Every child deserves to be happy and in a loving home and it looks like Ukrainian orphans will finally get their chance at being a part of a family. A Jewish-sponsored foundation, the Aleksandr Feldman Charitable Foundation, has launched their ‘Let’s Protect Childhood’ project in an effort to place Ukrainian orphans in a home and provide them with their own, new and loving family. Feldman, the man behind the charity and a Ukrainian lawmaker, has announced that his foundation will start with children who have no parental custody living in boarding schools in the Kharkovsky region and then spread his project throughout the rest of the country in the hopes of providing children with a better life that the current, outdated system provides.
According to Feldman, “Our aim is to help children without parental custody to create or find family, and to put an end to the outdated boarding school system in Ukraine.” Informational materials about the project and the organization will be broadcast on Ukrainian television and the stories about the orphaned children can be found posted on the foundation’s website (http://www.feldman.fund.org) for anyone interested in helping the foundation or adopting a child. The project will be managed by the foundation and the Ukrainian ministry for family, youth, and sport.
You don’t have to be Indiana Jones to enjoy a good romp through the Odessa Archaeological Museum. Located in the Ukrainian city of Odessa, the entrance to the museum is marked by a significant statue of Laocoon, although this statue is not as large as the one of Mother Russia standing guard over the war museum in Kiev. That’s a big statue. Anyway, the museum is one of the oldest in Ukraine and any student of archaeology would want to visit it.
Founded in 1825, the museum was developed by the Odessa Society of antiquity and history. This group had been given the right to excavate in the Northern Black Sea Region and over the years they have collected over 160,000 exhibit worth of artifacts. It is one of the largest collections of Northern Black Sea ancient history and it contains relics from primitive and classical culture, relics from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and a large, valuable collection of coins and medals. The artifacts from Egypt, Greece, and Rome are a good indication of how far the leaders of these three nations took their ancient conquering of other countries to heart in their own bids for world domination.
Don't miss
If you are going to be in Ukraine this fall, then you are going to want to participate in one of the many festivals held in the country. This is the season for some of the most interesting events that take place all over the country and it starts with the Jazz In Kyiv festival that runs October 18th and 19th in the city. There will be classes, afternoon and evening concerts and names such as Charlie Hunter and Al Jarreau performing for residents and guests alike. The jazz festival is sandwiched between two rock concerts: Nazareth will be playing on October 10 as part of the twenty year anniversary tour followed by Deep Purple on the 15th and Christina Aguilera on October 21.
For those guests who enjoy movies, the Molodist will start on October 18th. This is an annual international film festival that has been taking place since 1970 and it features movies by young directors, art-house hits, and retrospectives. There will competition nights from film students from all over the world and it all wraps up with the ‘Festival of Festivals’ that showcases the winners and nominees of other world-famous film festivals.
Ballet and theater buffs will enjoy the myriad of performances as well that will be launched during the fall season in Ukraine that include dancers and plays from all over the world as well as Ukrainian classics.
Visitors in and out of Ukraine’s Boryspil International Airport are going to be praising the decision of the country to implement the SITA airport technology to aid 18 million passengers fly in and out of the country by 2020. Since the country has been opened to tourists and business professionals, the airline industry has boomed and the new self-service technology is going to bring the airports into the 21st century with faster check-ins and processing. The industry is growing rapidly and the need for better technology is required.
The new systems are also going to have a new wide area network put in so that airlines and other airport businesses are able to communicate in a cost effective atmosphere. Obsolete land line systems and hardware equipment can be eliminated and the system will be able to help 150 different agent check-in desks that will make things more efficient for personal and passengers. The new system has been put into service for 52 airlines already and they have joined 45 other Eastern European airports in the common use SITA solution. It is just the latest airport in over 100 that are already using the system including Domodedovo, Pulkovo, Sheremetyevo-3 terminal, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, London Heathrow, Vienna, Prague, Sydney and Beijing.
It’s hard to surrender your perfect team’s record during a major sporting event, especially when it’s one that will determine whether or not you will have to play the play-off games or simply be automatically in when the final tournaments come around. Luckily enough, Ukraine won’t be sweating too much about those play-off games as the women’s soccer team is still in the number position to reach the UEFA Women’s Euro 2009 after losing to Portugal, the bottom placed team in Group 5.
The Ukraine team was the favorites in Chernigov and they won all six of their qualifying games prior to the Portugal match. That included a game against top seeded Denmark. Portugal had managed to get a measly single point from a draw during their seven games, and that was given up by Scotland. Everything was looking good for our Ukraine team thanks to Nataliya Soukhorokova scoring the first point six minutes into the match. Unfortunately, they weren’t expecting Edite Fernandes from the Portugal team to level in at the end of the first half before overcoming the Ukraine team once and for all.
Ukraine’s women soccer team goes up against Denmark on Wednesday October 1, 2008, and they know that a draw or better against the other team will ensure the spot for next summer’s finals in Finland without having to deal with the play-offs in October.
Don't miss
Travelers who enjoy hopping from one place to another used to have problems getting from the Middle East to Ukraine via the airlines. Not anymore. It was announced by officials of Air Arabia that they will offering travelers flights into Ukraine and the capital city of Kiev from Sharjah, their primary hub. The flights will be available three times a week and are scheduled to start on October 15, 2008. This addition to Air Arabia’s is just another sign of the airlines growing expansion into the Eastern European markets.
Air Arabia head AK Nizar recognizes the speed in which the economy in Eastern Europe is growing and that passenger traffic between the Middle East and Eastern European areas is growing just as fast. Between tourism and business affairs, the decision to introduce the non-stop service between the two cities made perfect business sense and the airline is ‘offering value-for-money service for friendly and efficient travel’ between the Middle East and Ukraine.
Ukraine is quickly becoming a growing area of high-tech industries, higher education institutions, and historical landmarks. The country has opened their doors to tourists and other businesses and the new flight schedule will help boost the economy and allow travelers from the Middle East to easily access the country.
Don't miss
Who says nature isn’t grand? There has been a report out of Ukraine about a pretty amazing site in one of the museums and when you stop to think about it, it almost sounds like something out of a fairytale or even the Bible. According to the Noviy Channel TV, there a female pig in Ukraine that is currently nursing three tiger cubs that were abandoned by their mother. The cubs were born the week of September 16, 2008 at the zoo in Dnipropetrovsk but according to zoo officials, mama tiger wasn’t taking care of the kids.
The surrogate mother is on a pig farm in eastern Ukraine near the zoo and the zookeepers suggested that maybe she would nurse the tigers. The three tiger cubs were introduced to the sow and have started nursing from the pig alongside the twelve adopted curly tailed siblings with no objection from the mother pig.
The director of the zoo, Yuriy Aksenych commented on television that he feels the mother tiger has lost her feral instincts after being in captivity for so long and did not feel the need to help her progeny along in an effort to continue the species line.
The last time some friends visited Ukraine, the brought back some great photos of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev. This cathedral dates back to 1037 when Prince Yaroslav the Wise laid the foundation and it is definitely a testament to the skill of Ukrainian builders. It has 13 domes – or cupolas as they call them overseas – that dominate the Kiev skyline and the bell tower it the most notable one as it is topped with gold. There are some of the most beautiful 11th century mosaics and frescoes inside the cathedral and considering all of the turmoil, conflicts and strife the country has seen since 1037, it’s amazing that they are intact.
Unlike most cathedrals found in Europe that are still holding masses as well as being open to public viewing, Saint Sophia’s holds a museum instead that details the cathedrals spiritual and intellectual influence on the region. It tells how the cathedral was an integral part of the spread of the Orthodox faith through Russia from the 17th to 19th century. This beautiful building was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1990 and it should be included on any trip to Ukraine in order to enjoy some of the best architecture and art work in the country.
Don't miss
Even though Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is having some major issues with his government, his daughter seems to be doing well in her new career as a runway fashion model. It seems that Vitalina 
Yushchenko was spotted working the runway at a Milan show by someone from Russia’s Izvestia newspaper in a showing of some of the newest summer fashions to hit the streets. The collection of clothing was by Ukrainian designer Aina Gase.
This isn’t the first time the president’s daughter has showed up in popular fashion media either. Her modeling portfolio also includes photographs for Russian Vogue and she used to be a pop singer before turning hip fashionista.
Vitalina, 27, is the mother of two and she’s the eldest child of the president from a previous marriage. It seems that both she and her brother Andriy, 23, are, as the media puts it, ‘trying to cash in on their father’s position as president’. They both lead high profile lives and the society pages chronicle their lives including where they live and who they are friends with to the point that another paparazzi nightmare like Diana’s could possibly happen. Yushchenko, like any good father in the public eye has reacted to the media’s scrutiny of his kids and feels they are trying to simply sell newspapers.
Ukraine’s state-run atomic energy company Energoatom has announced that they will be starting construction on two brand new nuclear reactors starting in 2010. The reactors will be at the Khmelnitsky power station in the 
western portion of the country and has been confirmed by the fuel and energy ministry. The ministry said that authorities will be ensuring ‘smooth financing’ for the project and when the two new reactors go online, they will bring the number of reactors operating in Ukraine up to 17. The ministry is quoting remarks that were made by Energy Minister Yuri Prodan that he made while visiting the Khmelnitsky plant.
So far there is no information on how construction of the reactors will be funded or how much the total cost of building them will be but they are expected to be brought on line by the end of 2016. Currently four of Ukraine’s stations account for 46.4% of all of the energy produced in the country, each with the capacity to put out 13,835 megawatts. The first Khmelnitsky reactor went on line in 1987. The second station at the site was left unfinished due to post-Soviet financing problems and was finally completed in 2004 with help from the European Union. The two stations are 1,000 megawatt pressurized water reactors.
Concern has been raised about the country’s nuclear reactors since the explosion of the RBMK reactor at Chernobyl on April 26, 1986. The reactor was found to contain numerous design faults that were believed to be responsible for the reactor’s explosion. This type of reactor is no longer produced or manufactured in Ukraine.
Don't miss
