From time to time an elderly man wearing traditional Cossack sharovary trousers, an embroidered shirt, and a sable comes to the reception desk of Lviv Mayor Vasyl Kuibida. He takes his place in a line of visitors and talks with them on various matters. When his turn comes, he confidently enters the mayor’s office and gives him a piece of his mind about the burning problems of Lviv and the role of its leader. The visitor takes no excuses or objections from the mayor. In fact, Vasyl Kuibida never tries to talk back, for the self-styled ombudsman is none other than the ever-present and untiring (and one-legged invalid) Stepan Kuibida, a self-styled people’s politician and his honor’s father.
Ostensibly deep in his heart he is proud that the son of a political prisoner did not betray his father’s most sacred ideals, which was evidenced by the 75% of the vote the mayor scored in his second try for office. Power has corrupted many a politician, and the elder Kuibida keeps his eyes open lest his son should catch the virus of corruption. Occasional tutoring his son will never hurt, the father believes, especially on the eve of the visit by Pope John Paul II. This visit will be a test for Ukrainian society as a whole.
“Mr. Kuibida, coming to Lviv is not merely the head of the Catholic Church and Vatican head of state, but a world-renowned humanist. He could help us to rid ourselves of the vanity and dissoluteness that has befallen our society in the aftermath of the recent political crisis. This crisis should be urgently addressed by all branches of government, all public institutions, for “the country’s top officials cannot be suspected of complicity in grave crimes for so long. Such a situation demoralizes society. The accusations must be dismissed or confirmed in the nearest possible time,” as the appeal of the Lviv City Council to the President and Verkhovna Rada says. How did the crisis at the top affect the performance of the local authorities?”
“Three times a month I receive the results of polling city residents on the issues that dominate our life. I want to have direct and candid feedback from the community and know how the public reacts to my policy decisions. As soon as the cassette scandal began, the social psychological climate in the city became negative. The public has lost respect for the authorities. Consequently, we have to cleanse the state mechanism from within in order to increase government credibility. A demoralized society, not so much the present economic slump, is preventing us from providing adequate legislative support for the functioning of the different branches of government. We will be lucky if the cleansing process lifts society to a higher level and we become able to emerge from of the crisis with new knowledge. But what if it drags us down? There should be a dialog with the opposition, quick and effective.
“Are you engaged in such dialog at the local level? For instance, the New City caucus in the city council has indicated the need for new thinking and fresh approaches to city development. It looks like someone is breathing down your neck.”
“I am happy that independently thinking and outspoken deputies have been elected to the city council. This makes it possible for a representative body to pass quality decisions. But let’s ask ourselves this question: is this an opposition or just an attempt to get into the public eye? The opposition’s role is to shape its own policy and exert influence on the course of developments. Viewing our scene from this perspective, I see no opposition. As to city development projects, I have familiarized myself with several scores of them, having taken part in the development of some of them while working in an architecture design bureau at the Lviv Polytechnic. In 1994-95, right after I was elected mayor, we came up with a strategic program for Lviv development to 2020. The program was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers. Understandably, the program should be regularly updated. I am pleased to know that more and more people are becoming concerned with city problems. The program was developed by a team of experts and not only by the mayor’s office. If any other team emerges, I doubt it very much that it will not include those who had been on the initial team and that a radically new program will be drawn up.
“In the five years of the program it is already possible to sum up what has been accomplished. Lviv residents already have things for which you can take credit: for restoring the central part of the city and getting Lviv put on the UNESCO list of points of historical heritage.”
When we came up in 1994 with the concept for Lviv development, many critical remarks on the industrial complex were voiced. The concept admitted that the city did not have any levers of influence on enterprises that were not communal property. In addition, 67% of Lviv industrial plants were subordinated to the military/ industrial complex. It would have been mere rhetoric to say that the city could put these enterprises back on their feet by itself. We had neither the leverage nor adequate legislative base. The big question then was what the city government would do. Investment was at a very low ebb at that time. From 1986- 1987 the amount of money coming to the city began to fall due to political reasons.
“Since Lviv started the campaign for the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union, its opponents began to cut financial flows, to show us our place. This intensified city problems, including the preservation of historical monuments. With centuries-old buildings beginning to develop cracks and collapse, we put our money into turning Lviv into a cultural, intellectual, and tourist center. But following the collapse of the Soviet Union, we were not able to become part of the world tourist structure as quickly as we would have liked.
“Since we have also neglected domestic tourism, we had to start from zero to advertise Lviv’s image in Ukraine and abroad. First Lady Hilary Clinton’s visit to Lviv, the Central and Eastern European summit, and finally Pope John Paul’s coming will contribute much to our prestige.”
“Now we know that the initiative to invite the Pope to Lviv came from you.”
“Yes, I was one of those behind it. Had I made the proposal at once, I would have been called an adventurer. In 1999 I headed the Ukrainian delegation attending the festivities on the quatercentennial of the Union of Brest in Rome. It was then that I invited the Pope to come to Lviv. It took four years for the idea to mature. I had to discuss my idea with many politicians, officials, and public organizations. The president supported the idea and adopted a decision to this effect.
“The president never decides anything until a positive situation emerges. We tried to create such a positive environment in the city. Similarly, we worked on Mrs. Clinton’s visit and the summit. I am grateful to the president of Ukraine for supporting my ideas. I assure you we did our best for the visit and the summit to go smoothly and effectively.”
“Obviously, the Pope’s visit is not simply an image-building project.”
“Of course not. The Pope is the head of state of the Vatican City, and by inviting him to make his first trip to Ukraine we are sending a message that we do not perceive ourselves as outside Europe’s spiritual and cultural life. There is a political and a moral aspect to Pope’s visit, too. I hope that the coming of this great humanist will help create a completely new psychological environment here. We must assert the value of human life, the individual, and tolerance. We should return to religious values. I am not speaking about some specific kind of Christianity, for everyone can chose the ritual closest to him. Laozi maintained that only imperfect people need rituals. Perfect people have a sense of what is to be done and in what way. “Rituals are cultivated in order to bind people to moral and ethical beliefs. It does not matter much whether you are a Catholic, Greek Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. It is important to get back to the Christian values, which people have revered for two thousand years. A part of society has ceased to identify itself with these values due to the official propaganda of militant atheism. We look forward to a new moral and ethical environment emerging in Lviv, and I am convinced that this will happen. The residents of Lviv are preparing their souls for communicating with the Pope, for assimilating his thoughts and aspirations.
“The city authorities have staged a Day of Reconciliation involving various Christian confessions along with Jews and Moslems. The polls indicated that 98% of Lviv residents supported this action. This is evidence of Lviv residents’ age-old tolerance. Personally, I will be happy to share the high ideals and aspirations, which the Pope’s encyclical letters and addresses contain and which strengthen the spirit of unselfishness and elevate the people’s morality. There is also a pragmatic aspect: the visit by the Pope will put Lviv in the limelight, with the entire world lending its ear to news from Lviv for three days. What an investment in the city!”
“Simultaneously, there will be a host of new organizational problems you will have to deal with.”
“As soon as President Kuchma signed his decree on the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ukraine, we set up an organizing committee and executive board of directors. Actually, all our activities since 1994 have been carried out within the framework of specific programs and if some program and its coordinator was approved, certain city government officials was assigned to work on the program, taking orders from the program coordinator, the mayor including if need be. This is not my invention, that is how the whole world has long been working. Unfortunately, there was no managerial science per se, with only would-be Party functionaries being taught how to run society in the Communist Party higher schools. In fact, there is no serious research done in Ukraine in this area. We are just sharing the experience of other countries, looking for approaches that comply with our legislation.
“A delegation from Lviv went to Krakow (Poland), a city the Pope has visited six times (he spent enoungh of his career there to consider it hia hometown —Ed.), and talked to the organizers of those Papal visits. Our Polish counterparts shared nuances, of which we have been never aware before and offered help. We also expect the support of all Lviv residents, primarily its religious communities. In Poland, religious communities took on all the work, from inviting believers to accommodating them. We fully understand that our not terribly well off church cannot foot the bill, so the city will assist. A project to renovate St. George’s Cathedral, the see of the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, has got underway, with the cabinet allocating 4.5 million hryvnias. Let me stress here that the cabinet has allocated the money not merely because the Pontiff is coming to Lviv, but due to the fact that, along with central Lviv, the cathedral is on the UNESCO list of historical monuments. The problem related to St. George’s Cathedral is aggravated by the fact that, following the ban on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the priests and monk that lived in the adjoining buildings were evicted and exiled to Siberia, with their apartments being given to common residents. This means that 42 apartments costing 2.8 million hryvnias are now needed to move these residents.
“Bohdan Khmelnytsky Park will also be renovated, to mark the park’s fiftieth anniversary, not in preparation for the Pope’s visit. That is how we include new projects in our long-term development programs. Incidentally, Pope John Paul II will meet with the clergy on the open-air platform in the park seating five to seven thousand. The city horse-race course and the adjacent territories will be modernized. Later a large trade center can be built in that area. Apart from budget funding, we are seeking assistance and investment from businesspeople. This kind of cooperation is beneficial to all parties concerned.
“City hotels can provide accommodation for only 2,000 persons. So we are turning our eyes to military camps and university dormitories, with the church calling on the congregation to help put up the faithful.”
“Your opponents, or pseudo- opponents, say that Vasyl Kuibida is a politician, while the city needs a manager, citing doggy-do in the streets.”
“I am not going to take over from the street-sweepers. They do their job, and I do mine. What is politics? A party affiliation is one thing, while the politics of city government is something different. Let me recall a six-year-old case when, guided by the interests of city development, I decided to break the old city government machine and create a new one. I am thankful to the national University Law School faculty for helping me to find a loophole in the legislation which allowed me to reorganize the city government. Still, there were checks by Verkhovna Rada and Prosecutor General’s Office. There were accusations against me for allegedly violating the Constitution. I disbanded rayon councils in Lviv and I tip my hat for this to the city’s inhabitants who supported me. Due to the reform, the city bureaucracy has been downsized by 30%, the wages of officials went up, and we were able to select competent experts. With the intelligent team that we then had, we could set about developing quality reforms, based on pragmatic goals. Had there been the law then on the checks-and-balances among the councils of various levels, we would not have embarked on our plans.”
“Let me dwell on the readiness of the Lviv community to respond to reforms. Let’s go together to the roots and try to define the specific features of the mindset of Lviv residents. On the one hand, it is tolerance; on the other it is the rebellious spirit reigning in Lviv, the so-called kitchen of Ukraine’s political processes. There was a time when Lviv residents said jokingly ‘What we cook in our political kitchen, they’ll eat in the East.’ Take, for instance, a true information war being waged around Ukrainian Bourgeois Nationalist , a play staged by the Lviv Mariya Zankovetska Drama Theater. Some critics say the play slanders Ukrainian nationalists, while others refer to election campaign technologies or to the character of a former KGB general. Debates over the play come close to hand-to-hand combat.”
“For decades, Ukrainians have been exposed to animosity and hatred. Remember the phrases, whoever is not with us is against us or the enemy must be destroyed. Hatred has been injected into our blood and we have to squeeze it out with every drop. Hatred is a virus, a pathology, which begins to act as soon as suitable conditions emerge. There is only a tiny group of people free of this virus.
“Do you have the virus?” “I have suppressed it, or nearly suppressed it, because of how my parents raised me and my own attempts to educate myself. When my mother was imprisoned her close friend testified against her on Christmas Eve. After all those prisons and camps, she had to spend years in hospitals. Although the Communist authorities tried to take her life, thank God she remained alive and prays to God to forgive those who did her wrong. I cannot say I am the same as my mother. But what I saw at home every day had its impact on me, of course.”
“Lviv was built at the crossroads of trade routes. The city had to be responsive to new trends, assimilating them and bringing in new dimensions. In so doing, the city was a magnet for merchants and free-thinkers. The mentality of Lviv residents began to be molded in the Middle Ages. Lviv was and remains a multiethnic city, but when faced with some external threat the city residents always close ranks to face the enemy together. In this way, our community spirit was borne. To become a member of the Lviv community, anyone needed a recommendation by three respected citizens. Becoming a Lviv resident was prestigious and some noblemen even gave up their privileges in exchange for Lviv citizenship. For centuries, Lviv had been a major city in one of Europe’s large regions, capital of a Crown Land of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. All these roots could not but tell on the city’s present status. For city residents the feeling of belonging to Lviv is central, and I am very happy about this. Those who live in Lviv take a broad view of the world. They consider it their duty to initiate and influence the course of events for the benefit of the state and humanity.”
“This might explain why the Pope gave his consent to come to Lviv. Thank you for the interview.”
THE DAY’S REFERENCE
Lviv Mayor Vasyl Kuibida was born on May 8, 1958 in Inta, Komi ASSR. A Ph.D. in physics and mathematics, he has also been awarded honorary doctorates by Lviv’s Franko National University and the Ukrainian Free University in Munich. He is vice president of the Association of Ukrainian Cities, vice president of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe, a member of UNESCO National Council, and Ukrainian Writers Union. He is author of scores of publications on various problems of mathematics, economics, construction, management, and law.
