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.

Not much is known about the life of the Master, besides his genius artistic legacy and the fact that he was living and working in Buchach for the most of his life and spent his last years in the city of Lviv. ‘The Sacrifice of the Forgotten Master’, a book written by the Ukrainian detective writer Evgeniya Kononenko and inspired by the many riddles that surrounded the life of the famous sculptor, was rightfully named the ‘Ukrainian Da Vinci Code.’

My personal encounter with Pinzel’s sculptures presented in the Ukrainian Museum of the Sacral Arts was a true sensual discovery, while later I got to know that the year 2007 was declared ‘The Year of Pinzel’ in Ukraine. No wonder, since the art of Pinzel has been compared to that of Lorenzo Bernini and even Michelangelo Buonarotti! Every one who has ever seen Pinzel’s famous sculptured carved in stone on the St. Yura Cathedral in Lviv, the Roman-Catholic Church altar in Horodenka, or Buchach City Hall, cannot remain indifferent in front of his magnificent images of Samson, Tsar David, Avraam, and other biblical characters and saints. Art critics say that the sculptors of Pinzel paradoxically combine the elements of spiritual and passionate into a unique style that embraces the elements of violent movement, illusionism, and grotesque. Some art historians even name Pinzel a precursor of Expressionism.

The album “Ioann George Pinzel. Sculpture. Transformation” that has been recently published in Ukraine, is the first attempt to make the general public aware of the vast heritage of Pinzel - the most distinctive and brilliant sculptor in all history of Ukraine.

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?

Unfortunately, enormous resources invested in the designing and building of the complex went down the sink when the observatory was ceased by the Soviets during the Second World War. Once a thriving scientific facility with autonomic heating, water supply and electric systems, advanced telescopes, meteorological instruments, and electrically-operating machines of all kinds, it is now a sad reminder of the fact that neglect and vandalism can cause more damage that war, weather, and time combined. Reconstructed and turned by the Soviets into a meteorological station in 1939, the observatory got completely abandoned after 1945. Local people still believe that during the war it served as a Soviet military base equipped with the most modern secret weapons of mass extinction! Now turned into what looks like ancient ruins, the unprotected construction attracts occasional tourists and, unfortunately, many more vandals.

Several theoretical attempts have been made to save the observatory. During one of them, implemented in the mid-1990s by the Ukraine’s National Academy of Science, a half-a-million dollar business project was drafted to renovate the building and make it functional again. Not such a large sum of money, especially if to take into consideration that, in many countries, it is a cost of a humble family house. However, when I visited the observatory earlier this year, the untouched ruins looked back at me again.

Will anybody save the White Elephant?

Father Borys Gudziak, rector of the Lviv’s Ukrainian Catholic University, says that during the Soviet era, people were not permitted even to talk about the famine and the artificially orchestrated death of millions of people in Ukraine. Those who lost their parents, sisters, brothers, and friends, had to go through life without ever mentioning it by fear of persecution and by Soviet propagandist brainwashing. Many modern historian, the present parliament of Ukraine, and the government of 26 world nations share the opinion that the Holodomor can be referred to as an ethnic genocide. Under the Soviet leadership, the artificially-induced famine was targeting the entire Ukrainian nation as a social and political entity.

Unfortunately, the Russian government still refuses to acknowledge the role of Soviet communists in the famine. And, in Ukraine, people only now have started to understand all scope of that tragic disaster sweeping the Ukrainian land in the dark years of Soviet “collectivization”.

• 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.

• Lviv’s date of birth is derived from the first written mentioning of this city in the medieval chronicles - the year of 1256. Tradition states that the city was established by King Danylo Halytsky and named after his son Lev (Lviv) Danilovich Halitsky.

• Within 1272 - 1349, Lviv was a capital of an independent Galicia-Volyn Principality. Ceased by Poland in 1349, it became a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and stayed under the Poland rule until 1772. Within the period of 1772 - 1918, the city belonged to Austria and Austro-Hungary and was called Lemberg.

• Until 1939, Lviv was a highly cosmopolitan city with diverse population, rich European culture, and thriving religions, including Jewish synagogues and Roman (mostly worshipped by the Polish), Creek (typical for the Ukrainians), and Armenian forms of Catholicism.

• After being under Poland again for a short while, the city of Lviv was invaded in 1939 by a tandem of the Soviets and German Nazis and, after the end of the Second World War, in 1945, was annexed by the Soviet Union.

• Under the Soviet rule, Western Ukraine was kept on a tight leash. Most churches were closed, with the only remaining open one being the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Lviv. The official use of the Ukrainian language was mostly banned throughout most Western Ukraine.

• With the collapse of the Soviet Empire, Lviv became a part of independent Ukraine on August 24, 1991.

• Lviv’s historical center is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

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.

Actually, Kamyanets-Podilsky is one of the most ancient towns of Ukraine. Archaeological excavations show that in the Neolithic Age the place was settled by people of the Tripolya Culture, who were forced away by the about two thousand years ago. According to legend, the town-fortress was founded by four brothers belonging to the Grand Duke Olgerd clan of Lithuania, who hit upon an enchanting river valley with a towering rock during a deer hunt and decided to build there a town. Although a true history of the town still remains a mystery, many researchers believe that it was established about the same time as were the first settlements of the Kyivan Rus - before the 11th century.

Kamyanets-Podilsky was first mentioned in the Armenian Chronicles about a thousand years ago. Since then, fierce storms of history have swept through it numerous times. In 1393 the fortress was captured by the Lithuanian Duke Witovt; in 1672 it was occupied by the Turks, and in 1621 the town won against the army of the Turkish Sultan Osman I, but fell again in the 17th century to the Turk Emperor Mahomet IV… After 1793, the town was ceased by the Russian Empire and its fortress eventually lost its military significance and became a prison. Kamyanets-Podilsky was again returned to Ukraine only in the 20th century.

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.

Beets are valued as a blood tonic and praised for their nutritional qualities, since they contain many natural vitamins, such as carotenes, B complex and vitamin C, and beneficial minerals, such as calcium, iron, magnesium, and phosphorus. Some researchers believe that eating just a few spoonfuls of beets a day is a sure way of ingesting all necessary nutrients, as well as detoxifying the body. Beets are capable to protect the liver from food pollutants and to stimulate the flow of bile. Due to their high beta-carotene content and the presence of other beneficial components, beets and their juice have been successfully used in cancer therapies. In Ukraine, beets are often eaten together with the leaves, which makes delicious and nutritious meals as the sweetness of beet roots makes a good contrast to their bitter greens. Traditionally, beats in Ukraine are boiled, baked, roasted, fermented, distilled, or added to soups or stews.

Ukrainian Beet Kvass

This sour-sweet beverage is used in the preparation of Ukrainian borscht or as a refreshing and beneficial tonic. Peel and chop coarsely 3 medium raw beets. Place in a 2-quart glass or clay container together with 1/4 cup home-made whey and 1 tbsp salt. Add filtered water to fill the container, stir well, and cover tightly. Keep in room temperature for about 2 days before transferring to a cold storage. When most liquid has been drunk, fill up the container with water again and keep at room temperature for another 2 days. After the second brew, discard the beets and start again.

Ukrainian Beet Salad

Bake 6 medium beets at 350 degrees for about 1 hour (until tender). Let cool, peel, and chop finely. In a bowl, mix together 3 tbsp homemade beet kvass (see above) or raw apple cider vinegar, 4 tbsp extra virgin sunflower oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, 1 tsp caraway seeds, and a pinch each of salt, cayenne pepper, cloves, and cinnamon. Toss the mixture with the beets and refrigerate until well-chilled. Serve on lettuce leaves as a starter.

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).

Ukrainian artist and sculptor Ivan Marchuk has been rated at 6 points; he occupies the 72nd place among the top modern geniuses. Ivan Marchuk is best known in the West as ““Ukrainian Picasso” for his stunningly innovative and deeply philosophic approach to art. Although for more than ten years the artist has been living in the US, he has a tight connection with his Ukrainian motherland, which is clearly seen in his emotional and somehow folkloric paintings and sculptures. The unique artistic technique that resembles tinted glass compositions almost chaotically thrown onto canvass, has been invented by Marchuk himself. He says that his art is like a virtual dream, which is a reflection of his subconsciousness, the world of his thoughts and the realm of his soul. Each piece of art he creates tells a short philosophical story that makes us change our habitual vision of the world…

Ivan Marchuk comes to visit Ukraine twice a year and travels different places, including Kiev and his native land Ternopilshchyna. He says that the connections with the land where he was born and raised is the biggest inspiration that makes him create what the world calls outstanding paintings and sculptures.

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.

Although most buildings of the early era were constructed out of logs, some churches and palaces incorporated more solid materials, such as stone. The Kievan Rus style in architecture and interior design was influenced by the Byzantine culture and featured complicated mosaic and frescoes decorations and large magnificent constructions. One of the most ancient among grand Ukrainian churches of that period is the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev which was built under the rule of Yaroslav the Wise in the 11th century. Defensive designs of military fortifications, towering castles, and fortified monasteries became a staple of the Ukrainian landscape in the period of the 12th -15th centuries, when the country underwent the Mongol invasion.

Since the 16th century, the Renaissance brought along a new style in architecture, called Baroque, which became popular in big Ukrainian cities, such as L’viv, Chernihiv, and Kiev. The highlights of the Ukraine’s Baroque can still be seen in survived church and monastery constructions of that period, such as the Church of Saint Michael in Kiev that still magnifies the eye with its impressive golden domes. Classicism came into the country in the 18th century, featuring decorative plastering in city palaces and public buildings. The architecture of France largely influenced the construction style in the Eastern parts of Ukraine, which still can be observed in magnificent buildings of old districts of Odessa.

Many stunning examples of Ukrainian architecture have survived numerous political storms, wars, and revolutions sweeping the region for more than a thousand years of its rich history. A variety of foreign styles have successfully merged into authentic Ukrainian architecture and produced an exquisite, blended Ukrainian style incorporating the best of the European cultural traditions.

Everyday Ukrainian bread is usually dense and dark, containing a sourdough starter and rye flower - the same type that local peasants have been making since the onset of agriculture many thousand years ago. Modern varieties include white breads and pastries, such as poppy-seed rolls, strudels, sweet buns, coffee cakes, and home-made doughnuts. Ritualistic types of white bread are baked on special occasions, since home-baked bread is considered an indispensable attribute of all significant celebrations in Ukrainian traditional culture. No a single important family event, be in funeral, marriage, or Christmas, can be marked without white bread. “Paska” or “Babka”, sweet, delicious, and intricately decorated cylindrical breads, are only baked once a year, for Easter. They usually feature rich ingredients, such as butter, eggs, sweet spices, raisins, and sometimes cheese, thus signifying well-being, health, strength, and joy. “Kolach”, braided white bread, which initially represented pagan aspects of eternity and later became a symbol of the Holy Trinity, is a typical attribute of both Sunday meals and family holidays. Korovai, Lezhen, and Dyven are types of ritualistic wedding breads, each symbolising different aspects of a married life for the couple. Other holiday varieties include Bulka (egg bun) and Knish (bread with a filling).

The Ukrainians greet guests with round white bread and salt, which are handed on a “rushnyc” - a hand-decorated traditional cloth. Guests are expected to break the bread, dip it in salt, and eat it, thus accepting the offering of friendship and hospitality.

Ukrainian ritual and festive foods, including breads, are still largely home-made, although many of them can now also be purchased from commercial bakeries.