Mykhailo Markiv

I am like a stork that slowly walks in a vast field, bending to peck, picking whimsical word patterns embellished with the flowers of songs, proverbs, folk sayings, puns, anecdotes, and miniature short stories. I raise my beak and marvel at the clear blue skies; I am mesmerized by the rich harvest...

Last Tuesday US First Lady Laura Bush spent the whole day with her Ukrainian counterpart Kateryna Yushchenko. Mrs. Bush had a different program from her husband’s, and the Bushes were together only for the end of their visit to Kyiv, when they met to honor the memory of victims of the 1932-33...

A few days ago the president of the Berlinale-58 International Film Festival, Dieter Kosslick, had a meeting with Ukraine’s First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko, who arrived for the launch of the Ukrainian Cinema Foundation as the head of the fund’s Board of Guardians. The Ukrainian Cinema Foundation,...

On Aug. 19, 2006, President Viktor Yushchenko signed an edict conferring awards on the players and coaches of Ukraine’s national soccer team. The awards ceremony finally took place in Kyiv’s House of Soccer on March 27, 2007. “Soccer is a great force that unites not only one nation but also...

Ukraine and Russia seem to be taking an increasingly constructive approach to tackling thorny problems. Both Kyiv and Moscow are showing interest in cooperation. This particularly concerns the joint efforts of Russia and Ukraine to provide energy security in Europe. This spirit of constructiveness...

Kyiv’s collection of architectural gems would not be complete without two old buildings in Bohdan Khmelnytsky Street: the Anatomy Theater, built by the famous architect Beretti, and a handsome free-standing building across the street, which belonged to Vasyl Obraztsov, the outstanding therapist and...

Tents are a common fixture on Independence Square, except that this time around the tent town in the heart of Kyiv was as symbolic as never before. Ukraine marked its Day of Europe, with every tent representing one of the European nations. The Spaniards staged a guitar players’ competition. Their...

Last Wednesday a Kyiv-based mobile border security unit officially presented some waterborne vehicles and rescue equipment to coast guard and border security servicemen. The Coast Guard Fleet will now have two more Galeon-280 coast guard boats, 7 small UMS-600 cutters, 10 Galia-640, and fourteen...

Dmytro Stus’s monograph Vasyl Stus: Zhyttia Iak Tvorchist [Vasyl Stus: Life in Creativity] won the Grand Prix at the 6th Book of the Year nationwide charity drive this past March. Critics are calling it a major event in Ukrainian biographical writing. Published last year with a pressrun of only 1,...

Last Friday the Verkhovna Rada passed a virtually new 2005 budget in the first reading by a majority of 376 votes. This impressive result proves that there is no influential parliamentary opposition. If it existed, this would have been proved by the results of the voting on three key points: the...