Over the last two years, Ukrainians have become the most numerous tourists in Transcarpathia. Indeed, because of the unstable situation in the country, many European countries advise their citizens not to travel to Ukraine.
“There were spiders and draught there. So I ammediately thought that there must be a tunnel” – Oleksander Nikitchuk says.
The parties, formed on the ruins of the Yanukovych’s former politicial project Party of Regions – “Vidrodzhennya” and “Opposition bloc” – are winning elections of district council chairmen in Transcarpathia.
It is unbelievable but even for Ukraine the number of candidates for the mayor of Uzhgorod proved: not everything is lost or not everuthing is yet stolen … In the election “menu” of the main – despite “clan” successes of the 42nd kilometer – city of Silver Land proposals were numerous! They ranged within the ideological spectrum, in ethical and moral dimensions their variety was somewhat narrow, but gender equality was taken into account. Probably due to some confusion or fatigue, but rather due to mental gratitude, Uzhgorod citizens did not take the bait: they were neither bothered with ideological issues, nor measured any ethical qualities of potential mayor or took gender into account – they just voted for the money.
In the hometown of Vynogradiv, 28-year-old Andriy Lyubka presented his new novel “Carbide”. At the meeting, visitors could buy a book and receive an autograph of the young writer. The first presentation of “Carbide” was held on August 24 in Prague. And now, our countryman is in his childhood home with a new book and as a mature writer.
While the 44-year-old priest protects Ukrainian soldiers from enemy bullets and shrapnel with prayers, 15 foster children pray for him at home, in Transcarpathia.
For a resident of Nyzhnye Selyshche in Transcarpathia, the most important thing is to have a cow. Then you will be fine. 13 years ago, the socio-economic project was launched there – Selyshche cheese factory. Cheese made the village famous, and gave people opportunity to earn money. True connoisseurs of ecologial products and tourists became regular visitors to Selyshche.
The construction of the Selyshche cheese factory took about eight years. The director Petro Pryhara, mathematician and economist by training, studied the intricacies of cheese making in Switzerland. He says, over the years, thirty or forty thousand tourists have visited the cheese factory.
“It began in far away 1994, when the group went to France – to see the Longomay cooperative and to think what we could do in this depressed village, in this valley – Petro recollects. – Something that neither big business nor the government can do. We decided that it should be a socio-economic project, which most of the population would be involved in. People must feel financial and economic support.”
Maxim Ermolaev from Uzhgorod is only 25 years old, and he has already experienced war, captivity by separatists, abuse, hunger and fear that he would never see his loved ones. On September 24, last year, he returned home after 27 days in captivity. Since then, he has never spoken to journalists about the war, but now, when the horrors are somewhat forgotten, he agreed.
“The captain shot himself in the head in a train compartment”
On the day, when we met with Maxim, he had just received the combatant documents. That is 10 months after returning home. The guy quit the army, he says, he has served long enough. Especially since the separatists made it clear: if they catch him again, there will be no exchange, they will kill him immediately.
“April 9, last year, I received a call. I was not hiding, went to the military commissariat immediately. There, they sent me to the 51st Mechanized Brigade and said that I would spend there only 10 days. I realized that it would take more than a few days, when we were taken by bus to Volodymyr-Volynsky. There, we lived in an old abandoned military unit, sleeping on mattresses on the floor. I was sleeping on eight stools stacked next to each other.
The administrative and territorial reform has been long discussed in Ukraine. But only now, it moved to the practical realm. In Transcarpathia, the office for reforms has been created, which should become a center providing methodological assistance, information, performing technical tasks for the preparation of the plan of association of communities, and so on. The “Novyny Zakarpattya” asked the director of the office Ivan Demyanchuk what exactly is planned be done.
How did the municipal land, where the parking lot was equipped, become private?