‘Money-culture is ruining Kiev’
‘Money-culture is ruining Kiev’
The effect of the markets in Ukraine has been disastrous
The younger Ukrainians with whom I traffic, however, tend to consider the new dispensation unpleasant, often in proportion to their distance from imported professions like marketing (although I’ve met marketers who don’t like it either). Who wants to live in what’s now less a viable city than an open-air laboratory for the unconsidered imposition of the money culture?
But then, what do a bunch of disgruntled young ingrates from a provincial ex-Soviet city know? Ukraine is, after all, considered a success by the standards of the Western establishment. To hear the pronouncements about Ukraine that issue from that establishment’s nodes every time the country makes it through another election without mass violence, you’d think this was Switzerland. Brussels and Washington pat Ukraine on the head for its ‘maturity’ and its ‘evolving democracy’. The smart locals know they live in a klepto-oligarchy, and that the West will trumpet Ukraine’s ‘robust democratic culture’ as long as capital keeps flowing in and out of the country. It’s meaningful that every time populist Ukrainian politicians have made noises about renationalising industrial properties stolen by oligarchs, the screaming from the West has been such to make you think a return to Stalinist terror had been proposed.
And it’s telling to watch Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, the Orange revolution’s villain restored now to power, smiling a thousand-watt smile as he consorts with sheepish Western leaders. He knows where his bread gets buttered. Ukraine has achieved that sine qua non of the second-tier country whose elite wants to prosper in the global order — it’s managed to unlink politics from the economy.
God knows where this is going to end up. I do know that young people are starting to want to leave Kiev — to abandon the fabled Mother City of the Slavs, no matter what the International Chamber of Commerce types have to say about it. My sense is they can’t stand the place any more.
Maybe they should get out, especially if they’re planning to have kids — who can raise kids in this loutishness and bad air? And until they do, they shouldn’t let themselves get infected by the imperatives of the unmediated money-culture values we Westerners have encouraged. They should listen, actually, to our old pal Robert Fletcher, who in some ways isn’t so far off base after all. ‘It’s not about how much money you earn, it’s about how much you save!’ he bellows on his website. ‘And if you want to become a millionaire, you need to learn how to save money.’
Right! Benjamin Franklin couldn’t have put it any better. I’d add only one thing: change those Ukrainian banknotes you save into a nice, hard currency. Better yet, in this boom environment of unhinged speculation, buy gold.
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Guy
November 29th, 2007 8:08pmNot too disimilar to Tblisi, sadly.
R. Luchkan
November 30th, 2007 2:42pmSpot on! Really, impressive insight! Great piece!
Walter Bruderer
December 3rd, 2007 1:56pmThis article is nonsense… 10 years ago Kyiv was a dull drab place in terms of life on the street with little or no entertainment or decent places to eat… those that were there had nothing in stock that was on the menu. Oligarchs or not, Kyiv and Ukraine is a much better place today… what the writer longs for is a place in which rich people can play at being rich among humble simple poor people… like the Americans did when they first discovered Spain or parts of the South of France and wrote books about their debaucheries.
Clive Hunter-Dunne
December 4th, 2007 1:47pmMr. Slivka (cream in Russian) demonstrates the typical American tendancy to concentrate his 'experience' on the heresay of capital centre youth and, no doubt, a view from the main street (Kreshatyk). As an expat Brit of some ten years standing in Ukraine I can assure the readers of The Spectator that the reality is quite different.