Moscow, March 4 (Interfax) - Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom has announced that it had reduced gas exports to Ukraine by another 25% and that it might cut them further if Ukraine does not resume talks with the company.
“Not only has the deadlock in the negotiations not been broken, there have not even been any more negotiations. Our Ukrainian counterparts have not come to Moscow. The only response from them has been a press release that in effect says that the Naftogaz Ukrainy company may start unsanctioned consumption of gas from volumes designated for European customers. For this reason, gas supplies for Ukrainian customers have been reduced by another 25% as of this moment, as we warned before,” Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov told reporters on Tuesday.
Amounts of gas passing through the Sudzha gas measuring station had been slashed by 27 million cubic meters per day and volumes passing through the Valuiki station by 8 million cubic meters a day, he said.
“If the Ukrainian side does not return to the negotiating table, I cannot rule out the possibility of a decision to carry through another reduction of supplies,” Kupriyanov said.
Western Ukraine is the homeland of one of the most profound and intriguing altar sculptors of the 18th century - the famous artist known as Master Johann Pinzel (1751 - 1770s). Master Pinzel, whose real name remains a mystery, is most known as the founder of “Lviv Rococo” style in art and the author of beautiful altars and sculptures he made in Buchach and Horodenka. Read the rest of this entry »
The White Elephant, a once famous Polish observatory in the Carpathians, is as close to the stars as it only could be. Just look at the ruins and try to imagine that the complex erected on top of the Chornohora, or the Mount Black, is located more than two kilometres above the sea level! The initial construction, the Marshal Jozef Pilsudski Astronomical and Meteorological Observatory, was established back in 1938, when Western Ukraine was still a part of Poland. No one really knows why it was baptized as the “White Elephant” - could it be due to its unusual L-shape, or because of the grand amount of time, effort, and money its design and construction consumed?
Dusia, a first generation Ukrainian Canadian, says that she does not remember much about the famine in Ukraine of 1932-33. She was only five year old when the Soviet-imposed famine, also known by historians as the Holodomor, started raging in her home village. That was one of the most devastating national disasters of the Ukrainian people in all modern history. “My Mom went out to sell jewellery and buy some bread, but she never returned home”, - recalls Dusia, one of just a handful survivals among people living in central and eastern parts of Ukraine during the Holodomor. It is estimated that the total number of those who died from starvations when communists forced Ukrainian peasants into collective farms can be more than 10 million people… Read the rest of this entry »
• The city of Lviv is located in the western part of Ukraine, at the shores of the Poltava river, 80 kilometres away from the border of Poland. Currently, its population is about 735,000 people, most of whom are ethnic Ukrainians speaking the Ukrainian language.
Kamyanets-Podilsky is an extremely beautiful ancient town of Ukraine, “a stone flower on the rock”, as the famous Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrayinka described it in the beginning of the 20th century.” Stare Misto”, a majestic stone fortress with numerous fortifications and intricate architectural decorations, which dates back to the beginning of the 12th century, is the heart of this medieval place. The fortress, built on a rocky island near the River Smotrych, is just one jewel of Kamyanets-Podilsky. Among other ancient attractions, there are a two millennia old Roman bridge, a Gothic city hall, and a unique minaret featuring the statue of the Virgin Mary. Besides being a military fortress, ancient Kamyanets-Podilsky was also a stronghold of Christianity. In the 17th century, the town had about 15 different churches of Orthodox, Catholic, and Armenian Christian confessions, many of which still stand and continue to marvel tourists.
Beets, sweet tubers with a bright colour and a tender-crisp texture, play a significant role in Ukrainian cuisine. Many appetizers, soups, salads, and other simple dishes of Ukraine feature cooked or fermented beets as a main or complementing ingredient. Beets are native to the Ukrainian land, where they were cultivated in peasants’ vegetable gardens already hundreds of years ago.
The global consultants company “Creators Synectics” has published a list of 100 living geniuses, which also includes one Ukrainian name. No wonder that the rating heavily favours the British, since the initial selection process was based on the opinions of randomly selected Britons who were asked in email massages to name ten people whom they considered to be living geniuses. Each of the initially selected names then was rated by the panel of six experts and awarded scores from one to ten on the basis of a number of important criteria, such as intellect, paradigm shifting, cultural importance, social acceptance, and achievements. The list is headed by Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman (the inventor of LCD), who received the highest rating (27 points) and ends with American filmmaker and actor Quentin Tarantino, who, in view of “Creators Synectics”, deserves 2 points. Three Russians have been honoured, too: mathematician Gregory Perelman (21 points), world famous chess champion and political activist Garry Kasparov (15), and inventor of the “Kalashnikov rifle” Michael Kalashnikov (5 points).
For every American traveller, the architecture of Ukraine’s old cities should look strikingly ancient and intriguingly sophisticated. The cultural and architectural history of entire Russia, actually, started in Ukraine, when Kiev, the present capital of the country, became the center of the Russian statehood then called the Kievan Rus. Since the 9th century, Ukraine was both developing its own style in construction and absorbing great architectural influences of Byzantine, Greece, and France.
Bread is not only a staple food in Ukraine, it is also a symbol of prosperity, divinity, and hospitality. Since the first agrarians settled the Ukrainian land, grains, porridges and breads have become sacred objects of worship and rituals, closely connected with folklore and traditional customs.
Western Ukraine is the homeland of one of the most profound and intriguing altar sculptors of the 18th century - the famous artist known as 
Dusia, a first generation Ukrainian Canadian, says that she does not remember much about 
