[This message has been edited by John K]

Sevastopol, Ukraine has had an interesting couple of decades.  Even though it was physically in Ukraine, the city was considered part of Russia, due to the importance of it as a warm water port for the Soviet fleet.  The people spoke only Russian and it was a closed off city, allowing entrance only to people who had a stamp in their passport stating that they lived there.

During the breakup of the Soviet Union, the fate of Sevastopol was waited for anxiously by the people in the city.  The felt themselves Russians, despite their geographical location.  There was much wrangling between Ukrainian and Russian goverments as to who would own Sevastopol.  Finally, Ukraine won the right to its own seaport.  When it was announced, the Sevastopol natives started protests that literally shut down the city.  Police were deployed to forcefully break up the demonstrations.

Many people suffered significantly from the change in goverments.  All of a sudden all official paperwork had to be done in Ukrainian, instead of Russian.  A huge number of secretaries lost their jobs, as they did not know how to speak Ukrainian, let alone read and write it.  An entire city population was faced with learning a new language overnight.

The effects still reverberate today.  Ukrainians in Sevastopol in general hate President Kuchma, and love President Putin.  Kuchma was trying to get a general census of the population of Sevastopol and wanted to register all it's citizens in Ukraine's computer databases.  Ukrainians wouldn't open their doors to the census takers.

Russia still makes advances to Sevastopol, which is a sore point with Kuchma.  Putin visits Sevastopol at least once a year.  Each visit, he donates municipal items to the city.  Last year, he donated over 20 minibuses and 10 buses to the municipal transportation system.  The implication is clear, "If you were part of Russia, you'd be a lot better off right now..."  Sevastopol natives listen hard to that.  They realize that they would be far better off economically if their pay was still based on the Russian standards.

A couple of years ago, Putin built a large modern apartment complex in Sevastopol.  After it was built, he gave a number of apartments to various needy families in the city.  The rest of the apartments go for $20K per room.  Kuchma, not to be outdone, decided to build his own apartment complex.  It is a large, beautiful apartment building with noninterruptible electricity, hot/cold water, and other niceties.  The cost of the apartments are double that of Putin's apartment building.

What is ironic is that when Putin built his apartment complex, he used high quality materials.  Kuchma built his with the cheapest materials he could find.  While Kuchma's apartment building currently looks more luxurious than Putin's, within the next few years, we can expect the building to start deteriorating rapidly.  Of course, Putin's building will still look good as the years progress.  This will likely become yet another statement of Ukrainian goverment to the restless natives...

... in response to Re: Some info on Sevastopol, posted by romachko on Oct 14, 2003

Romachko,

First, congratulations on your engagement.

One thing though, you cannot seriously approve of a
monument to one of the world's most evil people, a confirmed
mass murderer? A man whose very words are evil. Surely you are joking.

A monument to Lenin is the moral equivalent to a monument of Stalin or Hitler. No nation can expect to be blessed and to prosper when it erects and maintains monuments to those who have promoted and conducted evil on such a mass scale.

Good luck.

... in response to Re: Re:Lenin Statue, posted by Stan on Oct 15, 2003

you're nuts

... in response to Some info on Sevastopol, posted by John K on Oct 13, 2003

The matter of Sevastopol applies
to all of Crimea. The oblast of Crimea
has been quasi-independent since the collapse
of the SU, governed by a Russian dominated Communist
Party (control freaks will never learn).

All East and South Slavs are
extremely ethnic conscious, especially the Russians
who are ethno-centric in mentality. Hence the reasons
for the phenomena you write about,much moreso than
any theoretical strategic importance of Sevestopol.

... in response to Doesn't they all despise Kuchma?, posted by Streetwise on Oct 13, 2003

I thought so but my fiancee & her family think he is great go figure. Funny my fiancee wanted to know if I was a Republican or a Democrat because she said if she came to live here she wanted to be a Republican. I am.

... in response to Re: It's so easy to blame anyone in the ..., posted by wsbill on Oct 13, 2003

Quite a few  UW  NOW dont nessasarily want to leave thier homeland wsBill

and they might actually be sincere women.I'd advise guys to write to them and win thier hearts actually.

not everyone is escaping a terrible impoverished condition,
or if they are in that situation - not ready to give up
"all" for a bigger skyline and a jeep cherokee in a  western city.

FSU MOB is certainly econmoy driven--
butthere are planety of exceptions

and  there are quite a few countries out there in the world where women are generally, socially and culturally second class citizens
Some of those countries and cultures are pretty high living standards ,but still a self assured confident intelligent woman might see a better all around future elsewhere?

just a thought

... in response to Re: It's so easy to blame anyone in the ..., posted by wsbill on Oct 13, 2003

I would like to put my 2 cents worth in if I could,,, and it will only be worth 2 cents.
My understanding of it is quite easy, You could have voted for Kuchma or some hard line Commie is how it was explained to me. ( If it's not worse, it's better) As bad as everyone knew Kuchma is/was,,, NO ONE wants to go back to "The Gold Old Days" except for the military Hawks and some old dementia pensioners.
As far as Crimea is concerned, it is my humble observation that there are a LOT of Russian's there. And most Russians do not aggree with the hard line nationalists from western and northern Ukraine. But as of this summer, their main concern was all the Tartars "squatting" in the country and establishing their own little towns "overnight" where there wasn't a town before. This is got people of both Ukrainian and Russian liniage steaming ALL over Crimea.

... in response to Re: Kinda strange how their are alot of ..., posted by wsbill on Oct 13, 2003

were in Saint Petersburg, fl and there are more Ukrainians here than ruskies (at least as far as i know which isn't saying much), we even have a ukrainian catholic church. But the Bosian-Serbs out number ruskies and Ukrainians combined.