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Feodosia Apartments:
Introducing the Ukraine

Ukraine (Ukrainian: Україна, Ukraina, /ukraˈjina/) is a country in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north-east, Belarus to the north, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the south-west, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The historic city of Kiev (Kyiv) is the country's capital.

History

From at least the ninth century, the territory of present-day Ukraine was a centre of medieval East Slavic civilization forming the state of Kievan Rus, and for the following several centuries the territory was divided between a number of regional powers. After a brief period of independence (1917–1921) following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Ukraine became one of the founding Soviet Republics in 1922. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic's territory was enlarged westward after the Second World War, and again in 1954 with the Crimea transfer. In 1945 Ukrainian SSR became one of the co-founder members of the United Nations. It became independent again after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.

Politics

Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The President of Ukraine is elected by popular vote and is the head of state. The Prime Minister is appointed and dismissed by the 450-seat parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. The parliament also appoints the Cabinet of Ministers. The heads of regional and district administrations are appointed by the President, but the Prime Minister's counter-signature is required for the appointment edicts to take force.

Laws, acts of the parliament and the Cabinet, presidential edicts, and acts of the Crimean parliament (Autonomous Republic of Crimea) may be nullified by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, when they are found to violate the Constitution of Ukraine. Other normative acts are subject to judicial review. The Supreme Court of Ukraine is the main body in the system of courts of general jurisdiction.

Local self-government is officially guaranteed. Local councils and city mayors are popularly elected and exercise control over local budgets.

Ukraine has a large number of political parties, many of which have tiny memberships and are unknown to the general public. Small parties often join in multi-party coalitions (electoral blocks) for the purpose of participating in parliamentary elections.

Military

After the collapse of Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited a one-million-man military force on its territory, equipped with the third largest nuclear weapon arsenal in the world. In May of 1992, Ukraine signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in which the country agreed to give up all nuclear weapons, and to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state. Ukraine ratified the treaty in 1994, and by 1996 the country became free of nuclear weapons.

Ukraine also took consistent steps toward the reduction of conventional weapons. It signed the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which called for reduction of tanks, artillery, and armored vehicles. The army forces were reduced to 300,000 soldiers. The country plans to convert the current, mostly conscript, army into a professional army.

Following independence, Ukraine declared itself to be a neutral state. The country had limited military partnership with Russia and other CIS countries, as well as, since 1994, it established a partnership with NATO. In 2000s Ukraine was leaning toward NATO, and a deeper cooperation with the alliance was set by NATO-Ukraine Action Plan signed in 2002. As of 2006, this issue is a subject of extensive debates within Ukrainian society of whether the country should join NATO. In August of 2006, the leading political parties signed the Universal of National Unity, a non-binding document, in which they agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future.

Economy

Ukraine represents one of top thirty world economies, with below average per capita income, and above average economic growth.

In the Soviet times, the economy of the republic was the second largest in the Soviet Union, being an important industrial and agricultural component of country's planned economy. With the collapse of Soviet system, the country progressed toward a market economy, but the move was somewhat longer and more painful than the proponents of shock therapy were to advise.

In 1991, the government liberalized most prices in order to combat widespread product shortages, and was successful in overcoming the problem. In the same time, the government continued to subside the government-owned industries and agriculture by uncovered monetary emission. The loose monetary policies of early 1990s pushed inflation to hyperinflationary levels. For the year 1993 Ukraine holds the world record for inflation in one calendar year. The prices stabilized only after the introduction of new currency, hryvnia in 1996.

The country was also slow in the implementation of structural reforms. Following independence, the government erected a legal framework for privatization. However, widespread resistance to reforms within the government and from a significant part of population soon stalled the reform efforts. A large number of governed-owned enterprises were exempt from the privatization process. Meantime, by 1999, the output had fallen to less than 40% of the 1991 level.

Since the late 1990s the government has pledged to reduce the number of government agencies, streamline the regulatory process, create a legal environment to encourage entrepreneurs, and enact a comprehensive tax overhaul. Outside institutions—particularly the IMF—have encouraged Ukraine to quicken the pace and scope of reforms and have threatened to withdraw financial support. But reforms in some politically sensitive areas of structural reform and land privatizations are still lagging.

In early 2000s the economy showed strong export-based growth of 5% to 10%, with industrial production growing more than 10% per year. The growth was largely attributed to a surge in exports of metals and chemicals to China.

In 2005, the economic growth temporary slowed down due to unfavorable changes in terms of trade, as world energy prices went up and metal prices went down. In 2006, the economy is again experiencing above 5% growth. The growth was undergirded by strong domestic demand and growing consumer and investor confidence.

The current Ukrainian economy is a typical example of a post-soviet era developing economy. The World Bank classifies Ukraine as a lower middle-income state. Some significant issues are underdeveloped infrastructure and transportation, corruption and bureaucracy, and a lack of modern-minded professionals - despite the large number of universities. But the rapidly growing Ukrainian economy has a very interesting emerging market with a relatively big population, and large profits associated with the high risks.[4] The Ukrainian stock market grew up 10 times between 2000 and 2006, including the tremendous 341% growth in 2004, followed by 28% growth in 2005, and 24% growth in 2006.

The average nominal salary in Ukraine on November 2006 was 1103.9 UAH, which is around 170 EUR, according to the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine. For 2006, the Index of Economic Freedom of Ukraine was 3.24, rank 99 amongst 157 states.

The country imports most energy supplies, especially oil and natural gas, and to a large extent depends on Russia as the only monopolistic energy supplier, although lately Ukraine has been trying to diversify its sources.

Demographics

According to the Ukrainian Census of 2001, ethnic Ukrainians make up 77.8% of the population. Other significant ethnic groups are Russians (17.3%), Belarusians (0.6%), Moldovans (0.5%), Crimean Tatars (0.5%), Bulgarians (0.4%), Hungarians (0.3%), Romanians (0.3%), Poles (0.3%), Jews (0.2%), Armenians (0.2%), Greeks (0.2%) and Tatars (0.2%).[5]

The industrial regions in the east and south-east are the most heavily populated, and about 67.2% of the population lives in urban areas.

Ukrainian is the only official state language. Russian, which was a de facto official language in the Soviet Union, is widely spoken, especially in eastern and southern Ukraine. According to the census, 67.5% of the population declared Ukrainian as their native language and 29.6% declared Russian. It is sometimes difficult to determine the extent of the two languages, since many people use a Surzhyk (a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian where the vocabulary is often combined with Ukrainian grammar and pronunciation) while claiming in surveys that they speak Russian or Ukrainian (most of them are able to speak both literary languages though). Besides, some ethnic Ukrainians, while calling Ukrainian their 'native' language, use Russian more frequently in their daily lives. These details result in a significant difference across different survey results, as even a small restating of a question switches responses of a significant group of people.[6] Standard literary Ukrainian is mainly spoken in western and central Ukraine. In western Ukraine, Ukrainian is also the dominant language in cities (such as Lviv). In central Ukraine, Ukrainian and Russian are both equally used in cities, with Russian being more common in Kiev,[7][6] while Ukrainian is the dominant language in rural communities. In eastern and southern Ukraine, mainly Russian is used in cities, and Surzhyk is used in rural areas.

The Government follows a policy of Ukrainization—the increase of Ukrainian language, generally at the expense of Russian. This takes the form of use of Ukrainian in various spheres that are under Government control, such as schools, Government offices, and some media. This is even done in areas which are largely Russian-speaking. However, in non-Government areas of life, the language of convenience (usually Russian) is used.[8]

According to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea constitution, Ukrainian is the only state language of the republic.[9] However, the republic's constitution specifically recognizes Russian as the language of the majority of its population and guarantees its usage 'in all spheres of public life'. Similarly, the Crimean Tatar language (the language of a sizeable 12% minority of the republic[10] is guaranteed a special state protection as well as the 'languages of other ethnicities'. Russian speakers constitute an overwhelming majority of the Crimean population (77%), with Ukrainian speakers comprising 10.1%, and Crimean Tatar speakers 11.4%.[11] But in everyday life the majority of Cimean Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea use Russian.

Romanians and Moldavians are another significant minority in Ukraine, concentrated mainly in Chernivtsi Oblast.

Jews played a very important role in Ukrainian cultural life, especially in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Nowadays Yiddish, the Ukrainian Jews' traditional language, is only used by a few older people.

After independence, a significant change in the language of instruction in educational institutions took place. According to the Razumkov centre, while 49% of high school students in 1991/92 were receiving their education in Ukrainian, and 50% in Russian, 70% of students in 2000/01 attended Ukrainian schools (where Ukrainian is the primary language of instruction) while 29% were studying in Russian schools (both languages are studied in all schools in Ukraine, as part of the curriculum). This trend is opposite to the changes in the 1970s and 1980s, when the number of Russian schools was constantly being increased. The transition toward Ukrainian-language usage is taking a long time, and in some schools that had switched to Ukrainian from Russian, part or most of the instruction is still given in Russian.

In general, most of the population is bilingual, at least to some degree. Most of the Ukrainophone population is also fluent in Russian and many Russian native speakers in Ukraine are fluent in Ukrainian as well. An overwhelming majority has at least a reasonable command in Ukrainian even in primarily Russophone southern and eastern parts of the country.

Significant migration took place in the first years of Ukrainian independence. More than 1 million people moved into Ukraine in 1991-1992, mostly from the other former Soviet republics. In total, between 1991 and 2004, 2.2 millions immigrated to Ukraine (among them, 2.0 mln came from the other former Soviet Union states), and 2.5 million immigrated from Ukraine (among them, 1.9 mln moved to the rest of former Soviet Union republics).

In the context of low salaries and unemployment within Ukraine, labor emigration became a mass phenomenon at the end of the 1990s. Although estimates vary, approximately two to three million Ukrainian citizens are currently working abroad, many illegally, in construction, service, housekeeping, and agriculture industries. Moreover, a significant number of women from Ukraine had been dragged into prostitution and sex slavery in foreign lands, mainly Western Europe and Turkey.

Culture

The culture of Ukraine has been formed by influences of its eastern and western neighbors, and the architecture, music and dance of Ukraine all reflect this.

Communist rule had quite a strong effect on the art and writing of Ukraine. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Soviets began enforcing the socialist realism art style in Ukraine; this style dictated that all artists and writers glorify the Soviet Regime with their talents. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukrainian artists and writers again became free to express themselves as they wanted.

The tradition of the Easter egg had its beginnings in Ukraine: these eggs were drawn on with wax to create pattern; dye was then added to give the eggs their delightful colors -— the dye not affecting the wax-coated parts of the egg. Once the whole egg was dyed, the wax was removed leaving only the colorful pattern. The tradition is thousands of years old, and predates the arrival of Christianity in the country.

Ukrainians also have food culture which dates back to the old time. The Ukrainian diet includes chicken, pork, beef, fish and mushrooms. Ukrainians eat a lot of potatoes, grains, fresh and sour vegetables, different kinds of bread. Popular traditional dishes include varenyky (boiled dumplings with mushrooms, potatoes, sauerkraut, cottage cheese or cherries), borsch (soup made of beets, cabbage and mushrooms or meat) and holubtsy (stuffed cabbage rolls filled with rice, carrots and meat). Ukrainian specialties also include Chicken Kiev and Kiev Cake. Ukrainians drink stewed fruit, juices, milk, sour milk, mineral water, tea and coffee, beer, wine and vodka.

Text and image sourced from wikipedia - the free online encyclapaedia.

You also may be interested in Feodosia Maps showing the location of Feodosia in relation to Europe, Ukraine and the Crimea. And here is some information about getting to and from the Ukraine.