Category Archives: news

Ukrainian news round-up – Dec 23 2008

Ukrainian news round-up – Dec 8 2008

Ukrainian-American teen turns in $10,000 he found at store

From Tacoma News Tribune:

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. — A 17-year-old grocery bagger was ready to wash his hands in the bathroom at the Federal Way supermarket where he works when he saw a brown canvas money bag on the floor. Moisei Baraniuc was curious. He opened it and saw envelopes filled with money – “a pretty thick stack.”

“The first thing that went through my mind was keeping it,” he said.

And then the Ukrainian immigrant remembered what his father, Vitalie Baraniuc, always says at dinner at the family’s home in Pacific.

“My dad is always telling us in this life you’ve got to work for yourself,” said Baraniuc, who goes by the nickname Moses. “If you take what doesn’t belong to you, it will catch up to you.”

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Kurelek painting exceeds estimate

From the Toronto Star:

Paintings by William Kurelek and Tom Thomson exceeded expectations at Joyner Waddington’s fall auction of important Canadian art. A large 1972 work by Kurelek, titled Balsam Avenue After Heavy Snowfall, showing the Toronto street where the Ukrainian-Canadian artist once lived, went for $241,400 – above the pre-sale estimate of $175,000 to $200,000. The auction continues today.

From his Wikipedia biography:

He was born near Whitford, Alberta in 1927, the oldest of seven children in an Ukrainian immigrant family: Will, John, Winn, Nancy, Sandy, Paul, Iris. His family lost the farm during the Great Depression and moved to Stonewall, Manitoba. He developed an early interest in art which was not encouraged by his hard-working parents. He later studied at the Ontario College of Art and at the Instituto Allende in Mexico.

Holodomor post-weekend round-up – Nov 24 2008

Taras from Ukrainiana has provided an excellent primer on the Holodomor.  He also reported from Kyiv Holodomor commemorations.