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Action Ukraine Report

                     "THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR"
                                   An International Newsletter
                                    The Latest, Up-To-Date
                In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis, and Commentary

                "Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
    Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World"

"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR" - Number 586
Mr. E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor
Washington, D.C., Kyiv, Ukraine, WEDNESDAY, October 19, 2005

                        --------INDEX OF ARTICLES--------
               "Major International News Headlines and Articles"

1.    UKRAINE'S NEW PRIME MINISTER YURIY YEKHANUROV
        TO HOLD MEETINGS IN WASHINGTON, OCT 31 & NOV 1
E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor
The Action Ukraine Report (AUR)
Washington, D.C, Wednesday, Oct 19, 2005

2     BALTICS AND UKRAINE TOP THE LIST OF EUROPE'S NEW
         INVESTMENT SPOTS FOR REAL ESTATE INVESTORS
Strong economic growth, high yields drive interest; Scandinavia leads charge
By Sara Seddon Kilbinger
Special to The Wall Street Journal Europe
New York, New York, Wednesday, October 19, 2005

3.           YUSHCHENKO: EU UKRAINE'S 'NATURAL' HOME
                     Never accept notion Ukraine not part of Europe
By Hannah K. Strange, UPI Correspondent
London, United Kingdom, Monday, Oct 17, 2005

4.      YUSHCHENKO DEFENDS SACKING HIS GOVERNMENT
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor, Independent
London, United Kingdom, Tuesday, 18 October 2005

5. UKRAINIAN LEADER SETS SIGHTS ON JOINING THE WEST
By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor
Telegraph, London, UK, Tuesday, Oct 18, 2005

6. ORANGE REVOLUTION TESTS ITS LEADER'S GREY MATTER
WORLD BRIEFING: by Simon Tisdall
The Guardian, London, UK, Tuesday October 18, 2005

7. QUEEN ELIZABETH II PRESENTS UKRAINE'S YUSHCHENKO
                 WITH INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PRIZE
Ed Johnson, AP Worldstream; London, Monday, Oct 17, 2005

8.UKRAINE PRES STRESSES EU INTEGRATION AS POLICY AIM
Dow Jones Newswires, London, UK, Monday, October 17, 2005 .

9.  UKRAINE HOPES FOR EU RELATIONS "BREAKTHROUGH"
             DURING UK PRESIDENCY SAY FM TARASYUK
TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1700 gmt 17
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Mon, Oct 17, 2005

10.                    "HELLRAISER: OLENA PRYTULA"
       Ukrayinska Pravda: Safeguarding Ukraine's Orange Revolution
By Sara Catania; photo: Henry Leutwyler
Mother Jones magazine, Motherjones.com
San Francisco, California, November/December 2005 Issue

11.               "FREE TO MOURN THE ORANGE DREAM"
              Bitter aftertaste for Ukrainian journalist with Orange hopes
By Kateryna Khinkulova, BBC News, Kiev
BBC NEWS, UK, Tuesday, October 18, 2005

12.    UKRAINIAN PROSECUTOR'S UNPREDICTABILITY LED
                       TO HIS DOWNFALL SAY ANALYSTS
                          "Games with the prosecutor-general"
By Maryana Oliynyk, Den, Kiev, in Russian 15 Oct 05; p 4
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Tue, Oct 18, 2005

13.  GERMANY'S ALLIANZ'S RUSSIAN JV ROSNO INSURANCE
                 ENTERS UKRAINIAN INSURANCE MARKET
                 AZ is Europe's largest insurer by gross premiums
By Rolf Neumann and Ulrike Dauer, Dow Jones Newswires
Frankfurt, Germany, Tuesday, October 18, 2005

14.          RAMPING UP DELTA AIR LINES GLOBAL FARE
                           New York to Kiev route announced
By Evan Perez, Staff Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Tue, October 18, 2005; Page D3

15. UKRAINE TAKES BIDS IN REDO OF STEEL PRIVATIZATION
Dow Jones Newswires, Kiev, Ukraine, Tue, October 18, 2005

16.UKRAINE'S FOREIGN MINISTRY SURPRISED AZERBAIJANI
          OPPOSITION LEADER HELD BY UKRAINIAN POLICE
Associated Press (AP), Kiev, Ukraine, Tue, October 18, 2005

17. UKRAINE 3000 AND PROCTER & GAMBLE (P&G) UKRAINE
PRESENT FOUR MODERN EMERGENCY VANS TO CHERKASSY
Press office of the President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko
Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, October 13, 2005

18.   UKRAINE'S FIRST LADY VISITS GREAT ORMOND STREET
         HOSPITAL (GOSH) IN LONDON AND REPRESENTATIVES
                   OF PRIVATE CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS
        Lions Clubs Int Foundation & Chornobyl Relief Foundation in UK
Press office of the President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko
Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, 18 October 2005

19.YUSHCHENKO DEFIES PARLIAMENT ON KRYVORIZHSTAL SALE
By Stefan Wagstyl, East Europe editor
Financial Times, London, UK, Wed, Oct 19, 2005

20.  POLAND'S CHANCES OF ESCAPING MONOPOLY OF RUSSIA'S
                     GAZPROM TO OBTAIN ASIAN GAS WANE
               Ukraine's talks with Turkmenistan have ended in fiasco
Polish News Bulletin, Warsaw, Poland, Tue, Oct 18, 2005

21. SHORT HISTORY OF TRACKING DOWN MY FAMILY IN UKRAINE
Marina Lewycka never knew she had family in Ukraine until she
began researching her novel. A hair-raising road-trip across
the country with a long-lost cousin leads to an emotional reunion.
The Observer, London, United Kingdom, Sunday October 16, 2005
=====================================================
1.    UKRAINE'S NEW PRIME MINISTER YURIY YEKHANUROV
        TO HOLD MEETINGS IN WASHINGTON, OCT 31 & NOV 1

E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor
The Action Ukraine Report (AUR)
Washington, D.C, Wednesday, Oct 19, 2005

WASHINGTON - Ukraine's new prime minister, Yuriy Yekhanurov, will
pay his first official visit to Washington and hold a series of meetings
with top U.S. government officials, business leaders, private voluntary
organization officials, and leaders of the Ukrainian-American community
on Monday, October 31 and Tuesday, November 1.

Reports around Washington indicate the new Prime Minister will probably
be meeting with President George Bush, Secretary of State Rice and other
State Department officials, the National Security Council, Congressional
leaders who have been involved in Ukrainian matters, and other top officials
on Monday.

On Tuesday, information available at this time, indicates Yekhanurov
will make a presentation at a meeting sponsored by IRI-NDI, speak
at a luncheon hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, make remarks
at a reception hosted by the Action Ukraine Coalition/Jackson-
Vanik Graduation Coalition and also meet with leaders of the Ukrainian-
American commuity.  As further details regarding Yekhanurov's visit
to Washington become available The Action Ukraine Report (AUR)
will publish them.   -30-
====================================================
2.   BALTICS AND UKRAINE TOP THE LIST OF EUROPE'S NEW
         INVESTMENT SPOTS FOR REAL ESTATE INVESTORS
Strong economic growth, high yields drive interest; Scandinavia leads charge
By Sara Seddon Kilbinger
Special to The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Real-estate investors are raising the stakes. As competition in popular
European markets such as the U.K. intensifies, investors are turning to
emerging markets such as the Baltics and Ukraine for potentially lucrative
opportunities.

While investors have long targeted countries such as Poland and the Czech
Republic, former Soviet states such as the Baltics -- Estonia, Lithuania and
Latvia -- are garnering interest following their accession to the European
Union in May 2004.

In particular, their capitals -- Estonia's Tallinn, Lithuania's Vilnius and
Latvia's Riga -- are on investors' radar because they offer the best-quality
buildings.

"The Baltic states are small but vibrant, which is why investors are now
looking there," said Kean Hird, managing partner at London-based
pan-European asset-management company Catalyst Capital EM.

Part of the attraction is their strong economic growth. Latvia's gross
domestic product increased 8.5% last year, while Estonia's grew 6.2% and
Lithuania's rose 6.7%. Meanwhile, Poland and the Czech Republic had GDP
growth of 5.4% and 4.4%, respectively, in 2004.

The potential high yields in the Baltics are driving interest, said Michael
Lange, managing director of Russia at real-estate advisory firm Jones Lang
LaSalle in Moscow. The yield is the annual percentage return, expressed as
the ratio of annual net income to the capital value of a property.

The Baltic capitals offer returns of as much as 13.5% for prime retail,
although many deals are done at around 8%. Office yields are also around
8%. By comparison, yields in Poland have fallen below double-digits, due
to capital chasing very little real estate.

Scandinavian investors are the most active in the Baltic region because of
their proximity and close trade links. The size of the Baltics makes the
region a target for small to midsize funds, said Peter Morris, managing
director of real-estate firm Ober-Haus in Warsaw.

Denmark's Baltic Property Trust has been investing in the region since 2001.
"We've invested Euro 170 million ($204 million) in the Baltics so far, Euro
80 million of which is via our fund Optima," said Chairman Lars Ohnemus.
"We plan to invest around Euro 600 million via our Optima fund over the
next few years."

BPT Optima AS is the third international real-estate fund launched by Baltic
Property Trust. Started in August, the fund focuses on Poland and the
Baltics and has raised Euro 100 million so far. It aims to have a leveraged
fund volume of at least Euro 470 million.

This month, Baltic Property Trust bought a 22,000-square-meter shopping
center, Olympia, in Riga for an undisclosed sum. The company now owns
nine shopping centers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Other investors also are sniffing around, including Catalyst Capital, which
was outbid on a logistics facility in Riga last month.

Investment group Middle Europe Investments BV, which is based in the
Netherlands, is developing 750,000 square meters of logistics, office,
residential and retail space in Lithuania and Latvia, Chief Executive Jan
Willem van Otterlo said.

The company is investing Euro 450 million in 23 projects, due to be
completed by the end of 2010. "The fiscal environment in Latvia and
Lithuania is very attractive to us, because the corporate tax rate is only
15%," Mr. van Otterlo said.

The Baltics also are a "stepping stone to Ukraine," he said. "I think we'll
see a lot of investors come to Ukraine -- eventually more than the
Baltics -- because of its size."

Ukraine, which had GDP growth of 12% last year, has a population of about
47 million, compared with 3.5 million for Lithuania, two million for Latvia
and 1.3 million for Estonia.

However, Ukraine is considered much riskier than the Baltic states because
it is unlikely to join the euro zone and is politically unstable.

But the opportunists are unlikely to be put off by Ukraine's problems,
spurred on by yields of around 13% for both office and retail space, Mr.
Lange said.

"If your strategy is to be opportunistic and look for a market offering
tremendous upside and depth that isn't that developed yet, then Ukraine
should be your first hit," Mr. Lange said.  -30-
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 Questions or comments? Write to us at realestate@wsj.com.
======================================================
3.           YUSHCHENKO: EU UKRAINE'S 'NATURAL' HOME
                     Never accept notion Ukraine not part of Europe

By Hannah K. Strange, UPI Correspondent
London, United Kingdom, Monday, Oct 17, 2005

LONDON - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko reiterated his commitment
to leading his country into the European Union and NATO Monday, saying he
would "never accept" the notion that Ukraine was not part of Europe.

Speaking in London at the foreign affairs think tank Chatham House,
Yushchenko said Ukraine's European aspirations should be the central focus
of its foreign policy, adding: "This kind of integration is integration into
our values."

"Ukraine is a European country," he said. "I will never accept the idea that
it is not."

Yushchenko said he hoped to see the creation of a free-trade area with
Europe within 12 to 25 months, and the start of talks over NATO membership
next spring.

Ukraine was not the corner of Europe but the heart, he said, adding "our
aspiration to European values is quite natural," he said, adding the EU was
the largest market in the world and Ukraine should not be excluded from
this.

"Ukraine would like to have the European values because these values are the
highest today," he said.

Yushchenko said he was satisfied Ukraine would meet the economic conditions
for EU membership, laid out in a three-year action plan agreed in February.
"I'm pretty sure that the tasks we are supposed to fulfill, from the
economic point of view they are not very complicated," he added.

His government was working on plans to privatize the old state monopolies,
he said, and was committed to holding "transparent, honest, democratic
elections" in March. The economy was growing and would soon become the
stable market necessary for EU integration, while accession to the World
Trade Organization was expected in December, he continued.

Yushchenko stressed the desire of the Ukrainian people to become part of
Europe. The view of integration within Ukraine had changed, he said, and the
democratic section of society was now united behind it.

He played down reports of a growing rift between those in Ukraine who
favored a close relationship with Russia and those who advocated European
integration.

Ukraine shares borders with both Europe in the west and Russia in the east,
and has close historical ties with both. However, after centuries as part of
the Russian empire, it gained independence only with the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991, and is home to a significant minority of Russians and
Russian-speakers.

Last year's Orange Revolution was widely seen as a victory for Ukraine's
pro-Western reformers; however recent political wrangling -- culminating in
Yushchenko's dismissal of Prime Minister Yulia Tymochenko's government
last month -- highlights the persistence of old divisions and loyalties.

Yushchenko, however, dismissed such concerns, saying the "so-called division
between east and west" in Ukraine was "speculatively used and abused." "My
approach is that Ukraine is united, we can't be split on the basis of our
history, religious confessions or our language."

However Ukraine's traditional relationship with Russia was important, he
said, and the "optimization" of the eastern market a further "strategic
goal."

It was for this reason that the agreement on the Single Economic Zone --
signed in 2003 to create a free trade area comprising Russia, Belarus,
Ukraine and Kazakhstan -- was so important both politically and
economically, he said.

Yushchenko hinted at the difficulties of integrating simultaneously into the
European market and the Single Economic Zone, saying the latter had "certain
peculiarities" in its economic workings which set it apart from Europe.

However Kiev made it clear that its participation in the zone was on the
basis that it did not conflict with Ukrainian national interest or block its
integration into the EU or NATO, he said. This logic had been received well
by Russia, he added.

But James Nixey, head of the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House,
said though there was "a certain practical view" now prevailing in Moscow,
the Russians were "not crazy about the idea" of Ukraine's EU accession.

However it was likely Ukraine would drift back toward Russia, as its bid for
EU membership was actually "at quite a poor stage," he said. There was a
kind of "enlargement fatigue" within Europe at present, having recently
opened talks with Turkey, he said.

Despite Ukraine's recent economic progress and the widespread confidence of
the international community in Yushchenko himself, "Ukraine is pushing one
way and the European Union is actually pushing the other," he told UPI.

Ukraine as a member state would be "more of a receiver than a giver," he
continued. The countries that had done well out of the European Union --
such as Spain, Ireland and Portugal -- were relatively unwilling to see it
join as this would effectively shrink their budgets.

Additionally, Ukraine was "not even remotely close" to meeting all the
conditions for EU membership, particularly with regard to the economy,
transparency and corruption.

There was also growing anti-Yushchenko sentiment within Ukraine, Nixey said,
partly because domestic reforms had been slow in coming. Therefore Ukraine's
immediate EU prospects were "none too promising," he concluded. -30-
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4.        YUSHCHENKO DEFENDS SACKING HIS GOVERNMENT

By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor, Independent
London, United Kingdom, Tuesday, 18 October 2005

His face still has the scars of the poison that nearly killed him as well as
the cares of office after a bloodletting in which he sacked an architect of
the "orange revolution" that brought him to power.

President Viktor Yush-chenko of Ukraine was in London yesterday where
he explained that he had to sack his entire government after a few months in
office because the economy was heading for disaster. "It was not an easy
choice, he told an audience at the Chatham House think-tank.

"I had to put on the scales the team and the future of Ukraine. I chose
the future of Ukraine."

The former prime minister Julia Tymoshenko, known as the revolution's
orange princess, has defected to the opposition ahead of parliamentary
elections next June after being sacked last month.

Mr Yushchenko said he acted because in seven months the economic growth
rate had fallen from 6.5 per cent to minus 1.3 per cent, the trade balance
had shrunk from $2.5bn (£1.4bn) to $100m and investment had slumped
fourfold. He said the economy had since shown signs of improvement.

Mr Yushchenko, who also met Tony Blair in his capacity as EU president
yesterday, said: "We are convinced that the key area in foreign policy
should be the European aspirations of the Ukraine. That is integration to
the EU and integration to Nato."

He wants to see the creation of a free-trade area between the Ukraine and
the European Union within 12 to 15 months and is calling for Ukraine to
become an EU member in three years' time. He hopes for an "action plan" in
April or May next year to join Nato, and is pushing for membership of the
World Trade Organisation by December.

It is unlikely, however, that Ukraine's European objectives will be achieved
within that timescale as the EU is grappling with enlargement fatigue, and
the US has said it is unlikely to discuss Ukrainian membership of Nato
before 2007-08.

Mr Yushchenko's face and ears are badly pockmarked from the dioxin
poisoning aimed at scotching his bid for the presidency last year. He told
the BBC before flying to London that those behind the attack were probably
Ukrainians, and not Russians as aides had earlier suggested.

Mr Yushchenko came to power after Ukrainians took to the streets amid a
prolonged court battle over disputed election results, and ensured the
defeat of the Russian-backed Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovich.

The President promised that the parliamentary elections would be
"transparent and honest" and under the supervision of the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe.

He was in London to receive from the Queen the first Chatham House prize
for the statesman deemed to have made the most significant contribution to
improving international relations.

Asked about the timing of the prize, which was announced as the Ukrainian
government was unravelling, the director of Chatham House, Victor
Bulmer-Thomas, said the prize was awarded for events from mid-2004 to
mid-2005, "so it was before the recent events. And it's not being given for
domestic events." -30- [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article320336.ece
======================================================
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5.   UKRAINIAN LEADER SETS SIGHTS ON JOINING THE WEST

By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor
Telegraph, London, UK, Tuesday, Oct 18, 2005

The Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko, yesterday set out an ambitious
timetable for integration with the West, saying he expected to open
membership talks with Nato by next May.

Declaring that "the Ukraine is at the heart of Europe, and Europe cannot
live without its heart", Mr Yushchenko said his country was also on the path
to signing a free trade agreement with the EU within 15 months and an
"association agreement" within three years.

He said his country's "Orange Revolution" set a good example for those who
cherish freedom and, in separate remarks to the BBC, added that an inquiry
would find those who poisoned him in an apparent assassination attempt that
left his face permanently scarred.

"I am sure this crime will be solved," he said, adding that those behind the
poison attack were probably Ukrainians. Asked whether former president
Leonid Kuchma would have immunity if the trail led to his involvement, Mr
Yushchenko said: "No he won't. Everyone is equal before the law. There is
absolutely no doubt about it."

Mr Yuschenko was in London to receive a prize from the Queen after being
chosen by Chatham House, a leading British think-tank, as the statesman who
has made "the most significant contribution to the improvement of
international relations in the previous year". Victor Bulmer-Thomas, the
director of Chatham House, praised Mr Yushchenko's stewardship of last
year's pro-democratic revolt, saying his skill had ensured that the upheaval
"has not become the cause of a serious deterioration in relations between
Russia and Western Europe".

Opinion polls show that most Ukrainians remain suspicious of Nato, their old
Cold War foe. But Mr Yushchenko appears to be hoping for success in
parliamentary elections next March to put behind him the fierce political
infighting of recent months, burnish his democratic credentials and climb
another rung on the way to integration with the western world.

Western diplomats said Mr Yushchenko's timetable for Nato membership
talks is faster than that envisaged even by the Ukraine's strongest
supporters.

No country granted an intensified dialogue, as Ukraine has been, has ever
been denied membership. But many in Nato are wary of upsetting Russia,
Ukraine's former master which is likely to resist any further expansion of
the alliance along its western border after the accession of the Baltic
states.

Mr Blair, who was due to meet Mr Yushchenko, was likely to avoid any binding
commitment and was expected to emphasise the importance of reforms and
achieving western "standards" in fighting corruption and modernising the
military.  -30-  [The Action Ukraine Report (AUR)Monitoring Service]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
======================================================
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======================================================
6.  ORANGE REVOLUTION TESTS ITS LEADER'S GREY MATTER

WORLD BRIEFING: by Simon Tisdall
The Guardian, London, UK, Tuesday October 18, 2005

The trouble with revolutions is that they raise expectations. When
revolutionary change fails to materialise, disillusion sets in. That is the
case to some extent in former Soviet Georgia. And it is the problem
confronting Viktor Yushchenko, elected Ukraine's hero-president after last
year's "orange revolution".

Mr Yushchenko denies the bid to remake Ukraine as a modern, unified,
democracy has stalled. "Fourteen years ago, Ukraine became independent
but not free. That was our main task last November," he said yesterday in
London. "The victory of freedom was an achievement of the whole
Ukrainian nation."

Now Mr Yushchenko is pursuing a series of proposals designed to fulfil the
revolution's promise and underpin what he terms Ukraine's "renaissance".

But even he concedes the situation is volatile. "It's all very complicated,"
a weary-looking Mr Yushchenko said prior to speaking at Chatham House.
"Things change in front of your eyes."

Mr Yushchenko may have been referring to bitter splits in the ranks of his
Our Ukraine movement and the electoral threat posed by his former ally,
Yulia Tymoshenko, whom he fired as prime minister last month.

Or he could have had in mind the dismay felt by some about a mooted alliance
after next March's key parliamentary elections with Viktor Yanukovich, last
winter's defeated, fraud-tainted rival who still commands support in eastern
Ukraine.

But if such moves smack of realpolitik, there may be more to come. With
Ukraine fighting to break old Soviet habits, eliminate corruption and
cronyism, and overcome this year's economic slump, Mr Yushchenko is
seeking answers through integration with the west. He wants full EU
membership. He also wants to join the World Trade Organisation and Nato.

At the same time, he said, Kiev sought constructive ties with Russia, on
which it is dependent for energy, despite "certain peculiarities" in the
relationship. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, would visit Ukraine
soon (as would Tony Blair).

Euro-Atlantic integration was not "a policy aimed against somebody but a
natural, logical aspiration", because Europe's basic values were Ukraine's
too.

But while Mr Yushchenko wants to be everybody's friend, it is unclear how
heartily that sentiment is returned - and how much reliance Ukraine can
place on international solidarity a year after Kiev's streets turned orange.

Humiliated last winter, Moscow and its remaining allies in the "post-Soviet
space" have signalled a tougher approach, in particular over energy.
Turkmenistan told Ukraine last week that a 25-year bilateral natural gas
deal required Russia's consent; and Kiev must first cough up money already
owed.

The post-Turkey EU is in two minds over future enlargement. Ukraine was
disappointed by last February's limited EU "action plan". Brussels has yet
to commit to full Ukrainian membership despite the enthusiasm of Britain and
the US. Nato membership could prove a mixed blessing.

It would gratify Washington's need for global reach. Lord Robertson, the
former Nato secretary-general, was effusive in his encouragement yesterday.
But Nato's embrace could further upset relations with Moscow, one reason
perhaps why many Ukrainians oppose it.

Mr Yushchenko pointed to significant progress. He claimed the economy was
recovering, real incomes and investment were rising, and there had been
significant societal advances.

"The political opposition is respected. The prosecution of businesses on
political grounds is over." The future handling of previously privatised
state assets would be transparent, the rule of law respected, and the media
were free to report, he said.

Mr Yushchenko still bears the scars of last year's attempt to poison him.
Facing so many problems, his political survival and that of the revolution
he led could boil down to political will, said Bobo Lo, a regional analyst.

"Whether he is determined enough, strong enough, energetic enough, that
could be more important than all the political challenges."  -30-
======================================================
7.  QUEEN ELIZABETH II PRESENTS UKRAINE'S YUSHCHENKO
                    WITH INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS PRIZE

Ed Johnson, AP Worldstream; London, Monday, Oct 17, 2005

LONDON - Queen Elizabeth II on Monday presented Ukrainian President
Viktor Yushchenko with a prize in recognition of his role in last year's
momentous political changes in his country.

The queen awarded Yushchenko the inaugural Chatham House prize,
named after a leading London think tank, at a lavish dinner ceremony in
the capital's Mansion House.

Yushchenko has been praised around the world for the feats of last year's
Orange Revolution, when tens of thousands of Ukrainians massed in Kiev-
and refused to leave for weeks - to protest the outcome of the presidential
election. The fraud-marred balloting was ordered to be held again, and
Yushchenko won.

After receiving the prize, Yushchenko said it represented "recognition, but
not only recognition of my work, but actually the efforts that were made by
my people in the course of many, many centuries in their attempts to get
their freedom. Independence cost a lot for Ukraine, and probably freedom
cost even more than that."

The newly established Chatham House prize honors an individual deemed to
have made the year's most significant contribution to the improvement of
international relations. It was given to Yushchenko for ensuring that last
year's Orange Revolution in Ukraine did not trigger conflict within Europe.

Earlier, Yushchenko met with Prime Minister Tony Blair and discussed
Ukraine's hopes for EU membership, the British leader's office said. Britain
holds the rotating EU presidency and an EU-Ukraine summit is planned in
Kiev in December.

The Ukrainian president also gave a speech to the Chatham House
international relations institute, during which he expressed hope that talks
on possible NATO membership could begin next spring. He also said a free
trade agreement with the European Union could be possible within a year to
15 months.

The Ukrainian leader said he was still pushing for World Trade Organization
membership by December and said his country was close to becoming a
market economy.

"The heart of Europe is in Ukraine and Europe cannot live without its
heart," Yushchenko said.

NATO has stepped up cooperation with Ukraine since last year's Orange
Revolution. But it has stopped short of laying out a clear timeline for
membership. The military alliance has said that first Ukraine must prove its
democratic credentials, fight corruption and modernize its bloated military.

In his hour-long speech at Chatham House, Yushchenko said he expected to
receive an invitation to participate in an "action plan on possible
membership" in NATO in April or May next year. The timeframe appeared to
be earlier than Ukrainian officials have discussed in the past. A NATO
official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said Monday that no
date for launching a membership action plan with Ukraine had been set.

Analysts have said that Ukraine's best chance of being invited to join NATO
could be at the alliance's 2008 summit, and senior Ukrainian officials have
said that Kiev still needs three years to meet NATO's requirements.

Meanwhile, opinion polls show that most Ukrainians remain suspicious of
NATO, their old Cold War foe.

"We are convinced that the key area in foreign policy should be the European
aspirations of the Ukraine. That is integration to the EU and integration to
NATO," Yushchenko said.

Victor Bulmer-Thomas, director of Chatham House, praised Yushchenko's
statesmanship.

"His adeptness in handling relations with other states has ensured that
Ukraine, as a pivotal state in Eastern Europe and Russia's most important
western neighbor, has not become the cause of a serious deterioration in
relations between Russia and Western Europe," he said.  -30-
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8. UKRAINE PRES STRESSES EU INTEGRATION AS POLICY AIM

Dow Jones Newswires, London, UK, Monday, October 17, 2005 .

LONDON -- Ukraine's ambitions to join the European Union will bring about
even stronger ties with its neighbors to the West, the country's president
Viktor Yushchenko said Monday.

"The heart of Europe is in Ukraine," the president said. "I'm convinced that
a key area in our foreign policy should be our E.U. aspirations."

Yushchenko acknowledged the often "contradictory messages" sent to the
E.U. in Ukraine's efforts to maintain a strategic partnership with countries
of the former Soviet Union. He said Ukraine is in "intense dialogue at the
moment with Russia," which in the next 18 months will focus on energy
policy and border regulation.

The Ukraine president was speaking ahead of his acceptance for the Chatham
House Prize for the most significant contribution to improving international
relations in the past year.

Ukraine is making headway in its ambition to join the E.U., the president
said, in line with the action plan drafted with E.U. officials in February.

Yushchenko added that Ukraine was close to achieving one of the biggest
goals of this plan in securing "market economy status".
"I have all the grounds to claim that may happen very soon," the president
said.

Tensions in the country's allegiances to the East and West were sorely
tested at the time of the Orange Revolution that brought Yushchenko to
power in December last year.

A fraudulent electoral process initially delivered the presidency to Viktor
Yanukovich, ally of the former president Leonid Kuchma. Public protest
forced the decision to be overturned, though many feared a rift with
Yanukovich's supporters in the east could threaten the unity of the country.

"These contradictions in eastern and western Ukraine are speculatively used
and abused," the president said. "The idea of a creation of some sort of
east Ukrainian bloc is a violation of natural law, of the national
constitution."

Yushchenko's greatest struggle since the elections has with his own party,
however. Infighting and allegations of corruption, alongside deterioration
in the country's economy, forced the president last month to fire his
cabinet, ousting a populist Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

"It wasn't an easy choice for me," Yushchenko said. "I had to weigh the
issues and conflicts of my team and the future of Ukraine."

An interim government led by his ally Yuriy Yekhanurov will see the
parliament to its next elections in March, which Yushchenko said would be
monitored by international observers.

Meanwhile, the country's economic growth has recovered from a contraction
in August, Yushchenko said, and the government has "good forecasts" for
November.

"We can talk of a renaissance of Ukraine," Yushchenko said, adding that
foreign investment is also returning to the country.

Most of the damage to investment in Ukraine was done in a mishandling of
reprivatization policy after the Orange Revolution.

Tymoshenko fed investors' fears of a large-scale renationalization of
strategic businesses privatized under the previous President Leonid Kuchma,
declaring that thousands of sales would be reviewed.

Yushchenko has focused instead on the one reprivatization coming up Oct.
24, the auction of a 93% stake in Kryvorizhstal steel mill, which was sold
to Kuchma's son-in-law for $800 million last year. Yushchenko said there
were between 10-12 bidders lined up for the sale, with a starting price of
$2 billion.

"Within several days, we will conduct an open, transparent process," the
president said, stressing that journalists and cameras would be present.

Ukrainian media reports among the participants are Netherlands-based
Mittal Steel (MT), Russia's OAO Severstal (CHMF.RS) and US Steel
Corp.  -30-  [The Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emily Barrett, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0)207 842 9314;
emily.barrett@dowjones.com
======================================================
        Send in names and e-mail addresses for the AUR distribution list.
======================================================
9.      UKRAINE HOPES FOR EU RELATIONS "BREAKTHROUGH"
                DURING UK PRESIDENCY SAY FM TARASYUK

TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1700 gmt 17
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Mon, Oct 17, 2005

KIEV - Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk has said that the UK, which
now holds the EU's rotating presidency, deserves much credit for improving
relations between Ukraine and the EU. He predicted that the UK presidency
will be marked by a breakthrough in Ukraine-EU relations.

He also spoke of closer ties with NATO. The following is an excerpt from
report by Ukrainian television TV 5 Kanal on 17 October:

[Presenter] Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk, who is now in London, is live
on the phone with our studio. Good evening, Mr Tarasyuk.

Passage omitted: Tarasyuk comments on the detention of Azeri opposition
leader in Ukraine; presenter announces a phone poll on whether Ukraine
should join NATO]

[Presenter] And now to our main topic for this part of the programme.
President Yushchenko is receiving the [Royal Institute of Foreign Relations]
award in London today.

Mr Tarasyuk, is it an achievement? Or is it a consolation prize after
Yushchenko failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize for which he was nominated
this year?

[Tarasyuk] There is no link here. The nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize
was made some time in the spring, whereas the decision by the Queen to award
the Royal Institute of Foreign Relations award to Viktor Yushchenko was
announced some time in the summer, even before the Nobel committee
announced its decision.
                                       "BREAKTHROUGH"
[Presenter] I see. In this context, let us look at the Ukraine-UK relations.
Even though the UK now holds the EU presidency, there hasn't been a
substantial breakthrough in terms of Ukraine's European integration. Do you
agree with that?

[Tarasyuk] First, the UK has held the EU presidency for only three months,
so it's too early to speak about achievements or lack thereof. But I am
confident that the UK presidency will be marked by a breakthrough in
relations between Ukraine and the EU, and much credit for this goes to Great
Britain as the current chairman of the EU.

[Presenter] A lot has been said about the beginning of talks [with the EU]
on easing visa restrictions for Ukrainians. But it so happens that Russia
has achieved more on this path, it was announced at the Russia-EU summit
that the first steps have already been made, and Vladimir Putin has said
that the final goal is complete elimination of the visa regime between
Russia and the EU. What about Ukraine's talks with the EU, what stage are
they at?

[Tarasyuk] The thing is that despite the much-advertised media reports about
the completion of talks and the signing of an agreement between Russia and
the EU, I have to say unfortunately that it is not true.

Second, concerning Ukraine's talks with the EU on this issue, I confirm, I
even guarantee that the talks between Ukraine and the EU on easing the visa
regime will start before the Ukraine-EU summit.
                                                    NATO
[Presenter] The Ukraine-NATO summit will take place in Lithuania, if I am
not mistaken. What does Ukraine expect from this summit? Can we expect a
date of joining NATO? The issue will have to be put to a referendum, as I
understand. Can it be in 2008?

[Tarasyuk] We cannot rule out that it will be 2008 but we need to do a lot
of homework for it to happen. Ukraine has now moved on to a new format of
relations with NATO, the intensified membership dialogue.

[Passage omitted: Tarasyuk says a senior NATO delegation will arrive in
Ukraine on 18 October; talks about the itinerary of Yushchenko's UK visit]
======================================================
10.                         HELLRAISER: OLENA PRYTULA
         Ukrayinska Pravda: Safeguarding Ukraine's Orange Revolution

By Sara Catania; photo: Henry Leutwyler
Mother Jones magazine, Motherjones.com
An independent nonprofit whose roots lie in a commitment to
social justice implemented through first rate investigative reporting.
San Francisco, California, November/December 2005 Issue

Last summer, when Andriy Yushchenko, the 19-year-old son of Ukrainian
president Viktor Yushchenko, was caught tooling around Kiev in a $160,000
BMW, toting an expensive cell phone and dropping hundreds of dollars at
high-end nightclubs, his father was publicly furious.

Not at Andriy, whose antics flew in the face of the Orange Revolution that
ushered the reformist pol to power last December. Yushchenko's anger was
directed at Ukrayinska Pravda, one of the most popular news outlets in
Ukraine, and one that had been instrumental in his 2004 election.

Yushchenko denounced Pravda's reporter at a press conference as a "hired
hit man" and said that he was urging his son to sue. Later, in a telephone
call to the reporter, Yushchenko suggested- that further coverage of the
story could create a threat to Ukraine's national security, though it was
surely more threatening to his own popularity.

In Ukraine, a struggling Eastern European country of 47 million people,
the teenager's leased BMW was worth more than 90 years of an average
worker's salary.

Ukrayinska Pravda, which translates as "The Ukrainian Truth," was launched
in mid-2000 by Olena Prytula and Georgiy Gongadze, idealistic young
journalists intent on exposing the rampant corruption that had engulfed
their country since it gained independence from the former Soviet Union
nearly a decade before.

Theirs was a dangerous task-between 1995 and 2000 three journalists were
murdered in Ukraine- raine and two more died under suspicious circumstances.
All had broken stories attacking political corruption or the regime of
then-President Leonid Kuchma.

Publishing on the web enabled Prytula and Gongadze to dodge many of the
ruling party's traditional suppression techniques (sudden power outages,
fire safety inspections, vandalism) by staying small and portable. They
became targets nonetheless.

In September 2000, Gongadze disappeared. Two months later a farmer
discovered his beheaded body in a wooded area near Kiev. A former
Kuchma bodyguard released secretly recorded audiotapes that implicated
the president in the murder.

Kuchma denied involvement and called the tapes fabricated (they were later
authenticated by experts in the United States). Prytula's friends and family
urged her to shut down the paper and flee the country.

Instead, Ukrayinska Pravda continued to push for the democracy that
Prytula believed would bring her colleague's killers to justice. Her first
act, publishing transcripts of the Kuchma tapes, catapulted Ukrayinska
Pravda to the number-one website in the country.

"The thinking was, if it's so good that people get murdered for it, it must
be worth reading," says Anders Aslund, director of the Russian and
Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For Ukrainians with Internet access (only 0.4 percent of the country's
residents at that time), visiting the site became an essential part of the
daily routine. Tattered printouts were much-sought items in coffee shops
and gathering spots.

Ukrayinska Pravda's crucial role during the Orange Revolution included
publishing exit-poll data suggesting that Kuchma's anointed successor had
stolen the election, thus helping to prompt the revote that ushered
Yushchenko into the presidency.

Perhaps in gratitude, the newly inaugurated leader pledged to find and
prosecute Gongadze's killers. (Though a few arrests have been made, there
has been no trial, Kuchma has not been charged, and Gongadze's murder
remains unsolved.)

In the heady postelection days, some outside observers-many American
liberals among them-complained that the Orange Revolution was suspect
because the reformists had received an estimated $60 million, during two
years, in so-called pro-democracy financing from the United States, and
because of the heavy Western influence in the elections.

The exit polls were underwritten largely by the U.S., and Ukrayinska Pravda
itself was seeded with grants from several U.S. sources, including the
National Endowment for Democracy, a private nonprofit funded by
Congress.

Prytula makes no apologies. "America and Europe were the only places
where we could get money and be independent of the Ukrainian oligarchs
and authorities," she says. "It was the only possible choice."

She insists the site's coverage was never compromised by the sources of its
funding. Over the years, some articles by Prytula's half-dozen or so
muckraking reporters affirmed the efficacy of communism, and Pravda
opinion pieces supported some Kuchma policies alongside pro-democracy
stories.

Now, the revolution has begun to show a tawdry side. In early September,
Yushchenko dismissed his government after it suffered a string of
defections, including that of his chief of staff, an Orange Revolution
architect who charged that Yushchenko's administration was even more
corrupt than Kuchma's.

The souring has attracted Ukrayinska Pravda's scrutiny. The site is looking
into the legality of one source of Andriy Yushchenko's money: the copyright
he owns on all Orange Revolution-related products, such as T-shirts and
posters. "They say it's a plot," says an amused Prytula. "That someone is
paying us to print these articles."

In response to Pravda's stories, the administration appears to be clamping
down on the press-it has reportedly considered putting Internet publications
under state control and has pulled back efforts to replace state-run media
with public television and radio.

Ukrayinska Pravda turned a profit for the first time this summer, and
Prytula has plans to launch a printed version. In response to the
president's verbal attack on her reporter, she posted an open letter
demanding that he apologize and reaffirm his support for freedom of the
press.

By September, her petition had been signed by more than 700 journalists.
"I always say I am not going to build democracy tomorrow," Prytula
declares. "I live in democracy today. This is democracy for me."  -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.motherjones.com/news/hellraiser/2005/11/prytula.html
======================================================
11.                  FREE TO MOURN THE ORANGE DREAM
               Bitter aftertaste for Ukrainian journalist with Orange hopes

By Kateryna Khinkulova, BBC News, Kiev
BBC NEWS, UK, Tuesday, October 18, 2005

If journalists in Ukraine are enjoying a new air of freedom since the Orange
Revolution, it is a freedom which allows them to question the very heroes
of that political phenomenon.

Serhiy Leshchenko writes for the website of Ukrainska Pravda. One of
Ukraine's most popular sites, it was started by Georgiy Gongadze, the
journalist infamously kidnapped and murdered in 2000 for - it is widely
believed - his outspoken criticism of the authorities at the time.

Mr Leshchenko began working for Ukrainska Pravda several days before
Gongadze's disappearance but he refuses to be compared to the dead
journalist who has become an iconic figure in Ukraine, a symbol of
struggle for the freedom of speech.

Nonetheless, Mr Leshchenko's articles are written in the same style of
uncompromising belief in the rule of the truth.

Mr Leshchenko's feelings about the current president, like those of many
of his compatriots, have changed a lot since he reported from Kiev's
Independence Square, the Maidan, almost 12 months ago.

He calls the past year in Ukraine a year of wasted opportunities because the
authorities, he believes, failed to make use of a tremendous degree of trust
that Ukrainians had put in them to go ahead with a lot of badly needed and
keenly awaited reforms.

"Yes," he says, "there was no other choice last autumn and, even now,
knowing everything that went wrong, I would still do exactly the same things
I did. At the time we simply had no alternative."
                                                DEAF EARS
When asked to name one thing that went most "wrong", he says:  "The
government failed to become transparent. It doesn't respond to criticism.

"Sure, you can criticise it now more easily, you know you won't get arrested
or killed, but it's not making any difference. Freedom of speech is just one
part of a democratic society: The authorities have to respond to it.
Otherwise, it's one-way traffic."

Several months ago, Mr Leshchenko carried out a journalistic investigation
into the lifestyle of President Yushchenko's son Andriy. Reports spoke of a
$100,000 car, luxury mobile phone and evenings out at an expensive Kiev bar.

Mr Leshchenko says he has never acted on anybody's orders and was not
working for Mr Yushchenko's political opponents.

The journalist says he was driven by promises given by Viktor Yushchenko
himself when he swore in front of revolutionary crowds to fight corruption
in Ukraine.

When forced to give explanations of his son's lifestyle at a press
conference, President Yushchenko angrily brushed aside hints of wrongdoing
and said he had told his son to stuff receipts from the bar into the
journalist's face to show everything was paid for.

Such investigations, he said, were driven by envy or desire to undermine
him.
                                           STRANGE DAYS
Serhiy Leshchenko was not the only journalist shocked at such a response
from the previously mildly spoken president, known for his gallant manners.

But it is perhaps unsurprising that in recent months a few articles on the
Ukrainska Pravda website have been signed "Serhiy Stuffed-Face".

Mr Leshchenko says the story with the president was the most personal -
but not the most disappointing - episode in a year-long series of
disillusionments.

These include a lack of real progress with economic reform, embarrassing
squabbles in the president's team and sometimes inexplicable political
alliances with former opponents including Viktor Yanukovich, for many an
odious figure in Ukraine.

Hardly anything has been done to promote fairness in the media: TV channels
are said to impose self-censorship by cutting out any vaguely controversial
programmes to avoid potential problems with the authorities.

New government appointments appear to be awash with nepotism not seen
even when Leonid Kuchma was in power. Bribery is said to have increased
manifold.

Mr Leshchenko corrects himself: "I shouldn't talk about disappointment -
just of sadness." His main task now, he says, is to stop himself becoming a
cynic.  -30-  [The Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4354542.stm
======================================================
12.     UKRAINIAN PROSECUTOR'S UNPREDICTABILITY LED
                        TO HIS DOWNFALL SAY ANALYSTS
                             "Games with the prosecutor-general"

By Maryana Oliynyk, Den, Kiev, in Russian 15 Oct 05; p 4
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Tue, Oct 18, 2005

Several informed observers have said that the dismissal of Prosecutor-
General Svyatoslav Piskun was not unexpected. Among the reasons
for the dismissal, they pointed to his failure to solve high-profile cases
like the murder of Heorhiy Gongadze.

His prosecution of a close presidential ally might also have played a part.
In general Piskun was becoming a loose cannon and starting his own
political game. It is likely that he will team up with former Prime Minister
Yuliya Tymoshenko for the parliamentary elections.

The following is an excerpt from the article by Maryana Oliynyk entitled
"Games with the prosecutor-general" published in the Ukrainian newspaper
Den on 15 October; subheadings are as published:

The dismissal of Svyatoslav Piskun from the post of Ukrainian
prosecutor-general yesterday was not unexpected. [Passage omitted:
expanding on this, quoting news agencies]

[1] Vasyl Stoyakin, director of the Political Marketing Centre:
Piskun got into conflict with the president [Viktor Yushchenko]. There is no
point in sorting out who of the two started it. Although there are grounds
for supposing that it was started by the new justice minister, [Serhiy]
Holovatyy. Piskun declared war on the president and, naturally, lost - he
was dismissed. But I don't think that Piskun's strategy in this situation
assumed such a result.

The point is that President Viktor Yushchenko has an incredible talent for
creating enemies for himself for apparently no reason. If Piskun had been
dismissed earlier - about two months ago - it would not have had serious
consequences. Now Yushchenko literally with his own hands over the period
of his presidency has made Piskun into a public politician, conducting an
independent political game.

And on the crest of his higher popularity and higher activity success, the
prosecutor-general is dismissed. And this is at a time when, literally on
the eve, Piskun had very clearly hinted to the president: you mustn't
dismiss me, because you, Mr Yushchenko, will look foolish.

Now Piskun can appeal that he was removed because he had offended the
president's close friend, [former secretary of the National Security and
Defence Council Petro] Poroshenko. He can also say that he was dismissed
because he had almost completed the investigation of Yushchenko's poisoning,
but Yushchenko in actual fact does not want to know the truth, because...
[ellipsis as published] (well, let the president himself answer why).

Or, just as he had caught [fugitive ex-governor of Sumy Region Volodymyr]
Shcherban directly in America, he was dismissed (the biography of the Sumy
governor allows one to imagine many various versions of what links there
were between Shcherban, Piskun and Yushchenko. The scope here for fantasy
in the spirit of black PR is simply incredible).

So Piskun is now in a very strong position. He can say: I am an honest
prosecutor-general who has been persecuted and is still being persecuted by
the president's entourage. Yushchenko will find himself in a tricky
situation: now he will have to fight not only Ms Tymoshenko, not only
[opposition Party of Regions leader Viktor] Yanukovych and [former
presidential chief of staff Viktor] Medvedchuk, but also now Piskun
separately, who will take the president to court and, before the elections,
will either join the YTB [Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc] or create his own bloc "
of honest prosecutors and policemen".

But on the other hand, from the viewpoint of state interests, Yushchenko has
acted absolutely correctly and in some aspects even in a timely way. While
the president had kept Piskun in the post of prosecutor-general up to now -
which, in my view, was absolutely impermissible - following the signals that
Piskun had been sending out for a week, literally on live airtime,
forbidding the president to remove him from his post, it was impossible not
to sack him.

All the more so at the present time, when Yushchenko has managed at least in
some way to consolidate his team. Such a prosecutor-general definitely had
to be removed. The fact that the consequences of this step will be very
serious for Yushchenko is another matter.

[2] Viktor Nebozhenko, political scientist:
Piskun is a very original personality in contemporary Ukrainian history, a
sort of political "centaur", who, on the one hand, has certain professional
qualities, and on the other is a clearly expressed people's tribune and
populist. As far as these characteristics go, he is in the same mould as
such well-known figures as [Tymoshenko adviser] Mykhaylo Brodskyy and
Yuliya Tymoshenko.

However, what is permitted to Brodskyy and Tymoshenko is not permitted to
the prosecutor-general, who has no right to his own political position. He
has to profess the political position of the person who appoints him, i.e.
the president. But Piskun long ago turned into an independent political
force.

Lawyers, as a rule, try to tackle political questions in terms of the law.
But Piskun easily tackled legal questions in terms of politics: he opened
and closed criminal cases, found the guilty parties and at the same time
destroyed legal processes. Moreover, he very skillfully manoeuvred his way
between various political forces, helping these, those and others. Of
course, it could not last long. It irritated the political elite. And
evidently the irritation had already built up to the limit.

Now the very important question is who is to occupy the job of
prosecutor-general. Will it be essentially a lawyer, or a politician again?
Because we are approaching elections, and that for Ukraine is always like
an epidemic of "political flu".

[3] Volodymyr Malynkovych, director of the Ukrainian branch of the
International Humanitarian and Political Studies Institute:

Such a decision could be expected in connection with the very high level of
activity of Piskun in recent times. It is obvious that Piskun heads a
department where there is a great deal of compromising material on everyone,
including the highest officials and their entourage. And of course, he
represents a serious danger to the authorities. It is desirable to have an
obedient person in that post. But Piskun is an unpredictable person, a
person who is making his career and creating his political fate as he sees
fit. He changes his position very quickly. And now, so far as can be judged,
he is closest to the campaign of Yuliya Tymoshenko, against whom he
brought a criminal case at one time.

I think that recent events, after the president said that he was asking for
Piskun to be left in peace, were intolerable for Yushchenko. Here there was
the prosecutor-general's readiness to examine the case connected with the
money of [fugitive Russian tycoon Boris] Berezovskiy [who donated money to
Ukrainian causes, allegedly to Yushchenko's election campaign] and the case
of fire bomb in the car of the boss of Paparazzi (indirectly linked with
[Yushchenko's son] Andriy Yushchenko).

There was also his statement that there were seven theories of Yushchenko's
poisoning... [ellipsis as published] In other words, Piskun had already
"kicked against the pricks". I think that at some point he started banking
on taking part in Tymoshenko's team. And I think that is how it will be. He
has already stated that he was going into politics.

I think that if Piskun goes to court, as he already did under [former
President Leonid] Kuchma, he will lose the case. Since our courts are not
yet independent enough. But I don't think that Piskun himself will have a
great interest in resuming the post of prosecutor-general. Most likely, he
will stand at the elections in the YTB. And that means that mountains of
compromising material await us.

[4] Mykhaylo Pozhyvanov, an MP, the People's Movement of Ukraine faction:
There were several reasons for the dismissal in my opinion. Taken together
they led the president to an absolutely correct decision: to replace Mr
Piskun in this post.

Let us be frank: in the time that he headed the Prosecutor-General's Office
[PGO] not a single high profile case - neither the murder of [journalist]
Heorhiy Gongadze, nor the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, nor a range of
others - have been brought to their logical conclusion. He did not deal at
all with the case of the attempted coup d'etat by means of the rigging of
last year's elections, which, I suggest, is extremely important.

And all the questions regarding repeat privatization and the legitimacy of
big property were addressed, probably, where it was least painful: assess
the PGO's aspects in the legal field. It is difficult to forecast who may
occupy this job now.

At least, I would not appoint any of those who have recently been working in
the PGO in leading positions. However, it is not ruled out that this time
the choice will be made from not so much politicians as professional
lawyers.

[5] Oleh Tsaryov, MP from the Regions of Ukraine faction:
The choir of voices within the country calling for the speedy dismissal of
Piskun was recently joined also by voices from abroad. The conclusions of
members of the PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe]
are unambiguous: the PGO, and correspondingly its leader, were not least
involved in connivance with the political repression taking place in
Ukraine. So the president's decision is logical, albeit somewhat late in
coming.

As for attempts to appeal against his dismissal through the courts, I don't
think that Piskun will go down the same road a second time. After all, the
first time he did it by agreement with the new president; otherwise a
positive result for him would have been simply impossible. This time, there
will, of course, not be the relevant assistance. -30-
======================================================
                Send in a letter-to-the-editor today. Let us hear from you.
======================================================
13.    GERMANY'S ALLIANZ'S RUSSIAN JV ROSNO INSURANCE
                     ENTERS UKRAINIAN INSURANCE MARKET
                      AZ is Europe's largest insurer by gross premiums

By Rolf Neumann and Ulrike Dauer, Dow Jones Newswires
Frankfurt, Germany, Tuesday, October 18, 2005

FRANKFURT -- Allianz AG Holding (AZ), Europe's largest insurer by
gross premiums, Tuesday said its Russian joint venture Rosno Insurance
has entered the Ukrainian insurance market.

Rosno Ukraine, a fully-owned unit of the joint venture, started operations
in Ukraine in September after receiving approval from authorities, Allianz
said.

Initially, the company will offer property and casualty insurance policies
for both corporate and individual clients.

For individual customers, Rosno Ukraine will initially offer motor and
household insurance, but will gradually extend its product range.

Rosno Ukraine will in future also offer life insurance and retirement
products in Ukraine, the insurer said. Allianz said Rosno Ukraine has
already acquired a license to run life insurance business in Ukraine and
expects final approval by the regulators soon.

The new life insurer will operate as Allianz Rosno Zhittya, Allianz said.
Allianz said it considers Ukraine an important growth market in Central and
Eastern Europe, with annual economic growth of about 5% expected in
Ukraine until 2008.

Rosno Ukraine is a 100%-owned unit of OAO Rosno Insurance, Moscow,
which itself is a joint venture of Allianz and Russian financial holding AFK
Sistema (AFKS.RS). Allianz said it owns 47.2% in Rosno Insurance, AFK
Sistema 49%, the remaining 3.8% is owned by management.

Rosno Insurance had gross premium income of around EUR242 million in the
first six months, up 52% compared with the year-earlier period, an Allianz
spokesman said. He said Rosno was profitable in the first six months, but
declined to be more specific.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Company Web site: http://www.allianz.com; By Rolf Neumann & Ulrike Dauer,
Dow Jones Newswires; +49 69 29725 500; ulrike.dauer@dowjones.com
======================================================
        Send in names and e-mail addresses for the AUR distribution list.
======================================================
14.          RAMPING UP DELTA AIR LINES GLOBAL FARE
                       Delta's New York to Kiev route announced

By Evan Perez, Staff Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Tue, October 18, 2005; Page D3

NEW YORK - Kiev, Ukraine, Budapest, Hungary, and Managua, Nicaragua,
may hardly seem like travel hotspots.

But these are among a raft of new international destinations Delta Air Lines
is pursuing as it and other struggling U.S. carriers remake their route
networks to chase high-revenue passengers and cut their exposure to routes
being gobbled up by low-cost competitors.

Atlanta-based Delta, which with Northwest Airlines filed for
bankruptcy-court protection on Sept. 14, is betting its financial turnaround
partly on a strategic shift to international routes, where other major
airlines already are getting a larger percentage of their revenue.

Today, the company is expected to announce 11 new destinations from New
York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta
International Airport.

Those routes, which include New York to Kiev, Budapest, and Dublin and
from Atlanta to Nice, France, and Athens, Greece, are expected to provide
the higher-revenue fares that Delta and other airlines are struggling to
extract from domestic U.S. travelers amid heavy competition from nimble
low-cost airlines.

Glen W. Hauenstein, a former Alitalia and Continental Airlines executive who
recently took over as Delta's chief of network and revenue management, says
Delta expects to surpass British Airways as the world's largest
trans-Atlantic carrier by the time he is done remaking the carrier's
international profile.

The new destinations are in addition to about 40 cities Delta has either
announced or sought government authority to serve since the beginning of
2005.

Already, Mr. Hauenstein said in an interview, Delta's expansion to new Latin
American and Caribbean routes long dominated by AMR Corp.'s American
Airlines "have been exceeding our expectations."

He said Delta was looking to make its Atlanta hub an alternative to
American's Miami hub, which has earned a reputation for being a difficult
place to make connections.  [Chris Scinta contributed to this article. Write
to Evan Perez at evan.perez@wsj.com]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE:   Delta announced Tuesday new nonstop flights from Atlanta
to Edinburgh, Scotland; to Nice, France; to Venice, Italy, and to Athens,
Greece as well as New York to Budapest, Hungary; to Dublin/Shannon,
Ireland; to Manchester, England, and to Kiev, Ukraine.

All of the flights are expected to begin in May, except the Kiev flight,
which is expected to begin June 5 subject to foreign government
approval.   EDITOR
======================================================
15. UKRAINE TAKES BIDS IN REDO OF STEEL PRIVATIZATION

Dow Jones Newswires, Kiev, Ukraine, Tue, October 18, 2005

KIEV, Ukraine -- Three groups submitted bids for Ukraine's largest steel
producer in a privatization that is seen as a key test of President Viktor
Yushchenko's commitment to fight corruption.

Although the country's State Property Fund said it wouldn't identify the
bidders for OJSC Krivorozhstal until reviewing documentation, the
government agency previously identified three groups that submitted
deposits in advance of yesterday's bidding deadline.

They include: Mittal Steel Germany, a subsidiary of Mittal Steel Co.; the
Industrial Group, an investment vehicle for Arcelor SA and Ukrainian
industrial conglomerate Industrial Union of Donbass; and Ukrainian firm LLC
Smart Group. Mittal and Arcelor are the world's two largest steel producers
in volume terms.

An auction for a 93.02% stake in Krivorozhstal, with a starting price of $2
billion, is expected to be broadcast live on Ukrainian national television
on Monday. An auction last year with a winning bid of just more than $800
million was annulled earlier this year by a Ukrainian court that cited
irregularities.  -30-  [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Write to Dow Jones Newswires editors at asknewswires@dowjones.com
======================================================
16. UKRAINE'S FOREIGN MINISTRY SURPRISED AZERBAIJANI
          OPPOSITION LEADER HELD BY UKRAINIAN POLICE

Associated Press (AP), Kiev, Ukraine, Tue, October 18, 2005

KIEV - Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it was surprised by
the arrest of an Azerbaijani opposition leader by Ukrainian police, and
Azerbaijani politicians appealed to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko
to free him.

Rasul Guliyev, a former parliamentary speaker, had planned to return to
Azerbaijan under the protection of rallying supporters Monday. But his
homecoming was thwarted when Ukrainian police detained him on an
international warrant when his plane made a refueling stop in the southern
city of Simferopol.

"Unfortunately, the Foreign Ministry learned about Guliyev's arrest only
from the media," said spokesman Dmytro Svistkov.

Guliyev was being held in custody at a Simferopol jail while the Prosecutor
General's office considered whether he should be extradited. A court hearing
to determine bail conditions was postponed until Wednesday.

Under Ukrainian law, the Prosecutor General's Office is responsible for
making the decision; however, it can receive guidance from the Foreign
Ministry. The Prosecutor-General's Office refused to comment Tuesday.

The arrest came as a disappointment to opposition supporters in Azerbaijan
who have looked to Ukraine as an example after last year's Orange
Revolution.

"I was very much surprised that Rasul Guliyev has traveled through the whole
of Europe and nobody stopped him, while, all of a sudden, Ukraine, which
wants to become a European Union member, detained him," said Mavair, an
ally of Guliyev, who identified himself only by his first name. Mavair spoke
by
telephone to the Associated Press from Simferopol.

Mavair also complained that Guliyev's lawyer hadn't been allowed into the
court Tuesday. The Azadliq election coalition, which includes Guliyev's
Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, appealed in a message to Yushchenko
Tuesday to free the detainee.

"We ask you to take a just position on this question and that would be a big
help to the democratic forces of Azerbaijan," the message said, according to
the coalition coordinator, Fahmin Hajiev.

Guliyev had said he was returning to run in the Caspian Sea nation's Nov. 6
parliamentary elections. He had been living in self-imposed exile in the
U.S. since 1996 to avoid embezzlement charges that he says are politically
motivated.

A call-in poll conducted by Ukraine's Channel 5 - one of the biggest
cheerleaders of last year's Orange Revolution - found that more than 80% of
callers thought Guliyev should be given refuge. Yushchenko, who is wrapping
up a visit to the U.K., hasn't commented on the arrest.

Some analysts said Ukraine was just following the letter of the law. "By
arresting Guliyev, Ukraine has demonstrated that it doesn't follow the
so-called policy of double standards: if some one is wanted, and Ukraine has
some obligation, it meets them, regardless of whether he belongs to the
opposition or not," said Yuriy Yakimenko, a political analyst with the
Kiev-based Razumkov think tank.  -30-
======================================================
17.  UKRAINE 3000 AND PROCTER & GAMBLE (P&G) UKRAINE
   PRESENT FOUR MODERN EMERGENCY VANS TO CHERKASSY

Press office of the President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko
Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, October 13, 2005

KYIV - The Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation and the
Procter&Gamble Ukraine Company presented four modern emergency vans,
which are worth 1.5 million hryvnyas, to the Cherkassy Center of Emergency
Medicine and children's regional hospitals in Uzhgorod, Kirovograd and
Lugansk.

In her speech, Kateryna Yushchenko, Head of the Ukraine 3000 Supervisory
Council, thanked Procter&Gamble Ukraine and its General Director Jose Carlos
Gonzalez Hurtado for "the wonderful present for the Ukrainian children" and
said she hoped they would continue to cooperate.

"Presenting these emergency vans, we demonstrate the way a charitable
organization and a private company can solve serious social problems,"
said the First Lady.

It is quite problematic to give first aid to children, transporting them to
hospitals from remote towns and villages of Ukraine.

Each of the presented vehicles is equipped with an electric device to
restore normal heartbeat and a portable multi-channel electric cardiograph
to urgently register patients' cardiogram and diagnose their state.

At a press conference, Ukraine 3000 Head Dmytro Lyapin, P&G Ukraine PR
Director Vitaly Prokopenko and Hospital to Hospital Director Vira Pavlyuk
informed journalists that they would not only present medical equipment to
hospitals but also share expertise and technologies with them. -30-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK with photo: http://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/data/5_3469.html
======================================================
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======================================================
18.   UKRAINE'S FIRST LADY VISITS GREAT ORMOND STREET
         HOSPITAL (GOSH) IN LONDON AND REPRESENTATIVES
                  OF PRIVATE CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS
        Lions Clubs Int Foundation & Chornobyl Relief Foundation in UK

Press office of the President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko
Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, 18 October 2005

KIEV - While accompanying her husband in the United Kingdom, Kateryna
Yushchenko visited Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), London's
largest hospital for children, and met representatives of charitable
organizations.

GOSH offers 350 beds, a school, and a hotel for parents. It also has
advanced research facilities. The President's wife and doctors of the
hospital discussed ways to cooperate with Ukrainian clinics and
perspectives to invite their Ukrainian colleagues to practice in Great
Britain.

The First Lady also met with representatives of the Lions Clubs
International Foundation (LCIF) and the Chornobyl Relief Foundation
in the UK For Ukrainian Children.

John Goodchild, Immediate Chairman of the LCIF Council, Ram Jaggi,
LCIF International Relation Officer, and Tatiana Pereverzeva-Birch,
Chornobyl Relief Foundation Executive Trustee, agreed to cooperate
with the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation in the framework
of its Hospital to Hospital program.

They also promised to share their expertise to treat diabetes and prevent
blindness with Ukrainian hospitals.

Lions Clubs International has been operating in 194 countries for 87 years.
It has offices the Donetsk Region and Kyiv. This is the only charitable
organization in the world that has no paid employees.

The Chornobyl Relief Foundation in the UK For Ukrainian Children was
established in 1995 in London by the Embassy of Ukraine in UK, the
Baroness Cox of Queensbury, and Sir Sigmund Sternberg to raise funds
to help Ukrainian children that survived the Chornobyl disaster. -30-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINK: http://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/data/5_3578.html
======================================================
19. YUSHCHENKO DEFIES PARLIAMENT ON KRYVORIZHSTAL SALE

By Stefan Wagstyl, East Europe editor
Financial Times, London, UK, Wed, Oct 19, 2005

Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's president, pledged on Tuesday to go ahead with
next week's $2bn planned sale of Kryvorizhstal, the country's flagship steel
mill, despite a last-ditch bid in parliament to block the auction.

Speaking during a visit to the Financial Times, Mr Yushchenko insisted
yesterday's parliamentary vote to maintain state control of Kryvorizhstal
was only a political resolution with no legal force.

"Yes, of course this is a bad signal [to investors]. But it has a purely
political meaning, nothing more," Mr Yushchenko said.

While Mr Yushchenko was in London, the authorities in Kiev announced that
three bidders had put down $200m deposits to participate in Monday's
auction: Mittal Steel, the world's largest steel group; Luxembourg-based
Arcelor, bidding jointly with Industrial Union of Donbass, a leading
Ukrainian group; and LCC Smart Group, a Ukrainian company controlled by
Vadim Novinsky, an entrepreneur linked to the Russian steel magnate Alisher
Usmanov.

Mr Yushchenko's government took control of Kryvorizhstal after the courts
invalidated the privatisation carried out under former president Leonid
Kuchma, who surrendered power to Mr Yuschenko late last year in the Orange
Revolution.

The aggrieved buyers - Viktor Pinchuk and Rinat Akhmetov, two businessmen
linked to Mr Kuchma - have warned potential investors of possible future
legal action.

Mr Yushchenko is trying to reach a compromise with the business community
following his dismissal last month of prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Mr
Yushchenko's Orange Revolution ally who had sought a wide-ranging radical
review of Kuchma-era privatisations.

Mr Yushchenko promised to focus on a few high profile cases, which he would
seek to settle not through the courts but through "mutual agreement" with
the current owners.

He indicated the beneficiaries of untransparent privatisations could be
asked to make extra payments.

"We're saying: 'You didn't steal the factories, but you did get them at an
inadequate price and this must be corrected.'"

Seeking to reassure investors, Mr Yushchenko said he had developed a
dialogue with business leaders at meetings over the past month, including a
gathering with heads of 25 groups last Friday.

"The government has passed away from the politics of confrontation to the
politics of mutual understanding with regard to the problem of
privatisation," said the president.

Mr Yushchenko, who was in London to receive the Chatham House Prize, an
award for services to international relations, also predicted that the
Orange Revolution would inspire people in other parts of the former Soviet
Union.

"Millions of people have begun think differently about freedom and about
democracy, in the whole terrain of the former Soviet Union... There is now a
new way of doing things, the Orange Revolution way." -30-
======================================================
20. POLAND'S CHANCES OF EXCAPING MONOPOLY OF RUSSIA'S
                     GAZPROM TO OBTAIN ASIAN GAS WANE
                Ukraine's talks with Turkmenistan have ended in fiasco

Polish News Bulletin, Warsaw, Poland, Tue, Oct 18, 2005

WARSAW - Poland's chances of obtaining Asian gas not controlled by
Russia's Gazprom are thinning, as Ukraine's talks with Turkmenistan have
ended in fiasco, writes the daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

Diversification of gas supply sources has been drafted by Law and Justice
(PiS) candidate for prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz as one of the
objectives for the new government.

The PiS's likely coalition partner, the liberal Civic Platform (PO), has
also talked about Poland's energy security on numerous occasions.

Even PGNiG, Poland's gas monopolist which debuted on the Warsaw Stock
Exchange (WSE) at the end of September, has recently mentioned the problem
of gas source diversification.

The problem is that the chances of breaking Gazprom's monopoly on gas
imports to Poland are declining. Poland has invested great hope in the
attempts undertaken by Ukraine following the Orange Revolution.

Several weeks after assuming the president's office, Victor Yushchenko began
establishing an international consortium that sells gas in Europe transited
via a new pipeline from Central Asia.

In February, Yushchenko encouraged the representatives of German authorities
and businesses to join in the construction of such a consortium alongside
Poland and Ukraine. The initiative also appeared attractive to Central Asian
states, mainly in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, countries rich in cheap oil
deposits.

At present, in order to earn money, the Central Asian countries have to
utilise pipelines belonging to Gazprom and they have to agree to terms
dictated by the Russian giant. Gazprom pays Turkmenistan $44 per 1,000
cubic metres of gas, selling the same gas at $160-180 per barrel.

The Russian giant pays even less for Kazakhstan's gas - $32 per 1,000 cubic
metres. A pipeline independent of Russia would be more profitable to Central
Asian countries.

However, the talks that Ukraine and Turkmenistan initiated mid-way through
the year will not continue, as Turkmenistan President Saparmurat Niyazov put
off endorsing the contract with Ukraine for an unspecified period of time.
Furthermore, he recently denied discussing this sort of agreement behind
Russia's back.

Another chance for breaking Gazprom's monopoly was to be the Nabucco
pipeline, running from Iran via Turkey and the Balkans to Austria. The
pipeline would be 3,300km long and would cost some EUR4.6bn.

However, this costly project would transport only 25-31bn cubic metres of
gas in 2020. Recent tensions between Teheran and Washington and Brussles
are a serious obstacle. The tensions are a result of the construction of a
nuclear power plant by Russian-controlled Gazprombank in Iran.

According to the West, the development of nuclear energy in that country is
likely to be a cover for nuclear weapon construction.

Therefore, there is no chance for Nabucco as long as Iran's relations with
the West do not improve. Nor is Poland likely to return to its gas
negotiations with Norway and Denmark, initiated by the former right-wing
government of Jerzy Buzek and terminated by the leftist government of
Leszek Miller.

The Danes have decided to export their gas to Great Britain, while the
Norwegians are interested in extracting gas deposits from the Barents Sea.

Former Prime Minister Leszek Miller claimed that gas extraction from
domestic deposits was the best way for diversification of gas sources. The
Polish gas monopolist PGNiG decided to allot the money from its recent
public offering to domestic extraction, gas storage and other gas
infrastructure.

PGNiG also considered joining the construction of the Sarmatia pipeline,
which would transport Caspian and Central Asian gas through Georgia, the
Black Sea and Ukraine to Poland. The company wanted to build an LNG sea
terminal. The total investments in Nabucco and Sarmatia were estimated at
EUR1.5bn.

However, it is up to the new government as to how the future diversification
of gas sources will shape up. So far, the winner of the recent parliamentary
elections, the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, has declared that
it will remove PGNiG's incumbent management. -30-
======================================================
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21.SHORT HISTORY OF TRACKING DOWN MY FAMILY IN UKRAINE
Marina Lewycka never knew she had family in Ukraine until she
began researching her novel. A hair-raising road-trip across
the country with a long-lost cousin leads to an emotional reunion.

The Observer, London, United Kingdom, Sunday October 16, 2005

I had never been to Ukraine when I wrote my book, A Short History of
Tractors in Ukrainian. My parents had lost contact with their families, and
believed they had all died in the Second World War.

I was researching tractors on the internet when I came across a Russian
family-search website. I posted a query and several months later three
Cyrillic emails appeared in my inbox, one from my mother's sister, another
from my father's niece, the third from a distant cousin. This must be an
email scam, I thought. But I wrote back.

The letters that came next took my breath away. It was as though imagined
characters from my book had suddenly come to life.

There were photographs, too. Photos of my parents as children, sepia photos
of unknown grandparents, aunts and uncles, men with long moustaches and
women in crepe-de-Chine dresses and amazing hats.

And an invitation: Marinochka, please come! I was excited, and a bit scared.
Phone calls were exchanged, and my faltering childhood Ukrainian put through
its paces.

Cousin Yuri, son of my mother's sister, offered to meet us in Kiev and drive
us 700km (435 miles) east to Lugansk in his BMW. 'We will make extreme
travel Ukraine,' he said.

At Kiev airport my daughter Sonia and I are met by a camera crew and cousin
Yuri with a bunch of flowers. My Ukrainian dries up, but Yuri, with his
dashing moustache (which he has grown in honour of grandpa Mitrofan, the
family hero) is a star. 'This is my sister from England,' he says. 'Our
family is reunited after 62 years.'

We pile into Yuri's old BMW and glide into Kiev. Our hotel, the Kozatsky, is
in the centre. It costs about £24 per night, the breakfasts are generous,
and it's perfect if you have a fondness for 1960s Soviet-style decor and
Soviet-style grumpy receptionists.
The front entrance leads straight into the bustle of Maidan Square, crucible
of the Orange Revolution, now full of people out enjoying the sunshine.

At weekends Khreshchatik Boulevard, at the bottom of the square, is closed
to traffic and given over to street entertainers and their bemused and
slightly tipsy spectators: folk dancers, belly dancers, home-grown heavy
metal bands, gospel choirs, mobile phone promotions, the occasional
political rally.

'Look, democracy!' says Yuri. An enterprising babushka has set up stall with
her bathroom scales - 1 hrivna (11 pence) to read your weight. A skimpily
clad girl squeals as she is passed around a circle of stripped-to-the-waist
lads in a gross version of pass-the-parcel. A lot of beer is consumed.

Away from the frenetic atmosphere of Maidan and Khreshchatik, Kiev has all
the gravity of a European capital, but with its own distinctive character -
boulevards of elegant fin-de-siècle houses with curious caryatids,
enchanting onion-domed churches, the occasional statue of Lenin. Chestnut
trees grow everywhere.

Cousin Yuri marches us around at a brisk pace, pointing out the sights. The
gilded fantasies of 11th century St Sofia Cathedral and the newly restored
St Michael of the Golden Domes wink at each other across Sofiyska Square.

The House of Chimeras in Bankova Street is a fantasy in cement, built in
1902 and crowned with a menagerie of chimerical beasts - frogs, elephants,
griffins, mermaids - apparently intended to demonstrate the aesthetic
possibilities of ferro-concrete.

All this sightseeing is making us hungry, and I long to taste the dishes my
mother used to cook. At the Dovira Restaurant in Pushkin Street we sample
varenniki - rolled dumplings stuffed with meat, potatoes, cherries or cream
cheese, served with sour cream.

Tasty, but not in the same league as my mother's, and Yuri complains about
the price. Sonia is intrigued by some other items on the menu: moshchinska
with gas stalled; zander backrest with nuts and mandarins in cocoon; toad
calf slats with spinach in dogwood sauce. No idea.

Next day we eat at Yuri's favourite, the Fast Food Ukraine outlet in the
underground mall in Maidan. We fill up on borsch, cold khroschatka soup,
varenniki, salads, smetana and fruit pancakes. The bill for three of us,
with beer and fruit compote, comes to £7.

Our best food experience, though, was at the Bessarabian Market on
Khreshchatik, an elegant art nouveau building heaped with the finest produce
from Ukraine: cherries, apricots, peaches, grapes, wild strawberries,
mulberries, nuts, cheeses, honey, caviar, cream, pastries, fish, meat -
sadly all hugely expensive to the average Ukrainian.

Yuri is scandalised by the prices and demands free samples. 'Where I come
from, the apricots lie on the ground, and no one even bothers to pick them
up. And you're charging 8 hrivni a kilo!' 'It's OK, Yuri.' We brandish our
fistfuls of favourably exchanged hrivni, but this makes him even crosser.

'Bandits! Bloodsuckers!' The market ladies fold their arms across their
no-nonsense bosoms and purse their lips. 'If you don't like, don't buy.'

But we have been seduced. If there is food in heaven, it is surely
zapikanka - a light, moist curd cake, delicately sweetened with honey, fruit
and raisins. You can eat it with soured cream stiff enough to stand your
spoon up in, but you'd better not.

On our last day in Kiev we set off to look for the places connected with our
family. Outside the centre, the streets and pavements are more dilapidated,
the houses and apartment blocks shabby.

Yuri's mother and my mother were sisters, and as children in the Twenties
they lived in Turgenev Street. Some old houses are still there, including
the Vatican Embassy across the road, but where number 39 stood is a bleak
tower block. We take our photos and leave.

My parents lived on Dorohozhitska Street during the German occupation, but
here, too, the house numbers have changed, and we cannot find number 31.

My mother described how the Jewish population of Kiev had been rounded up
and driven along Melnikovsky Boulevard, past the end of their road, to Babi
Yar, a deep ravine on the then-boundary of the city.

There they were made to strip and line up along the edge of the ravine to be
gunned down - 33,771 people in two days. Babi Yar is still there, though it
has been partly filled in. The place is marked by a Soviet-era memorial to
the '100,000 citizens of Kiev and prisoners of war' killed at this spot.

We return to our hotel in a sombre mood. The atmosphere of the place
presses heavy on us.

Later, the Nazis had returned and tried to exhume the bodies to hide their
crime, but from time to time a human bone still comes up to the surface.
It's the slippery nature of this country's history that's bothering me: you
can't pin it down. Each player tells the story in his or her own way, but
the bones still keep coming up.

The next day we set out for Dashiv, to find the village home of my father's
family. 'Bye bye Kiev! How do you do, Dashiv!' cries Yuri, as we head south
on the Odessa highway. After an hour of crawling through the congested and
dispiriting southern suburbs, we are out on the open road.

Foot on accelerator, thumb on horn, Yuri keeps up a running commentary,
waving one hand in the air to illustrate his points. Each time we pass
another vehicle, he perks up. 'See! Seventeen-year-old Beyemvey beats all!'
She bounds along, leaping over the bumpy tarmac at 140km an hour.

The sunroof is open. The sun pours in. Through the speakers, Stella Zubkov,
Russia's answer to Edith Piaf, belts out her throbbing songs of love and
longing. Yuri turns to me with a grin: 'Extreme travel.' 'Yes,' I smile
weakly, hanging on to my seatbelt. Yuri is offended that I wear my seatbelt.
He thinks seat belts are for ninnies. 'We live in democracy.'

We whiz past roadside stalls selling apples, apricots, berries, freshwater
crabs, used tyres, and dodgy-looking fluids in plastic bottles. Beep beep
beep! We pass whitewashed cottages and cherry orchards and willow-fringed
village ponds where children in their knickers are splashing about. We pass
contented cows snoozing in the long grass. We pass a horse-drawn hay wagon.
Beeeeep!

On either side of the road, the landscape unfolds: golden wheat fields
stretching to the horizon, slow willowy rivers, tall dense stands of trees,
soft blue sky dappled with cumulus. I have an intense sense of homecoming.
This is the landscape I came to find, and I am not disappointed.

We turn off the highway at Zhashkiv, looking for directions to
Monasterishche in a sleepy village where chickens cluck about on the road
and cherry trees and hollyhocks grow in the front gardens. The cottages are
freshly painted in traditional blue and white. No one is about.

A few kilometres down the road we pass an old lady trudging with two huge
bags. She is wearing a black coat and a traditional headscarf low on her
forehead. We offer her a lift. She beams and thanks us. Her gold front tooth
gleams. She has walked 10km from the main highway, and has another 16 to
go. She crosses herself and thanks the Lord for bringing us her way, then
she
starts to cry.

'You can't imagine how hard our life is in the village. There is no bus, no
clinic, no school. No jobs. Nothing in the shop. They've just abandoned us
to die.'

When the collective farms were privatised, she tells us, everyone in the
village was given a few hectares, but somehow most of it ended up in the
hands of a 'beesnessmyen' from Kiev. The land is farmed through an agent who
doesn't employ locals. The young people just sit around drinking.

We drop her off in front of another pretty white and blue cottage, which
doesn't seem so idyllic any more.

It is mid-afternoon when we reach Dashiv. I wanted it to be picture-book
pretty, but it is a dreary impoverished little place whose industries have
all shut down. My family lived in a hamlet on the outskirts. We have brought
an old photo of their house.

We ask at the shop, and are directed to the cottage of an 86-year-old lady.
Annya Ivanovna bursts into tears when we tell her who we are: the Lewyckyj
family used to live next door.

We peer over the rickety fence. It is smaller than I imagined, built of mud
and straw, and terribly dilapidated; the garden is overgrown, but there is
no doubt it is the same house. The neighbour shows us round: a primitive
kitchen and three small rooms.

How did they all fit in? An earth closet outside at the back; a well in
front - still the only source of water. A wood stove for cooking and
heating.

We sit beside Annya on her bench under the walnut tree, and she tells us
what she remembers: that the old Lewyckyjs were loved by everybody; that the
Germans tried to drive the whole population into the river Bug as reprisal
for two soldiers killed by partisans; that my mother gave her a beautiful
russet coat, the likes of which had never been seen in Dashiv.

Around our feet, chickens peck in the long grass. She starts to cry again,
and I fumble for a tissue, because I'm crying too.

She is crying for the hardships of her life, for the sons who died in the
war, for the friends she lost, for the neighbours who went away, for the
russet coat worn to rags, for the pains in her legs, for the price of coal,
for fear of winter. 'They're just waiting for us to die,' she says.

It is twilight when we leave Dashiv. The hedgerows breathe honeysuckle; the
woods are still and misty after the heat. At a remote crossroads, we stop
for another wrinkled woman with startling blue eyes and a mouthful of
startling gold teeth. She tells us the same story: children gone away, no
work, no transport, no coal.

'You see,' says Yuri, 'Kiev is not the whole of Ukraine.' He explains that
when the country became independent, many of its industries, which had been
integrated into the Russian economy, collapsed. Kiev, with its smart
shopping malls and rebuilt churches, is a shop window to attract new
investment.

We're back on the highway now, speeding back towards Kiev, towards our hotel
which suddenly seems incredibly luxurious, and our Fast Food Ukraine supper,
which seems like the height of indulgence. Behind us, the villages recede
into the dusk.

Maybe Annya is right. In a few years, these old women with their
embarrassing poverty and their bloodstained memories will have passed away,
and the country will be ready for the new generation of beesnessmyeni.

We set off for Lugansk next day in a downpour. Grey clouds are rolling over
the horizon-wide wheat fields. The traffic is heavy. The road is like a
river. We race along overtaking into a blinding spray, drenching cyclists
and pedestrians.

Lugansk is almost as far east as you can go before reaching Russia. This is
the now-derelict industrial heartland of Soviet-era Ukraine.

Yuri and his partner Lyuda live in a one-bedroom apartment in a Soviet-era
block, which they have done out with embossed silvery wallpaper, Dralon
settees, cuddly toys, and a tiny kitchen that could have come straight out
of B&Q. We feel instantly at home.

My mother's sister, Aunt Oksana, lives nearby. Her apartment block was built
in 1912, and from outside it looks so derelict that I cannot imagine anyone
living here. The light in the stairwell is broken, but we can see rubbish
piled up as we climb the stairs.

My heart is racing. Aunt. Tyitka. I practise saying the word to myself in
English and Ukrainian. I have never had an aunt before.

The old lady who comes to the door is my mother and not my mother. We hug
each other, and suddenly everyone is crying and laughing. And that's before
we even get on to the cherry vodka.

Some more cousins are here - they came all the way from Kazan to meet us.
Then we get the photo albums out, and start piecing together our family
story.

They want to know about my parents - what happened after they disappeared
into Germany. And they are curious about our life in Britain: how do we
live? Are we well off? Is our life normal?

I could describe the Tebbit test, Virgin trains, pensions misselling. But
they know, and I know, how lucky we have been. 'Yes, normal.' -30-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Factfile: Marina Lewycka travelled with Regent Holidays (0117 921 1711;
www.regent-holidays.co.uk) which specialises in tailor-made holidays to
Ukraine. A three-night city break to Kiev starts from £299 per person,
sharing a twin room at the Hotel Tourist, including breakfasts and flights
with Ukraine International from London Gatwick.

Marina Lewycka is the author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian,
published by Viking at £12.99
LINK: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/travel/story/0,6903,1593056,00.html
======================================================
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Director, Ukrainian Federation of America (UFA)
Coordinator, Action Ukraine Coalition (AUC)
Senior Advisor, U.S.-Ukraine Foundation (USUF)
Chairman, Executive Committee, Ukraine-U.S. Business Council
Publisher, Ukraine Information Website, www.ArtUkraine.com
Member, International Ukrainian Holodomor Committee
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