for the cornfields, blue for the sky.

Cornfields – really? Certainly different than the Ukrainian teaching I’ve received at my elementary schools.Â The Wikipedia entry on the Flag of Ukraine sets the record straight:

The color blue of the Ukrainian Flag represents the color of the sky, and yellow symbolizes the lush golden wheat fields of this country.

It’s not terribly difficult to imagine why:

And while it’s a good novel and has won all sorts of awards, Marina you’ll have to do a better job when you represent us!

news round-up, ukraine

Ukrainian news round-up – Feb 3 2009

February 3, 2009 Andrew Leave a comment

Politics

The Ukrainian government is ready to report to the parliament on its activities says Yulia Tymoshenko, but the Verkhovna Rada meeting started with the Party of Regions blocking the rostrum and demanding that the government’s resignation not be considered, only after asking for it earlier and Yanukovich declaring he was ready to be Premier.
The Ukrainian parliament has come to a preliminary agreement to set the country’s next parliamentary elections for January 17, 2010, but still needs to be ratified by the Supreme Rada.
What everyone else already knew:Â Ukrainian experts believe that the gas row between Russia and Ukraine was the result of a range of economic and political factors.Â Many analysts say Ukraine did not come out well in its recent dispute with Russia over prices for natural gas.
Tomorrow begins discussions between Ukraine and the Czech-led EU.

Economy

Viktor Yuschenko has demanded that the National Bank of Ukraine punish banks that failed to pay back deposits when agreement terms had expired, following complaints from Ukrainians regarding the non or incomplete payment of deposits by the banks.
Ukraine among many other troubled countries are on their way to becoming the next Iceland.
The full text of the Ukrainian-Russian gas transit deal for the next decade is available here and here.

Local

A French journalist reports 150 “Asgarda” Ukrainian women living in the Carpathian Mountains who follow a rigorous routine of fighting with medieval weaponry, boxing and idolizing Yulia Tymoshenko. (Edit: Taras of Ukrainiana has found their website)
Birthrates have outpaced mortality rates in Kyiv and two western oblasts, being attributed to child benefits from the state.
The local council of the Russian Orthodox Church has given itself broad autonomy over the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, to counter Yushchenko’s initiative on creation of a unified Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

World

Somali pirates who have been holding a Ukrainian ship with military weapons on board have announced their intention to immediately release the ship along with its 20 crew members, following a $3 million ransom.
The International Court of Justice drew a new maritime border between Romania and Ukraine on Tuesday to settle a dispute over parts of the Black Sea believed to hold significant oil and gas reserves, the ruling gives Romania about four-fifths of the area it claimed.
A low-budget documentary “Svoi-Chuzhoi” was recently broadcast on Russian television. The film was labeled “a provocation” which attempts to discredit the Ukrainian armed forces by linking them to the Russia-Georgia conflict last August, without any direct evidence showed in the film as admitted by the film’s maker.

Fun

For the fans of ‘So you think you can dance’, Ukraine’s 2008 season is up on Bittorrent.

Sports

A new hotel for the Euro-2012 soccer tournament was built over one of famed Yiddish writer Sholom Aleichem’s homes in Kyiv.Â Meanwhile an official UEFA delegation arrived in Ukraine on Monday to check on the country’s preparations to joint host the Euro 2012 soccer championships.

Do you like the new format?Â Let me know in the comments.

Ukrainian Canadian