Oleksandr Prylypko

These days, residents of the Czech Republic came out to greet the American troops, who arrived in the country to protect the eastern borders of the North Atlantic Alliance. Someone in the colorful and jubilant crowd held a handwritten poster that said “You are 70 years late.” I do not...

In the Soviet era the draft was as important to the communist party and society as harvesting. “Sacred duty” dodgers used to be caught at their grannies’ and mistresses’ houses, etc., – at any place which the long hand of a garrison patrol and police could reach....

Aphorisms about the benefit of knowing one’s past remain, alas, words on paper, over which bureaucrats write their maxims about history as a secondary science. Why should a programmer study the tragedy of Baturyn? He’d better rummage in Java or FORTRAN… What’s the use of...

I had to grow up with terrorism. I mean that information on the violent suppression of political adversaries left an emotional imprint on my childhood and later years. First there were isolated high-profile manifestations, and then came an interrupted chain of acts. I was terrified by the shooting...

Admiralsky Avenue, where a new terrorist explosion has rung out, is a quiet place in Odesa. It is populated with several generations of seamen, civil servants, and what is called in modern parlance middle class representatives. They appear to be the prime target of intimidation. The exploders...

The nickname of a ruler is a title bestowed by the grassroots. It substitutes a pithy and capacious metaphor for the verbose characterization of a personality and his or her (mis)deeds. The dictator of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo, was called “The Goat” for his obstinate...

Love, i.e., passion is an unsteady feeling – especially in politics and particularly in Ukrainian citizens who are inclined to show emotions instead of revitalizing the economy. We believe ears more than all the other organoleptic com­po­nents and do not tend to set off reason against...

It is difficult to apply the word “army” to the remnants and surplus stock of the armed forces Ukraine inherited after a “fair” partition of the USSR property. Firstly, they were a Russian-Soviet legacy – from the overcoat style to the class-based division into higher...

What Ancient Greek warriors used to do to keep up their morale, Roman shepherds to keep their flocks of sheep from illnesses, and priests to cleanse their flock from sins, is again in demand. Lustration! In our interpretation, this has made a giant leap from just ablution and fumigation. Now it is...

A lady friend of mine has written in Facebook about the price of lemons in Lviv – 49 hryvnias is too much for a tea party, you know. Quite a few people have responded to this post, and I know now that the lemon price is 39 hryvnias in Kyiv, 50 in Chervonohrad and Odesa, and the...