Last week about 6,000 people, mostly pensioners, blocked traffic on Donetsk’s central street. The pickets’ main demands were to slash public utility rates and the price of bread, as well as to grant the Russian language official status on the oblast’s territory. This spontaneous action paralyzed traffic in the downtown section. The pickets demanded that the Russian language and utility charges questions be put on the agenda of the coming session of the Donetsk oblast council. Interfax-Ukraine reports that public utility payment arrears came to UAH 851 million as of July 1, 2000, a UAH 228 million increase on the same period of 1999. Back wages in the oblast exceed UAH 800 million, without taking into account deposits frozen in the former USSR Saving Bank.
While being picketed, the Donetsk Oblast State Administration was holding a board meeting. Then the oblast council held a session, where the Socialist and Communist factions tried to ensure that these questions will be discussed on September 12. However, the board members did not approve this motion, so the session, will not discuss these issues. In this connection, the protesters decided to hold another picketing on September 12, where they plan to gather a bigger crowd.
Oleksandr STEHNY, chair, section for sociological and political research, SOCIS Center:
“It may seem strange at first glance that purely economic demands are accompanied by the demands on language status. However, in fact this can all be easily explained: these people are being manipulated by certain political forces, including the Communists who are, more often than not, Russian rather than Ukrainian. These forces, of course, seize every possible opportunity, especially in the conditions of social tension, to propagate their pro-Moscow ideas. On the other hand, the most protest-prone strata of the population hope to enlist the support of these forces to pressure the authorities. For this reason mixing the language problem and some purely economic demands is, of course, a clearly calculated political step. On the other hand, the language problem also has some objective causes. Among these is the predominance of ethnic Russians in the traditionally protest-prone regions, such as the Donbas or Crimea, and the not always farsighted policy of our authorities. The No. 1 problem in the language issue is motivation for learning the Ukrainian language. Parents often think their children do not need to know Ukrainian, but they at the same time manage to find money for studying English, which should help ensure higher living standards for these children in future. In other words, we cannot say that solving socioeconomic problems will cancel out the language problem. What is really needed here is a well-balanced and flexible official policy. While the latter is absent, vested interests will continue to link the language issue to economic demands.”
