Maryna Holina

Flower prices in Kharkiv are outrageous. The first thing that occurs to buyers is to blame sellers for excessive greed — they are cashing in on beauty. But only those uninitiated into the secrets of flower-related calculations can think so. Whereas in the past a greenhouse could guarantee its owner...

KHARKIV — The famous Budy Pottery Factory in Kharkiv region has “expired,” or to put it another way, gone bankrupt. Today no one can afford to spend so much energy on glazing pottery. The economy is a brutal thing. The factory management thinks the crisis could have been overcome if gas prices had...

The Kharkiv Zoo is 110 years old. It is home to nearly 7,000 animals whose upkeep costs an annual 1.5 million hryvnias. This year the municipal budget reduced the zoo’s funding from two to one million hryvnias, which is only enough to cover staff salaries. There is a drastic lack of funds for the...

Kharkiv’s law enforcers and bureaucrats have joined forces to reeducate the populace by means of video surveillance. While some cities have decided to institute stiff fines to dissuade people from nasty habits like littering, the Kharkiv authorities decided to go one further by exposing wrongdoers...

Kharkiv’s last major exhibition of Ukrainian jewelry took place in 1998. Over the past eight years local jewelers have been working to revive this tradition. Last week’s exhibition “Jeweler Prestige” assembled nearly 60 major jewelry manufacturers from Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, China, and Turkey....

An exhibit of antiquities and handicrafts borrowed from private collections has opened in Kharkiv. A large part of the display consists of items from the private collection of President Yushchenko. The exhibit features a total of 237 articles that used to be part and parcel of Ukrainian daily life...

Lately it has become fashionable, especially among the rich, to own exotic animals. Some buy gorgeous parrots and energetic monkeys; others demonstrate their love of cold-blooded crocodiles and snakes. However, few risk keeping large and active predators. The owners of Kharkiv’s private animal...

The second week of gossip is swirling around the charitable auction that took place in Kharkiv on Nov. 19. The most interesting lots were kegs of honey from Viktor Yushchenko’s apiary and 18th-century decorated and painted shallow washtubs from the Ukrainian president’s personal collection. These...

What should the local authorities do to move toward NATO? Ihor FISUN, head of the raion youth organization DIM, member of the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Ukraine (Kharkiv oblast): “First of all, the local authorities could conduct a public outreach campaign. But this is a very...

Ukraine has been enjoying worldwide popularity lately. So it is no wonder that Poland, whose history has been inseparably linked with this country for many centuries, showed an interest in the events that occurred during the Orange Revolution. The year 2004, which was the Year of Poland in Ukraine...