The Rural Voice, 1995-11, Page 31stores. The state stores are run in a
tremendously inefficient way. If you
wanted two kilos of sausage, for
instance, you would ask the attendant
who would measure the sausage out
and give you a ticket to say how
much it cost. You would then line up
for the cashier who would take your
money and give you a receipt which
you would take back to the first
attendant to pick up your sausage
(you could pay the cashier for the
amount you can afford then go to the
meat counter to save one step). There
is plenty on sale at the state store but
very little people want to buy.
By contrast, at the farmers
market, stalls run by farmers
from outside the city or by
traders from Georgia to the
southeast, the variety is wide,
anything from grapefruit to green
onions to tomatoes from Israel. The
problem for shoppers here is money.
Bread that would cost two cents at
the state store would cost 30 cents at
the farmers market (some
entrepreneurs would buy bread at the
state store and resell it at the free
market to those who didn't have time
to line up at the state store).
For a western shopper, the
conditions at either market would be
appalling. There is little refrigeration
and fresh meat, chicken and soft
cheeses were sold on open counters
in all seasons. Imported American
frozen chicken "looked like chicken"
Richards said, but locally grown
chicken was a dark black colour
having been frozen and unfrozen
several times. During his visit
Richards stayed away from dairy
foods because of concern over
sanitation.
Fat is a big part of the Ukrainian
diet. People eat raw pork fat with raw
garlic. They have bottled beef with
several inches of fat at the top of the
jar. It's a sign of respect for the guest
that he gets the extra fat, something a
fat -conscious Canadian could do
without. Sunflower oil is used by the
gallon in cooking. "Everything they
cooked was either boiled or fried.
Breakfast could be chicken soup with
kolbassa sausage, with rice or fried
spaghetti (no spaghetti sauce)."
In Zhitomir there was water
rationing with the apartment where
Richards stayed getting water only
from 7-9 in the morning and again at
night. "I had two baths the whole
time I was there. For my host to give
me a bath I had to be there before
nine and they would run the water,
heat it, then after I had the bath the
water was wasted. If I had a bath it
meant they lost the water for the
night."
There was no water to flush
toilets, no water for public
washrooms.
Even such things as gas stations
are unknown in Ukraine. A fuel
tanker will pull into a parking lot and
people will line up to get gas, filling
the tank and putting a jug of gas in
the trunk (Richards spent two weeks
travelling in a car with three smoking
men and an open container of gas).
Though maps show a good
network of roads, these are main
roads only and in the countryside
"roads" become mud lanes which are
impassible in spring and fall wet
seasons.
While Ukraine was once an
independent country, its history has
been dominated by Russia and it
suffered tremendously under Soviet
rule. Unlike former East Bloc
countries like Poland or Hungary,
Ukraine was annexed as part of the
Soviet Union. Russia worked hard to
Russify the eastern part of the
country with most people speaking
Russian instead of Ukrainian. During
the Soviet domination, it was against
the law to speak Ukrainian. Kiev, the
capital with a population of 2.6
million, had been turned into a very
Russian city and is only now starting
to recover its Ukrainian roots,
Richards says. As a result of being
absorbed into the Soviet Union,
Ukraine was left in worse shape than
other occupied countries. "When
Russia pulled out of Czechoslovakia
all they took was the troops. When
Russia pulled out of Ukraine they
took everything." They destroyed the
infrastructure.
In the west, in the Carpathian
Mountains, the Russians were
never able to put down the
Ukrainian nationalist movement
and here the language and culture
remained intact.
The Soviet period cut people off
from the rest of the world. Until
Ukraine declared its independence
after the break up of the East Bloc,
many residents had never seen a map
of Ukraine, let alone a map of the
world. Because of army service, men
travelled farther but women spent
their whole lives without ever being
outside their own region.
Zhitomir was down wind of
Chernobyl when the nuclear plant
there exploded. The people weren't
informed for two days while they
were blanketed with fallout, until
western radio broadcasts forced the
government to admit there had been
an emergency and warn people to
keep their children indoors. Today
fish are still taken from the river to
feed people though the river drains
the lands contaminated by the
explosion. There are studies on how
to farm contaminated land.
Ukraine is a place of great
culture. The history of
Zhitomir goes back to 884.
An 18 -year-old girl who
guided Richards around the city
spends her time not listening to
western rock music but going to
opera, art galleries and museums.
The current Ukrainian population
is the result of 70 years of
indoctrination, Richards says. A
group of students asked him how
long it would take them to be where
Canada is. He told them it took
Canada 150 years to do what Ukraine
is trying to do in five. It will take two
generations for people to really
realize what freedom means, he
predicted. People have been born in a
country where the state told them
how to think and it will take a long
time to really be able to think for
themselves.
There are a lot of things we would
class as corruption that are really the
beginning of a free enterprise system,
Richards says. A newspaper wanted
to be paid to conduct an interview
with him. One official insisted he
buy him $20 worth of oil before he
would grant a meeting.
Private enterprise is springing up
in rented trailers and kiosks around
the cities. Some of this is close to
organized crime with violent
rivalries. There are signs that there is
a good deal of wealth among some
people through the "shadow
economy" even if life is very hard for
ordinary people. Still, Richards
reminds a listener, many of Canada's
biggest business empires had roots
just as chaotic.
NOVEMBER 1995 27
4